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!

Solution 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.

Solution 2

If you just type server_name into the search/url bar the browsers try to be helpful and guess what the URL should be or switch to a search. However if you click on a HTML link, enter the full URL (http://server_name), or use a bookmark the browsers should respect what was entered.

Solution 3

If all the suggestions found here and elsewhere on the interweb don't work (like they did not for me) check your proxy settings if inside corporate environment.

I had to manually set proxy - it did not take the global settings. Options - Network - Settings - 'Automatic proxy configuration url' fixed it for me.

Comments

[RichardW11]

are you sure that one of your users didn't type the www. at one point in time, so everytime they go to type that address in, it's picking the previously put address? I can't see this happening unless they are possibly hitting shift+enter

[Ruskin]

I am having this issue and none of the suggested solutions (fixup, urlbar, keywords etc) fixed it. Proxy may be issue. Trying a hosts file hack to get around it.

[tomfumb]

browser.urlbar.autoFill did it for me

[Scott Boring]

I tried both of these and it didn't work for me. I'm using subdomains for various routing; so I need to have a subdomain in front of localhost. i.e. store.localhost:8080. I have the hosts file updated and the URL works with Chrome and Safari but Firefox fails with a server not found

[Cameron]

@ScottBoring - I never use localhost, but I believe you would need to update your hosts file and vhosts to use subdomains with it. This is separate from this question though and I would guess it is explained elsewhere. If you can't find a solution, I'm sure you'll get some good answers if you create your own question!

[Neurotransmitter]

browser.fixup.alternate.enabled worked for Firefox 50.0.2.