pesky address bar

Others besides Dedoimedo have written about how to get rid of the revamped address bar in Firefox 75 and get back to what folks were used to in earlier versions. (See: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/08/how-to-restore-the-old-firefox-address-bar/ and https://lifehacker.com/how-to-disable-firefox-75s-new-address-bar-1842728031)

I haven't tried any of that stuff, but I did get rid of the annoying automatic drop-down list in FF 75. It seems that the following combination of steps was required to get what I wanted:

I removed the "Top Sites" from the New Tabs page, as mentioned in yesterday's post and here.

In Firefox's "Preferences" on the "Home" tab, I have every box unchecked under "Firefox Home Content".

I also have everything unchecked under Search > Search Suggestions.

On the "Privacy & Security" tab, I have every box unchecked in the "Address Bar" section.

Result: No more drop-down list obscuring part of the window when I click in the address bar, suggesting stuff that I don't want to see or click on.

When I open a new tab and start typing in the address bar, the behavior is almost (but not quite!) the same as how I have things set with the current Firefox ESR (68.7.0) from Debian Stable. Very close.

FF 75 in Kubuntu 19.10:

FF ESR in Buster GNOME:

Oh, well, I tried. I can live with it, but others might not be able to.