Help us test: seeing when you last visited a page suggested by the search bar

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Hi everyone,

We’re working on a small addition to Firefox Suggest, and would like your feedback on it before we finish the implementation.

The problems this helps fix

Our research shows that some people run into the following issues when they look at suggestions after typing in the address bar:

• It can be hard to tell a page you opened yesterday from a similar page you opened last week. Which is it that you need?
• Firefox sometimes suggests pages people don’t remember visiting, which makes them think Firefox is suggesting pages they haven’t visited before.
• Sometimes people don’t really understand what Firefox Suggest is, or why these suggestions are showing (example quote: “these are just pages Google wants me to look at” – in fact, most often they are pages from your history, bookmarks, or open tabs)

The feature

When you move your mouse over a page suggestion in the Firefox Suggest section, a date (for example, “Last viewed yesterday” or “Last viewed 24 Dec 2025” for more distant dates) appears at the right end of the suggestion. It shows when you last visited the page, or when you bookmarked it, so you can decide which suggestion to click.

How the design has evolved during testing

Our first design replaced the URL with the date on hover. In internal testing we quickly realised this hid the most important trust signal at the most critical moment – the URL, just as you’re about to click. With the next iteration, the date now appears on the right, and the URL remains visible.

Try it yourself

1. In Nightly, go to about:config
2. Click “Accept the Risk and Continue”
3. Search for browser.urlbar.resultExplanations.featureGate
4. Double-click it to set it to true (to turn it off, double-click it again)

What we’d like to hear

After using it for a few days, please tell us:

• Did the extra info help you find the suggestion you were looking for?
• Is it useful for suggestions from your history?
• What about suggestions from your bookmarks?
• Or did it get in the way? If so, how?
• Would this also be useful in other places, like autocompleted suggestions as you type?
• Would this bother you? Would you personally use a setting to turn it off?

What happens next

We plan to ship this on by default, because features that are off by default are rarely discovered by the people that need them. We have to be judicious about what we add settings for, so as not to overwhelm the settings screen with too many options.

This feature will likely be most useful to people who are less confident using technology, and I realise that I am asking for feedback from a likely very tech-savvy audience here on Connect.

Connect and Reddit won't be the only place we get feedback from, and feedback from all sources including research with less tech-savvy users will shape how this feature looks and behaves.

Thanks for helping us improve Firefox! 

[kelimuttu]

Oh, I personally love this! I like that it's also triggered not just by hover, but also when navigating the list through keyboard.

[PaulFirefoxUX]

100%, needs to be keyboard accessible 🙂

[Tony2077]

This is a great idea. 🤜

What happen when the title and the URL don't let enough space for the new right-hand side information to show? I guess it will be over-imposed on hovering? Could you show a design with this use case?

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Thanks for your feedback.

To answer your question: in Firefox Nightly, follow the steps in the post to turn the feature on, then see what it does when you make the browser window narrower while looking at a site with a long title and URL.

[hi_bye]

this is actually a really helpful feature thank you 👍

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Glad to read that you're finding it useful, @hi_bye !

[gabeweb]

Hi! This is super helpful for those moments when you remember a site you visited, but don't remember the exact date, saving you from having to check the full history.

[PaulFirefoxUX]

That's a good extra benefit of it! Although it only shows your most recent visit. Thanks @gabeweb !

[ashugg]

I like this, though if implemented in main I would like a config option to toggle it off and on. (I'm sure it would be fine for this to be on by default.)

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Thanks for the feedback.

This feature will be on by default, as you suggested. Experienced users can find out how to turn something off with relative ease. Relatively novice users, though, are unlikely to realise a useful but off-by-default feature exists, let alone work out how to enable it. Very few people read release notes, and many turn off the popups that announce new features. If a feature ships off by default, most of the people who’d benefit from it would never find out it was there.

[ashugg]

Agreed. I would only expect a new feature like this to be off by default if it had a measurable performance impact on a modest but modern desktop system.

[Shvabra]

An unnoticeable feature. I don't know who will use it, certainly not users of other languages.

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Thanks for your feedback! It's good to hear that it won't be a distraction for people that don't need it.