5

  • A workable and thus personalized address bar - "top hits" don't reflect my browsing behavior.

  • BugsDesktopUnder Review

Steps to reproduce:
I'm unsure where the top hits suggested in the address bar are coming from. When I type "gm" in the address bar, it shows "gmx.net" in the top hits. Top hits are auto highlighted and thus, when hitting enter after typing "gm", gmx.net will open. This is a great feature if it would provide a personalized suggestion under "top hits". However, I never used or visited GMX before - it isn't in my history, as you can see from the screenshot. What I use all the time is Gmail, and honestly, I would like to see gmail.com in the top hits, but it only shows in history.

Expected behavior:
Top hits should be personalized top hit websites. Safari doesn't propose anything about GMX after entering "gm". It proposes "account.gmail.com" as I use this website often.

I once typed "intranet.mycompany com" instead of "intranet.mycompany.com" in the address bar. This resulted in a google search, which of course, did not provide any results. Now "intranet.mycompany com" shows up in the top hits and in the suggestions. Even after removing it from the history, it is still visible in the suggestions but luckily removed from the top hits.

Suggested solution:
I would like to be able to remove address bar entries directly from the address bar once they are showing up. Maybe by hitting ⌥ + backspace. Or showing a delete button when hovering and clicking ⌥. This would solve the described issue.

I guess anyone of us, very seldom of course, enters or visits websites that shouldn't show up anywhere in the address bar while typing. Seeing this feature implemented in Orion would make at least my life a lot easier.

Orion, OS version; hardware type:
macOS 13.2, Orion 0.99.123

Image/Video:

    After reading through it think it is more a suggestion than a bug, but results showing up without being part of the history is also a bug at the same time.

    I can't change the label and I'm more than optimistic @Vlad will add a fitting label if applicable. Overvall, I would be interested in the opinion of @Vlad and other people using Orion as their daily driver.

      It is not immediately clear why should Orion suggest Gmail when typing gm.

      This is the situation I have.

      'gm' matches 'Gmail' as a part of word inside the title. The domain where gmail lives does not correspond to anything similar. You might have a lot of things matching gm in the middle of the title in your history and bookmarks.

      How would you approach it?

        To illustrate other points pleas eprovide a couple of examples with screenshots and clearly write your expectations and what algorithm should Orion use to surface it.

          What I would like to see as a feature in Orion is that address bar suggestions that are personalized, e.g., top hits or history, are deletable from the address bar suggestions directly. As mentioned by showing a delete button when clicking ⌥ and mouse hovering or a key combination of your choice.

          Why do I want that, because sometimes we visit websites that shouldn't show up there at a later stage. How to remove them currently is to go to history and remove them. However, the top hits are not shown in the history and appear even after deleting any trace from the history.

          This would be my request.

            Regarding the top hits algorithm. I don't know what Orion is doing there but on a fresh profile when entering "gm" I get "gmx..." as a top hit. In Safari, I get nothing, as I would expect.

            Orion (fresh profile)

            Safari (cleared history)

            When visiting "gmail.com" once in both browsers. Orion shows Gmail in history, gmx in top hits. I just don't know why. What I would expect is what Safari does - showing Gmail as a top hit.

            Orion (visited gmail.com)

            Safari (visited gmail.com)

              Entering "e" on a fresh profile in Orion shows ebay.com in top hits while in Safari it doesn't show anything.
              Entering "f" shows facebook.com on both.

              I'm not sure where these top hits are coming from. Partly they come from the users history and in other cases I guess they come from some popular website index.

              You can find examples by iterating through the alphabet in a plain browser installation.

              Entering "t" shows twitter.com in Orion and tripadvisor.com in Safari...

              Again, my suggestion is that the user gets the choice to remove these suggestions as there is no gain from showing unrelated websites.

              "s" shows stackoverflow.com, there is a high chance that I will never visit this website but currently it will be shown to me whenever I enter "s", "st", "sta", "stac",.... depending if the history holds another entry of the same preceding letters.

              [history empty]
              "s" - stackoverflow.com
              [visiting standalone.com]
              "s" - standalone.com
              "st" - standalone.com
              "sta" - standalone.com
              "stac" - stackoverflow.com
              ...

              Maybe I'm not getting the story here - I'm happy to discuss.

                Orion ships with a list of top sites.

                I think you are right in terms of how we should change our default behavior.

                I think what you are suggesting is

                • Remove the default top sites list we are shipping with
                • "remember" domains that redirect (so gmail.com would be remembered).

                Orion currently does not remember in History domains that redirect. It is strange because Safari does not either (gmail.com will not show up in history) so it is not clear where is the top hit coming from in safari (unless it is somehow hard coded for Safari).

                Looking for your further guidance and simplifiny the ask into small steps.

                  ad 1.
                  100% correct, the Orion default top sites are not at all personalized and thus aren't likely to be handy to users.

                  ad 2.
                  What you describe is what I'm looking for. The address bar suggestions, especially the topmost ones, i.e., top hits, should allow me to autocomplete what I started to type based on my personal usage. Redirecting domains should be included in my view.

                  For me the two examples are:

                  1. "gmail.com" redirecting to "mail.google.com"
                  2. "mail.office365.com" redirecting to "outlook.office365.com"

                  I use both, one for private and the other for business - entering "gm" + enter opens Gmail, entering "mai" + enter opens the business mail account.

                  ad 3. (additionally)
                  I would see elevated user experience by providing an option to directly delete personalized address bar suggestions while showing them, i.e., top hits and history. Right clicking, ⌥, or similar would be suggestions for user interactions to show a delete button.

                  • Vlad replied to this.

                    rosenrot It is not clear where gmail.com is coming from in safari? It is not recorded in history as this site does not exist (redirects to mail.google.com)

                        Vlad you stated in your previous post that it isn't clear where Safari takes "gmail.com" from. It is only there after visiting the site and having it in history. From seeing their other "history free" top hits I guess they use a specific tophits list like Orion does, as well.

                        Entering "gmail.com" and "mail.office365.com" in Safari (no history stored) keeps these domains and shows them under "top hits" with these domains even though they are redirected.

                            Ok as a quick fix we can add redirected domains to history.

                              I‘m already more than happy that one or another of my suggestions are heard.

                              I‘m just suggesting what Orion would make stand out as a browser and I‘m aware that other suggestions might have higher priority.

                                14 days later
                                2 years later

                                Sorry for commenting on an old thread, but I'm having the same issue: websites that I've previously visited appear in my Top Hits, even though I have removed all entries from my history. The behavior persists across restarts.

                                In my case, I meant to visit 'theguardian.com' but mistyped the URL as 'guardian.com', which is an unrelated site. Now whenever I start typing 'gua...' I get suggested the (to me) irrelevant 'guardian.com' as a top hit. One could argue that this is user error, since I'm not actually typing the first letters of the right website, but this behavior differs from what I'm used to in Chrome and consistently trips me up.

                                I read above that Orion "ships with a list of top sites". Perhaps the fact that I'm seeing 'guardian.com' in my Top Hits has nothing to do with me having ever visited it. Instead, it's just a match from this standard list. If so, think it would be great if any of the following were an option: a) disable this list altogether, b) blacklist specific sites, d) downweight all hits from this list unless they overlap with my own personal browsing history.

                                  adriaan I‘m happy that you commented here as this is just not user friendly and any other behaviour would be better than the current one.

                                  I‘m seeing gmx.net whenever I hit „g“ which is what I do to open my everyday gmail mailbox. One might think that would puzzle more people, but maybe it is just me.

                                      adriaan

                                      In my case, I meant to visit 'theguardian.com' but mistyped the URL as 'guardian.com', which is an unrelated site. Now whenever I start typing 'gua...' I get suggested the (to me) irrelevant 'guardian.com' as a top hit.

                                      That sounds like expected behavior? What is exactly the ask or what algorithm should Orion change/implement?

                                      I recommend opening a new thread for this.

                                          4 days later

                                          Vlad

                                          Hi Vlad, thanks for taking the time to reply.

                                          That sounds like expected behavior

                                          It might be from an implementation standpoint [1], but as a new user coming from Chrome I don't find it particularly desirable.

                                          The ask: Top Hits should should only show websites that reflect my own browsing behavior. If that's too much to ask, let me at least configure the order in which the different kinds of autocomplete suggestions are shown, so that I can downrank Top Hits and boost history hits.

                                          [1]: Turns out Safari behaves the same way.

                                          • Vlad replied to this.