[Osiris]

Most users who have tried one of the beta versions or release candidates of Firefox 3 like the new location bar also called the awesome bar. A group of users however who openly express their opinion about the new location bar in the announcement “Firefox 3 location bar just became almighty” on Mozilla Links does not like the behavior of that new bar at all and prefer the old ways.
Now there is always a group that prefers the old ways simply because they are used to it. Talk to your parents or other elderly people and you will notice that they believe that many things have been better in the past and turned to the worse in later years.
I was able to identify two main points of criticism. The first is the mix of bookmarks and history items that are displayed when typing in words in the location bar. Some users do not want their bookmarks to appear in that list. The second complaint is the results window that opens when results are found in the location bar. Many users think it’s to big and ugly.
Here are some comments from users about the new location bar:

I just downloaded the beta and started using version 3, and this new bar is the worst implementation imaginable of what might actually be a reasonable idea. (I would have to see a good implementation before I can decide on that last part.)
I type in “ne”, and it sorts “slashdot-NEws for NErds”, and “groklaw.NEt”, and a few other things, BEFORE “NEws.google.com”.
If I WANTED slashdot, I would have typed “sl”. If I WANTED groklaw, I would have typed “gr”.
Do the people who design these things even type at all when they use the browser, or do just they think they are helping out old people who don’t know how to use a mouse with fancy icons?????

That AWFULBAR is so unbelievably bad - this add on at least makes it look better; but the algorithm and arrogance of the developers made me revert back to FF2. I may dump Firefox altogether. I know that some people will like the new bar, but totally outrageous to stick it on everyone. There will be MANY MANY people who would otherwise use FF that will swear off it now - there will be many embarassing moments as this algorithm BOLDLY displays unexpected results/history in public/group presentations, family situations, etc. Mark my words - this new feature will be the single most important event in the downfall of Firefox/Mozilla.

It is possible to make the Firefox 3 location bar look more like the old location bar of Firefox 2 which would at least remove the second complaint. The oldbar add-on changes the style of it to resemble the old location bar. It still uses the Firefox 3 algorithm to search through bookmarks and history.
There does not seem to be a preference for now that makes it possible to disable the bookmarks from being included in the search when entering characters in the location bar.
Do you like the new location bar or do you prefer the old one ? Let me know.

Firefox 3 Location Bar Controversy

[Trotter]

Some people will complain about anything. It took some getting used to, but I like the way it works.

[vernong1992]

Wow.. thats a lame reason to complain.. but is Firefox 3 all that?

if it is... I'll ditch 2.0.0.14 and make the move to FF3

[Trotter]

It has a little eye candy, and you'll need to use Nightly Tester Tools to make your extensions work, but I'm lovin' it.

Now I want some MickeyD's french fries for some reason...

[Metal Chaos]

For some people, this is going to be handy, but others are going to hate it. We have mixed opinions about the Awesome Bar here at Download Squad, so we're going to show you how to turn it off. First, go to your Firefox settings by putting "about:config" into the location bar. Click past the warning message, and scroll down to browser.urlbar.maxRichResults. This sets how many recommendations the Awesome Bar will display -- it's 12 by default, but you want to change it to 0.

Now your location bar should act more the one you're used to from Firefox 2. It'll still autocomplete addresses of sites you've been to, but the behavior that's been annoying some people so much will be gone. Alternately, an extension called Oldbar will give you back Firefox 2's dropdown behavior.

That's how to make it stop if ya want.