It is new in firefox 14.0.1 see how to disable it, jcanth reply :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/932466

then : go to About:config type browser.urlbar.default.behavior and change the value to 1.

see also for info : Changing autocomplete behavior - Firefox

thank you

Please mark "Solved" the answer that really solve the problem, to help others with a similar problem.

Whether you enable autoFill in the URL bar or not, the drop-down list itself should still be in "frecency" order rather than alphabetical. If the order of your list changes, that sounds like a bug.

After I changed that setting, it did switch to relevance/frequency sorting. My guess is that this setting has three options: 0, 1 and 2?

Oh, I was thinking of the browser.urlbar.autoFill = true/false change from the other thread. I don't think that one should change the order of the autocomplete drop-down. Mine doesn't change in some limited testing.

I think I was wrong... changing that setting did alter my search results somewhat, but they are still sorting alphabetically rather than by frequency. It's really irritating. No matter which setting I select, it's alphabetical.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

• Do not click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Tried that. Same behavior.

I'm honestly not sure what's happening with the autocomplete. I'm no longer sure that it's alphabetical... just that it's not by frequency. The first one or two suggestions are sites I visited once, instead of the ones I visit every day.

The one thing I'm sure of is that it started with the installation of the Firefox update a month ago.

I wonder whether there is a problem with the visit counts in your places.sqlite (history and bookmarks) database file. Do you have the Most Visited "smart bookmark folder" (has the blue search folder icon)? Do the sites there appear to be in roughly the correct order?

I don't know where to find that database file. I searched for it in Spotlight using hidden files set to Yes, and it didn't show up.

You can't edit the database manually. There are some third party tools you can use to poke around in it if you wish. For example: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/

However, I suggest as the first test to check the results of the Most Visited search, which are listed in the corresponding "smart bookmark folder."

Yes, they're sorted correctly in the Most Visited folder.

Could you check for any non-default values (they appear bolded) here:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste frec and pause while the list is filtered to the list of "frecency" preferences. You can right-click and Reset to return any modified values to their defaults.

(3) In the filter box, type or paste urlbar and pause while the list is filtered. You can right-click and Reset to return any modified values to their defaults if they appear to be relevant to this issue.

Possibly interesting reading, although it might need a bit of editing: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/The_Places_frecency_algorithm

I checked, and they're all at default. Furthermore, this is happening on both my work and home computers since that Firefox update (unrelated installs, and the two copies of Firefox are not synced to each other). I don't think this is due to my settings... it's a bug that started with that update. Before that the by-frequency results worked.

I think what is happening is that the location of the matching text in the URL is influencing the order. When I type moz I get pages on www.mozilla.org and wiki.mozilla.org before I get pages on support.mozilla.org. That's backwards from alphabetical, but something other than frecency definitely is going on there.

I am using the new stylesheet and can't find the attach button to upload screen shots. I'll create a new account to post my research results on the old template. Stay tuned...

Screen shots showing results for moz with autofill on and off, and comparing the frecency scores in the places.sqlite database.