Have you made Google your default search engine? All you have to do is type into your search box and press enter. Or, go to about:home and do the same thing.

Thank, but I had already made Google the default search engine. I reset it to make sure, but it did not solve the problem.

Go to the Mozilla Add-ons Web Page {web link} (There’s a lot of good stuff here) and search for what you want.

I found this but don't know if this is what you want; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=cursor&appver=30.0&platform=mac

FredMcD, thanks again for making a suggestion. I followed your link and also entered the "search" field - "address bar" - in hopes it would offer a solution. Unfortunately, there don't appear to be add-ons to solve the problem. That may be in part because Mozilla is supposed to be providing a solution itself, as I outlined in the original question (type "about:config" and change "keyword.enabled" to "false").

What I am wondering is if anyone at Mozilla monitors these questions or there is a way to reach them directly to deal with a specific feature that isn't working and/or can't be changed as described in their official support page (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-web-address-bar#w_turning-off-the-web-search-in-the-address-bar)

You can set a page like about:blank as the new tab page (browser.newtab.url) and possibly set the home page to another (search) page or possibly create a bookmark set to about:blank and middle-click the bookmark to open a blank page (tab).

cor-el, thanks for the suggestions. I played with those workarounds with varying success. Even when successful, there are a lot of steps to reach the objective.

Two observations:

I have been able to identify the easiest "Solution" (workaround). It is to hit return twice immediately after entering either command-t or clicking on the "+" at the top of the page to get a new tab.

What frustrates me is that Safari only requires you to enter command-t and you are immediately brought to the search engine box so you can use it to get right to your search. Firefox on the other hand introduced the "awesome bar" but it no longer works (presumably because Google has "upgraded" their default url to "https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl" instead of "http://www.google.com" - although there may be another reason). But the real problem here is that Mozilla supposedly gives the user control of the functionality to automatically direct the cursor to the search engine box by changing the "keyword.enabled" to "false". But that no longer works either (at least in my case).

There is JavaScript running on the https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl page that sets focus to the search bar on the web page, so there is not much that can be done to avoid this otherwise then using a different page.

Any Firefox users out there who hate the new "search from address bar" function as much as I do? This is supposed to fix it

   In the Location bar, type about:config and press Enter.
       The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise! to continue to the about:config page. 
   In the Search field, type keyword.enabled.
   Double-click the keyword.enabled preference to set its value to false. 

and it did when I employed it yesterday but now the search function is back and the above does not change it. I need to be able to see and copy URLs from the address bar and this is driving me crazy.