Safe Browsing (except for downloads) is handled by downloading a list of blacklisted sites (that's what the 15MB urlclassifier database in your profile is for). Unlike some other browsers, Firefox doesn't send every pageview to Google for analysis.<p>Edit: Since I last read the API documentation, a lookup API has also been added; Firefox does use this API, but only to avoid false positives:
<a href="https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/" rel="nofollow">https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/</a> <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-malware-protection-work#w_what-information-is-sent-to-mozilla-or-its-partners-when-phishing-and-malware-protection-are-enabled" rel="nofollow">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-m...</a><p>And if Firefox is really sending everything I type in my address bar to Google, why am I not seeing any of the benefits (i.e. autocomplete)?
The URL bar's keypresses are not sent via network. That's the whole point behind keeping URL and Search Bar separate. Search bar has online suggestions, URL bar doesn't.
The eye opener here is not Firefox, but the state of today's browsers.<p>I checked Safari, and it's search suggestions get sent off to Google, or whatever your default search engine is, the surprising fact is that it's sent over HTTP.<p>Good call reminding us that anything we type in the location bar is public.
I only see traffic when typing in the search bar, not when using the location bar as stated in the article. And only when I set my search engine to Google instead of DuckDuckGo.