In the past, I used to be able to type localhost:8888 into the address bar in Firefox and open a local web server page. Now Firefox opens a dialog to choose an application to open the link. If I use http://localhost:8888 the page opens normally. I don't want to type http:// every time. Is there a way to restore the old behavior or work around it just for localhost?

I believe what is happening is that localhost: is getting interpreted as a protocol named localhost instead of e.g. http or https. I have found that 127.0.0.1:8888 does work, but I would prefer localhost (I don't like typing the extra http:// or all the numbers in 127.0.0.1). In case it matters, I am interested in a solution for flatpak version of Firefox for Linux.

Edit: recently in testing I found that I do not see this behavior with the OS provided version of Firefox, only the flatpak version.

When I enter localhost:8888 in the address bar, the flatpak version of Firefox opens a dialog to choose an application to open the link. If I use http://localhost:8888 the page opens normally. I don't want to type http:// every time. Is there a way to restore the non-flatpak behavior of converting localhost:8888 to http://localhost:8888 or work around it just for localhost?

I believe what is happening is that localhost: is getting interpreted as a protocol named localhost instead of e.g. http or https. I have found that 127.0.0.1:8888 does work, but I would prefer localhost to work because loc<Tab> is usually enough to open what I want but even tab completion hits this protocol issue. 127<Tab> does not give me good tab completions but maybe it would if I used it more so 127.0.0.1 got more weight in the suggested URLs.

In the past, I used to be able to type localhost:8888 into the address bar in Firefox and open a local web server page. Now Firefox opens a dialog to choose an application to open the link. If I use http://localhost:8888 the page opens normally. I don't want to type http:// every time. Is there a way to restore the old behavior or work around it just for localhost?

I believe what is happening is that localhost: is getting interpreted as a protocol named localhost instead of e.g. http or https. I have found that 127.0.0.1:8888 does work, but I would prefer localhost (I don't like typing the extra http:// or all the numbers in 127.0.0.1). In case it matters, I am interested in a solution for Linux.

In the past, I used to be able to type localhost:8888 into the address bar in Firefox and open a local web server page. Now Firefox opens a dialog to choose an application to open the link. If I use http://localhost:8888 the page opens normally. I don't want to type http:// every time. Is there a way to restore the old behavior or work around it just for localhost?

I believe what is happening is that localhost: is getting interpreted as a protocol named localhost instead of e.g. http or https. I have found that 127.0.0.1:8888 does work, but I would prefer localhost (I don't like typing the extra http:// or all the numbers in 127.0.0.1). In case it matters, I am interested in a solution for flatpak version of Firefox for Linux.

Edit: recently in testing I found that I do not see this behavior with the OS provided version of Firefox, only the flatpak version.