LocationBar 2

June 22nd, 2007 at 4:00am — Rating: — Link

While browsing using Firefox, not many users look at the address when they're hard core surfing. Admit it, some of us just don't even notice the location bar.

Dao Gottwold created an add-on to provide enhanced features of the location bar, such as making the location bar easier to read. He calls it the LocationBar². Think of it as an additional location bar integrated into the existing one.

When installed, as with all Firefox add-ons, a restart is required. After the installation and restart, I noticed that the add-on really keeps to itself and doesn't interfere with other add-ons.

The key features of the add-on include:

• Puts emphasis on the domain (reduces spoofing risk)
• Decodes URLs for better readability (e.g. http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F)
• Linkifies URL segments (press Ctrl/Meta/Shift)
• Hides http://, https://, ftp:// and file://

The second feature is the one that I require the most. How many times have you wanted to read that URL above? LocationBar² takes care of that for you.

The preferences dialog box gives you more flexibility of how you want your location bar to look. Definitely some exceptional features included in this add-on.

Overall, I like this add-on and is one of the add-ons I think that could possibly be part of Firefox with the right options included.

The add-on receives a 5/5.