Upgrade your browser to Firefox 9 and check

• getfirefox.com

Does it work correctly if you type the full address including the protocol?

You can try to disable keyword search by setting the keyword.enabled pref to false.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/keyword.enabled
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_search
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/browser.urlbar.default.behavior

Thank you for the response.

No, I type it in as "http://att.elevate" and apparently, I've discovered that it reverts to "http://www.att.elevate" (and sometimes adds a ".com") when the site cannot be found - which is when the hotspot device is not connected - this is when the problem occurs. (The address actually directs me to a piece of local hardware, AT&T's HotSpot.) So perhaps it's not Firefox. But it's confusing when it reverts to the "www" prefix. I'm guessing that it must do that when it cannot find the device. But my primary problem now (I suppose) is that when this happens, the "www"-appended address is added to the history, and when I need to connect again, Firefox automatically adds the "www" to the address every time afterward. I keep having to clear it out of history, which gets old.

Are you using a proxy to connect?

• Tools > Options > Advanced : Network : Connection > Settings

You can try to disable the fixup to prevent Firefox from try the address with a www. prefix.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Location+bar+search#w_domain-guessing
• http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/domain-guessing.html

Not using a proxy. Thank you so much for providing the answer. That's what I was looking for!!