RE: Autocomplete in IE & Firefox

Question

How can I completely destroy, kill, and permanently erase the 'Autocomplete' function in such a way that I never have to deal with it again?

Answer 1

Firefox

Here are the steps to disable Auto Form Fill according to this Mozilla support page:

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button and then select Options.
2. Select the Privacy panel
3. Set Firefox will: to Use custom settings for history
4. Remove the check mark from the box that says Remember search and form history
5. Click OK to close the Options window .

Note: Disabling form history also prevents Firefox from storing search history for the Search bar in the Navigation Toolbar.

To clear your Auto Fill history, press Ctrl + Shift + Del and select Everything and make sure to only check Form & Search history down below. Click Clear Now to erase your history.

To disable inline autocomplete in your location bar

1. Type about:config in the Location Bar
2. Right-click on the page and create a new boolean value
3. Type browser.urlbar.autoFill
4. Set the value to false

In case you'd rather configure inline autocomplete in your location bar than disable it, have a look at the browser.urlbar.default.behavior¹ and browser.urlbar.autoFill.typed² preferences.

If you also want to disable the drop-down menu in your location bar, add a new boolean value called browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled and set the value to false.

Internet Explorer

1. Open Tools → Internet Options
2. Select the Content tab from the top of the dialog box
3. Click on Settings in the AutoComplete section of the window
4. In the AutoComplete Settings box, uncheck the appropriate boxes
5. [optional] Press Delete AutoComplete history... to delete your AutoComplete history
6. Click OK

---

¹ Possible values according to Mozilla's Knowledge Base:

  1 Restrict: History
  2 Restrict: Bookmarks
  4 Restrict: Tags
  8 Match: Title
 16 Match: URL
 32 Restrict: Typed
 64 Restrict: JavaScript
128 Restrict: Open Tabs (Switch to tab)

Simply add up the digits to combine filters, e. g. 3 means restrict to visited bookmarks.

² When browser.urlbar.autoFill.typed is set to true it means that only addresses you've manually typed into the urlbar get autofilled. When the preference is set to false then all addresses stored in your history are eligible for autofill.