Browsers adding www. and .com to server address automatically

I never had an issue with this until Firefox 14. The answer I found to the problem from the last couple years is:

1. In the Location bar, type about:config and press "Enter"

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. "Click I'll > be careful, I promise!", to continue to the about:config page.

2. In the Search field, type "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled"

3. Double-click the "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled" preference to set its value to false.

This seems to have worked for people, but not for me. After searching through the config I found browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled. I turned this off and it did the trick. So if the previous doesn't work, try:

1. In the Location bar, type about:config and press "Enter"

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. "Click I'll > be careful, I promise!", to continue to the about:config page.

2. In the Search field, type "browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled"

3. Double-click the "browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled" preference to set its value to false.

Edit: disabling browser.urlbar.autoFill instead of autocomplete also fixes the issue while still showing suggested results from your history.

If you just type server_name into the search/url bar the browsers try to be helpful and guess what the URL should be or switch to a search. However if you click on a HTML link, enter the full URL (http://server_name), or use a bookmark the browsers should respect what was entered.

If all the suggestions found here and elsewhere on the interweb don't work (like they did not for me) check your proxy settings if inside corporate environment.

I had to manually set proxy - it did not take the global settings. Options - Network - Settings - 'Automatic proxy configuration url' fixed it for me.