User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0 Build ID: 20121120042814 Steps to reproduce: Open any web page, or hover over any URL, that uses http:// protocol. Especially, try to copy the URL from the address bar. Actual results: The protocol string is not shown, and not included in the URL when copied. It makes the status bar a bit strange at times ("what is this text in the corner?") and makes copying URLs to share quite a pain the backside. Expected results: Protocol string should be shown and included in copied URLs.

Set about:config > browser.urlbar.trimURLs = false. Does it work for you?

That seems to do it. I wonder why this option exists, and especially is enabled by default?

Trimmed URLs is an old feature introduced into Firefox 7. But some issues persist (with copy/paste e.g. like bug 697248).

Seems more like a misfeature... why decide to start hiding part of the URL? Perhaps the bug is not in the code, but in its intent.

This works for me, even if the setting from comment 1 is set to true: browser.urlbar.trimURLs = true, while testing on the latest Nightly. User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:20.0) Gecko/20121210 Firefox/20.0 Build ID: 20121210030747