Firefox 3 usage patterns - AwesomeBar vs. address bar

I just upgraded to Firefox 3 and the AwesomeBar (which replaced the standard address bar) has thrown off my usage patterns.

I used the FF2 address bar dropdown as a quick-access list of my most frequently visited pages. I type/paste URLs for sites I use often, thus adding them to the list. With a history retention of 90 days, pages I didn't access frequently would be removed, while pages I accessed most often would "fall down" to the bottom of the list.

Now with FF3, I have lost this quick access list. But, was this a bad usage pattern to begin with? It's faster than accessing bookmarks, and dynamic to reflect real usage. How do you all get by without the FF2 recently used address list? Or do you not mind the AwesomeBar?

I pretty much like it. I still use short (2 or 3 character) bookmark keywords to open my most visited sites and searches, but for anything I open maybe a few times a week, the FF3 URL bar makes it easy to get to them in a few keystrokes.

I think there's still a bit of work to do on making it quicker, but I think it's definitely an improvement.

I use the address bar for 'keyword searches'.
I set up shortcuts to typical search fields (g for google, w for wikipedia, y for youtube) and type my searches right into the address bar.
In FF2, that was a clean way of doing things.
In FF3, the 'awesome bar' wants to guess what the heck I'm doing all the time and 'help me' by polluting my screen with that drop-down list.

I'm sure the 'awesome bar' is awesome for people who use it like they intended, but I don't, and I'm not too keen to try.

That said, I think there's a setting somewhere where you can disable the 'awesomeness' and get back to a 'normal' experience.
Too lazy to do that, tho.

I haven't used actual bookmarks in a long, long time. Typing the first couple letters of a URL into the Firefox URL bar and then arrowing-down to pick the one I want worked great for me in Firefox 2.

At first, I was afraid the Awesome Bar in Firefox 3 would mess up my usage patterns, but I found that when I relaxed and just "went with it", it made things even lot faster and easier, making bookmarks an even more distant memory. I like the Firefox 3 Awesome Bar even better than the Firefox 2 URL bar behavior.

Google Chrome seems even better to me somehow, it's like they refined the Awesome Bar behavior even further. I'm not sure exactly how without analyzing it, though.

I guess what I'm saying is that this seems to be the next usability advancement; making bookmarks a thing that we only use occasionally. So roll with it. It's not a bad habit, it's taking advantage of the new wave.

BY THE WAY: If you have something that keeps showing up in your Awesome Bar history and you want it gone, just arrow down to it and press the DEL key to make it disappear from your history.

I'm with Tony on this one, when I saw the new bar in FF3 I thought, "oh no, I'm not going to like this". But I just persisted with it for a while and now I love it.

I think it kinda sucks egss, but maybe I'll get used to it.

In the meanwhile, though, the History Submenus extension is getting a workout, allowing me to quickly find again places I've been to recently under the History menu.