Windows 10 reached EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. If you are on Windows 10, see this article.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How do i search in the main bar in the middle of the screen as apose to the web address bar?

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • Last reply by rv4fun

All of a sudden (after a recent update I suppose) every time I start to type anything in the "search" in the middle of my "home" screen, the curser jumps to the address space in the toolbar. I hate that! I want to continue to use search in the middle of the screen as I have for years since I started using browsers. I've tried looking at the setting for "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar" and it is set to "false" as was recommended in another post some years ago. What do I have to do to revert back to the way it was before this change was forced on me?

All of a sudden (after a recent update I suppose) every time I start to type anything in the "search" in the middle of my "home" screen, the curser jumps to the address space in the toolbar. I hate that! I want to continue to use search in the middle of the screen as I have for years since I started using browsers. I've tried looking at the setting for "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar" and it is set to "false" as was recommended in another post some years ago. What do I have to do to revert back to the way it was before this change was forced on me?

All Replies (6)

rv4fun, the functionality has been temporarily removed, and should be made available again (via the about:config setting) in the update due on March 10th.

Let's keep this request open until the "fix" is actually released. (I'll believe it when I see it.) I've spent several hours/days searching for a fix and coming up empty. I hate what's happening now every time I try to search with Firefox.

Modified by rv4fun

For more information, updates for this matter can be found here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2017049

So should I search for the latest beta version for windows 11 now?

rv4fun, if you switch to the beta version then you may get the home page search box back quicker. But if you later decide that you want to return to standard Firefox then this may take a bit of work? Plus beta has the potential for issues that may later get fixed / ironed out for the stable release?

You'll hve to decide whether you want to wait the expected ten or so days until the next standard release, or if getting the functionality back sooner is worth any potential future issues that may or may not occur?

Alternatively, are you aware that there is a stand alone search box that can be added to the toolbar area? You might want to instead consider temporarily enabling that for the next week or so, if you do not want to search from the address bar?

If that is of any interest, then see the section "Customize the overflow menu or the toolbar" in this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-firefox-controls-buttons-and-toolbars

Thank you TechHorse for your continued help. I think I'll wait for the next stable release. I've got FF set to upgrade as the new releases come out (that's how I suddenly ended up with this problem without making any changes to my settings). I tried the search box on the toolbar but it's very small and I can't see what I'm typing. I turned it off. While FF is my favorite browser, it isn't the only one I use so I can work with another one and keep watching for the next official release.

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.