# What do you call this behavior, and how do I stop it (Firefox)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-behavior-and-how-do-i-stop-it-firefox/662755>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 5, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-behavior-and-how-do-i-stop-it-firefox/662755 "2013-07-05T22:05:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-behavior-and-how-do-i-stop-it-firefox/662755/1 "2013-07-05T22:05:59Z")

</div>

Recently my settings all got trashed, and I’m trying to re-set them back to the way I want, but I don’t remember how to change some of them.

When I am filling in a field on a web page in Firefox, it will throw up a small box with things that I have previously typed in the same (or sometimes in a similar) box that match what I have typed so far. I don’t like this, it gets in the way sometimes.

So what do you call this behavior?

How do I stop it? I’ve looked in Options and I don’t see anything like that there.  
Roddy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-behavior-and-how-do-i-stop-it-firefox/662755/2 "2013-07-05T22:25:47Z")

</div>

Tools -\> Options -\> Privacy

History

Firefox will: ‘Use Custom Settings for History’

uncheck ‘remember search and form history’

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-behavior-and-how-do-i-stop-it-firefox/662755/3 "2013-07-06T04:16:19Z")

</div>

> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> So what do you call this behavior?

[Autofill.](http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/control-firefox-automatically-fills-in-forms)