How to make Firefox only suggest complete URLs, and not just the host?
I just found out that the feature I am not quite happy with is the inline auto-complete option of the location bar (which is one of multiple auto-complete options). Apparently, it is not possible to change the behaviour of inline auto-complete so that only full URLs from the history are proposed.
But it already helped me to disable the option (by setting browser.urlbar.autoFill to false on the about:config page). In this way, I still need to press down and enter to select the first matching history entry, but at least I am no longer tricked into trying to open URLs that will show an error page.
As of 2019, the prospector extensions and the options mentioned by @oberlies are not available any more.
A solution was mentioned on Reddit. If you got to Library and then Bookmarks, Show all bookmarks (alternatively press Ctrl+Shift+o), each bookmark has a keyword entry. By adding the short version of the website, Firefox will proceed directly to the bookmarked URL instead of the incomplete URL.
You need a shortcut for each substring of the desired URL:
- e
- ex
- exa
- exam
- ...
- example.com