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 can I change the search to how it was before?

more options

The changes made to Firefox's search field is utterly unnerving to me. I never know what search engine I am searching from, search suggestions don't seem to pop up, and now I have to type my search in and THEN switch the search engine which, again, eliminates search suggestions unless I change the default.

I can't understand for the life of me why this was changed without an option to revert it back to what actually worked.

How can I do this? How do I make the Firefox search field revert back to what it was before these new "improvements" were crammed upon us?

The changes made to Firefox's search field is utterly unnerving to me. I never know what search engine I am searching from, search suggestions don't seem to pop up, and now I have to type my search in and THEN switch the search engine which, again, eliminates search suggestions unless I change the default. I can't understand for the life of me why this was changed without an option to revert it back to what actually worked. How can I do this? How do I make the Firefox search field revert back to what it was before these new "improvements" were crammed upon us?

All Replies (2)

more options

If you want to restore the previously used standalone window to manage search engines then you can toggle this pref to false with a middle-click on the about:config page.

  • about:config page: browser.search.showOneOffButtons = false

Close and restart Firefox to the change effective.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

See also:

more options

Hi sylviaplatt, on the first point, you should be able to tell which search engine Firefox will use in some places, such as the search bar.

Once you type a character, the top line of the drop-down should show the icon of the current default search provider. However, if you have several different Google plugins that all use the "g" icon, for example, then you might not be able to tell which one will be used.

But it's not easy to tell when using the search box on the built-in home page or on the new tab page. Someone should fix that...