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Completely shutting down the autoswap to address bar from search bars on a web page

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Prior to updating, when I typed a question from the Firefox homepage in the search box in the middle of the page, my search parameters would appear there where it would be easy to see. Now, every time I type anything in a search box, it jumps to the address bar, causing me to have to shift my line of sight to the top left of my screen rather than the center of the screen. Not to mention the text on the address bar is several orders of magnitude smaller than the test on the web pages search bar. So how to I shut this behavior down? If I click in a search box I expect my text to appear in that search box, NOT in the address bar.

Prior to updating, when I typed a question from the Firefox homepage in the search box in the middle of the page, my search parameters would appear there where it would be easy to see. Now, every time I type anything in a search box, it jumps to the address bar, causing me to have to shift my line of sight to the top left of my screen rather than the center of the screen. Not to mention the text on the address bar is several orders of magnitude smaller than the test on the web pages search bar. So how to I shut this behavior down? If I click in a search box I expect my text to appear in that search box, NOT in the address bar.

Chosen solution

There is a preference for this but it does take a bit of work to find it because of the unusual name:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste handoff and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar preference to switch the value from true to false

Success?

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox.

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All Replies (2)

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Suluhisho teule

There is a preference for this but it does take a bit of work to find it because of the unusual name:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste handoff and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar preference to switch the value from true to false

Success?

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox.

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Thank you! Worked perfectly!