Firefox 75 removes https:// and WWW from URLs in address bar results [Megabar update]

As part of the Megabar address bar/Quantum bar design update 1, to improve the readability of results that appear in the dropdown of the address bar, Mozilla has removed https:// and WWW. prefixes from URLs in Firefox 75 version which is currently in Nightly. The company believes this as the right step as Chrome also does the same. However, http:// prefix will still be displayed for URLbar results and there is no change in the way Firefox displays a website URL in the address bar.

“Other browsers have already taken this step, we should follow suit to enhance readability” the bug report reads.

For the unknown, Mozilla has been working on the new address bar design for Firefox for some time and the new design is currently enabled by default in Firefox Nightly.

Till now Mozilla hasn’t made the change in the results view so that users can visit an encrypted site without any difficulty, with most of the sites switched to HTTPS Mozilla considers this as safe move.

Verdi mentioned that in order to display more meaningful content in the view, we should look into hiding https:// there. Historically we didn’t do that so that the user would know beforehand whether they’ll go to an encrypted site. Now that most sites use https, I think it makes sense to flip that around, i.e. show http:// and other protocols but hide https://. In the input we’ll still show https:// and hide http://. Changing that in the future is an option but will require more invasive changes to URI fixup.

While the current awesome bar design with suggestions displayed looks wider, the megabar looks truncated or narrowed. You can see the difference between old and new address bar results with the dropping of WWW. and https:// in the below screenshots.