Sorry, that is the way it is intended when you open a new tab, there's no preference to change it to the Search bar.

Just hit the Tab key to shift the cursor from the Location bar to the Search bar.

That can also be a problem with the extension that you use to open that page in a new tab.

Thank you for your replies.

Sorry that I don't quite follow cor-el's note. I simply configured FF to open every new tab with http://www.google.com rather than at the "blank page" option ( perhaps you are suggesting http://www.google.com/ instead ? )

May I suggest that some means to set the default focus locations "should" be available ? I am primarily a design engineer so I am constantly popping up new tabs to search for new or alternative parts or support documentation.

I was going to describe the appearance of a new tab and just "double-checked" by opening a new tab - and something different happened this time !

Normally the cursor IS in the Google search box when the new tab opens - but the address bar ( http://www.google.com ) is highlighted in light blue - which apparently is an even "higher" priority then the cursor.

Thus when I start typing characters I ( unknowingly ) erased the google address and start entering a "new address" - at least until I notice - or press <Enter>.

But just now the address bar contents were not highlighted and the cursor was immediately behind the google address. I now recall this has also happened before as I've seen the "appended" google address condition before.

Maybe this additional information would provide some clue.

Any follow-up appreciated. Thanks again.

A new tab opens by default as a blank tab (about:blank).

If that isn't the case then an extension has changed that behavior.

• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

Does that also happen if you middle-click the toolbar Home button to open the home page in a new tab?

Ah-ha! "English is a horrible language within which to attempt communication" ( words with dozens of usually different meanings ).
Yes - FF with the default "blank:about" is a pretty useless browser, or rather the tabs are pretty useless ( my perspective ) so way, way back when I found some one that also found this behavior pretty useless and he wrote what I would have called an "add-in" ( extension as I now will call it ) so that each new tab would open to Google - but could be any "home page".
Each time I upgraded FF in the past I had to reapply this extension. But not when I upgraded to 7.0.1. So my assumption was that this had finally been fixed in 7.x.x.
Sorry that I interpreted 'extension' to mean the characters following the final "." in the url.
Re <center-click> - which is a <dbl-clk> on my Logitech mouse - when I <center-click> on the Home icon, regardsless of which tab I am on, or what is currently on the page, everything is cleared and I am returned, while remaining on the current tab, to my home page url, i.e., Google.com and the focus is in the Google search bar, and the address bar is "clean" - www.google.com ( no http:// preamble ).
While trying to refind the "extension" I had been using for new tabs today I discovered the "Tab Mix Plus" extension. Perhaps this will work better than the one I am now apparently using. I assume that I will have to learn how to locate/identify the existing extension to remove it prior to installing Tab Mix Plus.
Am I on the right track here ?

Odd??? some of my reply has been converting into an operation ( executed ) instead of being displayed as text. Adding spaces to hopefully prevent this I had said : "Re < middle - click > - which is a <dbl-clk> on ...." then later my reply becomes "centered text" for some reason - no clue why