An address bar (also location bar or URL bar) is a widget in a graphical user interface web browser that indicates the current URL; webpage address; path to a local file; or other item to be located by the browser. A new page can be viewed by typing its URL to the URL bar.
In most browsers, the URL value can often be auto-completed, either by looking up similar URLs from the history or by using keyboard shortcut for URL completion. For websites which use favicon (a small icon that represents the website), there will also be a small icon in the URL bar.
The URL bar is also used, in some web browsers, to indicate the security status of the web page. Various colors and padlock icons show if the page is encrypted and how trustworthy the communication is. In Safari (and, optionally, in Opera), the URL bar also doubles as a progress bar that indicates how much of the content of the page has been loaded. It can also be used to detect RSS feeds that can be used to subscribe to pages.
Address bar implementations
The following sections compare address bar widgets for a few well-known web browsers.
Firefox
Firefox's address bar when visiting Wikipedia
Opera
Opera's address bar when visiting Wikipedia
Internet Explorer
Safari
Safari 3's address bar when visiting Wikipedia
See also
External links
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