Easy fix please do this ASAP it is the only reason why I don't use AI exclusively and only on project I need to share files. I'd like to make the switch so I don't have to use two programs..

I think this is essential and I am not sure why Ai doesn't have it.
I like to select some shapes in a group of shapes that are not grouped.
For example in attached file, I like to drag and select only the shapes that are fully enclosed in the mouse drag area.
I don't want to select the objects that only a portion of them are in the mouse drag area.
Inkscape has this option and is extremely handy.
That is strange, we have all kinds of selection tools but lacking the very basic selection!

Yes, this is a must have, not only for a professional app (simple App like TouchDraw.app have this feature).

"We are committed to making our customers happy and satisfied with our products & services. With an emphasis on customer satisfaction, we’ve come up with the ‘Customer Happiness’ release series where we’ll provide fixes to as many UserVoice issues as possible. However, given the nature of the issues, fixes for some bugs might take a little longer, but we are doing our best to fix them as soon as we can. The first release in this series with more than 40 bug fixes reported on User-Voice is available worldwide now."

Why only 40 reported bugs/issues? Is this some kind of joke Adobe?

This is the number one super annoying problem - the dumb selection. Selecting objects entirely inside the marque is a must. I always wondered why people are so addicted to illustrator yet it lacks basic usability features - like the very basic selection methods and a simple and usable point selection...
Currently, the selection marquee randomly selects everything touched - unusable, annoying, error-prone, struggling.

Its annoying that every touched object is selected in Adobe products. Either add a setting somewhere or do it like AutoCad did (s. Philip)

NO MODIFIER KEYS. Make this a selectable preference, period. That way nobody is offended.

Better yet: Make the default mode selectable in preferences, and have Option toggle to the other one. As noted already, Shift is not viable because it's already used to add or subtract from selections.

Customers have been asking for this for well over a decade, but Adobe has abandoned Illustrator. Most people have moved on to competent, maintained applications like Affinity Designer (which offers this mode by default).

Sketch is also growing in popularity, and offers this mode; it, however, does only offer it through a modifier key. Changing that limitation is an outstanding request in their forums.

Corel Draw uses this mode by default, if I remember correctly.

Face it people: Illustrator is abandonware.

Reading this back after i've posted here several years ago.
I really cannot see why, after all these years (!), this function is still not reality. It is such an obvious improvement that it's hard to see for me why this is so overlooked. Is it hard to implement? Is there not enough demand? Is it expensive?

Illustrator is great, but selecting objects in the more complex drawings often is such a hassle. Worst of it: it's doesnt have to be like that.

It should be done as in Oleg Krasnov's gif. Maybe in the opposite direction so that the standard way of selecting still remains untouched. Make left drag do the magic. Fine with me. Also a toggle switch in the settings would be great, so that it can be made persistent.

Either way, this way of selecting should become possible.

Just an example.

Well, I agree, but leave Shift alone, it's as good as it is now, it adds/subtracts from selection. Same for Ctrl. May be Alt?

AutoCad has always done this in a very simple and useful way. You drag bottom right to top left and it selects any thing in it's path. You go the opposite direction and in only selects what is totally enclosed in the box. No additional modifier keys.

This would be extremely useful for anyone who wants to export line work from another program to Illustrator to make it look nice.
Often everything is only on one layer with no organization so it's not feasible to reorganize all the thousands of line segments just to make selection easier.

I've used Illustrator for many years as well as other programs. The lack of this feature has always been a major time suck every time I've wanted to export something to Illustrator to clean up the appearance.

Right now when I draw a marquee selection around the item I want to select, everything the box touches gets selected. How about having a choice of selecting items only items that are fully enclosed in marquee selection ignoring
those items or layers that are around your selection but not fully enclosed in the selection. . for example I have a ungrouped logo on top of several other larger layers. I only want to select the layers that make up the logo so I draw a marquee around the logo and it only selects the layers inside the marque anything that is even partially outside would not be selected

I can't explain by words, but i've made the video about it:
https://streamable.com/wzeph

Please clarify since Illustrator's selection tools already do this.
Just click and drag.

New type of selection tool allows you to draw a rectangle which selects select objects contained in the selection rectangle.

This type is in Affinity Designer, GravitDesigner, CorelDraw, InkScape etc.

Coming from a drafting background, this would be AMAZING!!!

It needs an option to switch this behaviour so anyone can use default way of selection or the other way. Simple as that.

To the previous poster:

It would be strange for this behaviour to be the default now, after nearly 30 years. Many Illustrator users will be used to and find the current selection method familiar and even desirable.

I agree. I consider Illustrator unusable until this is fixed. I bought Affinity Designer because of this defect alone.

And I agree that NO HOTKEY or DIRECTION should be required. This needs to be a persistent selection mode that we can activate in preferences and leave alone.

NO hotkey or drag-direction requirement, please.

The drag-direction method will defeat the purpose of this feature in a great many cases, because you're trying to avoid selecting certain objects. Sometimes that requires coming at the drawing from a particular direction.

The hotkey method forces users to treat this selection method as somehow exceptional, when in fact it should be the default. At the very least, it should be PERSISTENTLY SETTABLE.

Also, Shift and Ctrl/Command can't be used because they're already used to extend, add to, or subtract from an existing selection.