Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally
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The "Best Result" feature in Vivaldi 6, which (presumably) is showing the software's best guess at interpreting what is being typed in in order to autocomplete, is a good idea but is flawed in that it does not allow the user to override the setting.
I have an awkward edge case where an internal web address I visit often is hosted at https://subdomain.example.com/site1/login. It used to be that when I typed in "subdo" the autocomplete would kick in and send me to the page I always visit; now, however, "Best Result" automatically assumes I want to go to https://subdomain.example.com and not the /site1 directory, which leads somewhere else entirely (in this case a 404).
I'm sure there are better examples but essentially without giving users the ability to say "don't use your Best Result calculation for this site", you are killing users' productivity by overriding their autocompletes with places they don't want to go.
Please allow us to refine how Best Result interprets URLs. -
From what I could see this is the new "autocomplete domains first" feature from 6.0.2979.11. (I'm on win10, just updated and immediately had problems with autocomplete)
I don't want it to do this if the suggested url is not in my browser typed history.
For my own concrete example, there's a website I use to scramble my rubik's cube. The scrambler is at /puzzle-scramble-generator/?type=rubiks-cube the 'best result' is "ruwix[spam filter won't let me type the tld]" instead, even though I've attempted to clear it from my browser history entirely.
Previously I could get to it with "ru<enter>", now I have "ru<right>p<enter>" or "ru<down><down><enter>" neither of which is nearly as convenient, and require actually looking at the autocomplete to see if it selected what I want.
Maybe I'm too picky but I just end up turning off every new attempt Vivaldi makes to improve autocompletes. "always prefer bookmarks" doesn't work for me because I bookmark pages if I visit them infrequently and won't remember where they are, and then it prefers them over the base domain that I usually access, "autocomplete on item title" doesn't work for me because DuckDuckGo searches begin with the search terms so if I try to modify the search in the address bar, it just autocompletes to the same one I originally typed. And now this new one that's generating addresses that I've never typed before.
All I actually want is for it to pick the address that I've typed every day for the last several years and starts with the same letters, I imagine in code it's not that simple, but it seems like every update it's broken in new ways.
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I also enjoy always being sent to the bbc.com homepage instead of the bbc.com/news page, and the reddit homepage instead of a specific subreddit, and wikis with landing pages at /wiki/Main_Page that don't redirect from the base domain, and all the work-related pages I am about to encounter tomorrow.
Power to the users, please, and not to "Best Result"!
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Actually while I'm at it I just noticed that if I type "s" the top suggestions in 'frequently visited' are any urls that use https:// which is hilarious but not really useful
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@Stereog said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
Maybe I'm too picky but I just end up turning off every new attempt Vivaldi makes to improve autocompletes [...] All I actually want is for it to pick the address that I've typed every day for the last several years
This tbh. I love Vivaldi and consider it the best browser available but their autocomplete, especially since they rewrote the address bar and broke everything, drags it down big-time. The best implementation would be a scoring system where every access adds a notch and the address with the most notches (topping out at, say, ten) is the one autocomplete favours.
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@kiriya-aoi said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
I also enjoy always being sent to the bbc.com homepage instead of the bbc.com/news page, and the reddit homepage instead of a specific subreddit
Next you tell me you don't want to go to twitter.com for window shopping but directly to the account of the one user you went to the last 500 times you visited that site?
Also extremely annoyed that after the v6 update "best result" neither prioritizes any knowledge of my browsing history anymore nor offers urls I ever visited before. Maybe it can be renamed from "best result" to "pruned url", then at least the name would fit the current implementation...
Also they had just fixed this functionality in the last 5.x version, I was finally able to get to the urls I wanted to again and now we're back at square one. And please, Vivaldi devs, once you fixed it for the nth time, please write a test for this. It takes me 5 seconds and it's the first thing I check on a new version, why can't you.
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this autocomplete was a killer-feature. now "best result" is killing me with truncated addresses.
please upvote issue
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@5eagull For me, the behavior you are complaining about in your OP is actually a huge improvement. I never want the full page and only need the domain section to be suggested.
I agree that this needs more fine-grained settings to better fit our needs.
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@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
@5eagull For me, the behavior you are complaining about in your OP is actually a huge improvement. I never want the full page and only need the domain section to be suggested.
Which would work equally fine if the "best result" would be the one you visited most often after typing what you just typed. But suggesting a page you never visited before can't imo be the "best" option, especially not if that was something else during the last 5 years.
I'm fine with re-configuring, but right now the old behaviour is gone and the new one caters to, well one person so far
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@Soromeister Hmm, let me see. If I want to go to google maps, now I can't see it as first result because the URL is https://www.google.com/maps. It'll now take me to https://www.google.com instead, basically entirely a different page.
Is it even partially good, absolutely not. This change is idiotic.
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@bikas No, you'd type
mapsand it would take you tohttps://maps.google.cominstead ofhttps://maps.google.com/....which works as intended. The redirect happens on the Google side and that takes you tohttps://www.google.com/maps. -
@Soromeister so your solution is to change the typing based on how browser wants instead of how's the URL is configured? Amazing.
Also, that's just one example. What about 400 workday URLs which completes to entirely different websites?
How about I want to go to Google sheets website? It has same URL as Docs.
Heck, take even Vivaldi for example. I already have the browser. Almost never I want to go to their main website, but I'd always go to their blogs for updates. This autocompletes incorrectly takes me to main website which will be always be the wrong address.
No matter how one see it, not preferring the user's browsing history is idiotic. Best result doesn't make sense for anyone, bar one apparently.
EDIT: Oh btw, because top domain now will be similar when typing, say, m, Vivaldi will again confuse whether to open Mail, Meet, or Maps. This is existing issue already with not preferring the most frequent visits and Best Result will make it uglier.
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@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
What about 400 workday URLs which completes to entirely different websites?
You can always search for those specific pages in your history, or just search via keywords and make use of the UP and DOWN arrow keys to get to the desired sub-page. For everything else, typing
workdayshould give youhttps://www.workday.comas the first suggestion and result without anything after this.@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
How about I want to go to Google sheets website? It has same URL as Docs.
No, it actually has it's own thing:
sheets.google.com. You need to learn your Google subdomains to navigate effectively because that is frankly not my problem.@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
No matter how one see it, not preferring the user's browsing history is idiotic. Best result doesn't make sense for anyone, bar one apparently.
I never want my address bar to force me into my history because I almost never use my history to navigate to some website. I want it to force me into the search suggestions instead. Every time I need to get somewhere it either fails to give the proper search suggestion and forces me to load the Google search result page for it. It should give me the suggestion in the address bar just like Chrome Omnibox does.
Whenever I need something from history, it is there a few lines below, where I can select it. For everything else, Vivaldi's address bar should behave exactly like Chrome Omnibox with search suggestions being the very first result and everything else after.
Apart from that, history is available on the history page and also via the Quick Commands. Let's separate concerns. Your way of browsing the web via history is not something that everyone else is doing.
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
EDIT: Oh btw, because top domain now will be similar when typing, say, m, Vivaldi will again confuse whether to open Mail, Meet, or Maps. This is existing issue already with not preferring the most frequent visits and Best Result will make it uglier.
Typing just
mis too ambiguous, but adding a second letter would definitely help eliminate the ambiguity:ma=>mailbecauseicomes beforep;me=>meet;map=>maps;
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
@Soromeister so your solution is to change the typing based on how browser wants instead of how's the URL is configured? Amazing.
No, my solution is to have consistent behavior just like Chrome does. Anything else should be configurable for special use cases and needs, such as yours. For everyone else on the planet, it should have consistent, expected behaviour.
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@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
No, it actually has it's own thing: sheets.google.com. You need to learn your Google subdomains to navigate effectively because that is frankly not my problem.
Not your problem but you want your solution to be everyone else's solution. Which clearly by looks of it only you want and nobody else. So Vivaldi is fixing for one person. Also, asking the user to learn all the subdomains instead of using history is weird UX, which nobody, apart from you, wants. Also, for . subdomain Google already has ones like meet and docs, rest are slash subdomains.
@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
I never want my address bar to force me into my history because I almost never use my history to navigate to some website.
This is clearly you problem which nobody else on this forum has. History completion is logical.
@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
Apart from that, history is available on the history page and also via the Quick Commands. Let's separate concerns. Your way of browsing the web via history is not something that everyone else is doing.
On the contrary, almost everyone does that way. This is why everyone here on this forum has an issue, everyone who I asked to install Vivaldi has an issue, and there are separate multiple threads over SuperUser and StackOverflow for the issue.
@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
No, my solution is to have consistent behavior just like Chrome does.
Vivaldi's whole existence was because Chrome didn't listen to the users and does things counterintuitive. Now you want Vivaldi to become Chrome and implement weird features?
Also, Chrome is not the only browser. Of the top browsers Vivaldi compares to, either they autocompletes to history or give option to do that (Firefox)@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
Anything else should be configurable for special use cases and needs, such as yours. For everyone else on the planet, it should have consistent, expected behaviour.
First of all, this is all I want - a option to go back to correct way of completing the address instead of this lunacy.
Second, it's clear as day that either it's forced on people by Chrome, or everyone hates this way of completion. That's why here also, apart from you, nobody wants this to be default.
So for a consistent behaviour what planet wants is exactly opposite of what one person in you want. -
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
Also, asking the user to learn all the subdomains instead of using history is weird UX
I've literally never met anyone before that uses history to navigate the web. This is so self-centric and non-standard even if it might be more intuitive to you, specifically.
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
History completion is logical.
It actually isn't. As long as there is a valid suggestion coming from search engine, history should always be second line. Look at Google Chrome. You'll get it.
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
Vivaldi's whole existence was because Chrome didn't listen to the users and does things counterintuitive
This is not proper argument. Vivaldi should still implement standard way of doing things like in Chrome for people who are actually used to doing it like so. The fact that it has extra ways of doing 1 thing is great, but the standard way should never be waived or ignored.
@bikas said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
First of all, this is all I want - a option to go back to correct way of completing the address instead of this lunacy.
As long as it's a setting that can be toggled and not forced upon everyone is perfectly fine and I've got nothing against it. Regular users would simply navigate similar to how Chrome does things. This would also make it easier for people to switch from Chrome.
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@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
I've literally never met anyone before that uses history to navigate the web. This is so self-centric and non-standard even if it might be more intuitive to you, specifically.
So you simply can't read any comments above, on Reddit, on SO, or basically anywhere on web? Great, then.
@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
It actually isn't. As long as there is a valid suggestion coming from search engine, history should always be second line. Look at Google Chrome. You'll get it.
Yeah, looked there and the complaint because of it. People didn't like it and of course less tech savvy people can't do much but otherwise it's always a complaint. Just like how google did it to show only domain in URL but retracted due to backlash, it's not that they can always be right.
Also, user is always going to know their URL to visit better than browser. Otherwise everybody would've picked very first result and run with it, but how many times you really see people using "I'm feeling lucky?.
@Soromeister said in Turn off "Best Result" autocomplete, either per-site or globally:
This is not proper argument. Vivaldi should still implement standard way of doing things like in Chrome for people who are actually used to doing it like so.
Chrome is just one browser. Brave, Opera, Edge doesn't do it. Safari does the top result but people complain about that consistently. Firefox does it but provides the option if history.
So there's neither the standard way of doing, not the Chrome/Vivaldi's is the majority way of doing things.But it's clear that you prefer being right no matter what, and no matter what evidence presented.
So, I'll give you that and will not engage you further. -
History completion is logical.
It actually isn't. As long as there is a valid suggestion coming from search engine, history should always be second line. Look at Google Chrome. You'll get it.
My Chrome does not do this. If I type "t" in the address bar, it fills in "twitch.tv" because that's a site in my history, if I hit enter it'll go to that website. If I type a letter I haven't visited (say 'v'), it does a google search for what I've typed when I hit enter. I'm not sure which setting in Chrome would even get the behaviour you describe.
Testing a bit how Chrome actually works for me, when I use a page that's unambiguous
after I visit the page once, navigate away:
first option is search for what I've typed
second option is base domain of the page
third option is the url I visited
second time I visit a page, navigate away:
once I type 2 letters of the domain, first option is the url I visited, second is search
third time I visit a page:
once I type 1 letter of the domain, it autocompletes to what I've visitedSeems like a very reasonable way to handle the frequency information - pages you've visited once (or never) don't get autocompleted, pages you've repeatedly visited do.
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[Address bar][Settings] Add setting to disable domain autocomplete (VB-97497)
Added with 6.1, checkbox is "Autocomplete On Domain First", unchecking it stops it picking the wrong results, just mentioning it in related thread.
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It's fixed! Thank you. Another address bar "make product unusable" setting that is enabled by default. Not to worry – unlike Chrome, it's actually a setting that people can actually configure. Thanks all and Vivaldi devs.
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How do I change the BEST RESULT to just give me the url?
Amazon.com - that's all I want it to do. Right now it opens up a directory of bookmarks from amazon 7 in total, every time I let it choose. It never used to do this. Yet If I turn it off, then nothing is filled in. How can I turn off that top result, or erase it or whatever? Its driving me crazy.
I unchecked each one in turn and either nothing fills in, or it loads everything.
