Browsers adding www. and .com to server address automatically

Question

In my company, we access some databases through a local server, through firefox/chrome/safari, by using a URL of the format:

http://server_name:port/path

this means that it does not need the prefix www. or the suffix .com. The problem is that recently the browser has started to add these by itself either when we just start up the browser or when a new page is loaded, thus making the URL:

http://www.server_name.com:port/path

which, of course, is not the right URL and it does not allow to connect to our server or it disconnects us in the middle of a process. Is there a way to stop the browser from adding these automatically?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Answer 1

I never had an issue with this until Firefox 14. The answer I found to the problem from the last couple years is:

1. In the Location bar, type about:config and press "Enter"

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. "Click I'll > be careful, I promise!", to continue to the about:config page.

2. In the Search field, type "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled"

3. Double-click the "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled" preference to set its value to false.

This seems to have worked for people, but not for me. After searching through the config I found browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled. I turned this off and it did the trick. So if the previous doesn't work, try:

1. In the Location bar, type about:config and press "Enter"

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. "Click I'll > be careful, I promise!", to continue to the about:config page.

2. In the Search field, type "browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled"

3. Double-click the "browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled" preference to set its value to false.

Edit: disabling browser.urlbar.autoFill instead of autocomplete also fixes the issue while still showing suggested results from your history.