Findbar Tweak has a global findbar option if you want to restore the old behaviour.

Second item in the Firefox 25 Release Notes.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/25.0/releasenotes/

Note that you can press the F3 key to bring up the Find bar with the last entered search terms.

Findbar Tweak is a workaround. However it searches very slowly.

Why don't you add a flag to allow users (that have been using Firefox for years... and have been using this very powerful function) to re-activate the old behaviour?

Necessity of registering here caused several times that I resigned from posting my complaints on FF. This time it is too much. Adblock Plus is the only thing that causes that I still use this "version race driven browser". Unfortunately Adblock Plus for Chrome is very weak and does not fulfill my needs. If you need to race with Chrome with raising version numbers then just release "firefox six millions" and you will be the winners. I stopped using IE several years ago, because FF was browser that always gave me choices how things should be. In IE everything had to be as Microsoft guys decided or it simply didn't work. FF was great alternative at that time. Then you started messing and messing with browser, deciding what is better for users without option for choice. At first it was using OS default warning sound for displaying simple dialog box when entering or leaving SSL connection. It was really nice to see developers suggesting disabling system sounds if I don't like this new behavior. Later you started destroying some other small thingies. But sometimes plugins helped with restoration of old behaviors (like with default bookmarks folder forced to "Unsorted bookmarks" without option to change it in advanced preferences). But this time I am really pissed off. It seems that I have to wait until someone will write again a plugin for fixing broken FF behavior and revert search to the way it worked in pre v25 releases. If you think that this time you improved search so much by making it invisible and unresponsive to F3 clicking (fortunately more complicated Ctrl+F works), then why don't you just remove this useless search option? This is my suggestion for v26.5. And first line in changelog: "Removal of search function. We decided that users don't use this option properly and we decided that they don't want it anymore" If you need more stupid ideas for next FF releases here they go (you can use them royalty free!!): - permanently hidden bookmarks menu (make it in v27) - permanently hidden address bar (make it in v28) - permanently hidden tabs bar (to do in v29) - permanently hidden minimize/restore/close buttons (why not make it happen in v29.5?) - permanently hidden main window app - it will be visible only in system task bar (a great goal to do in anniversary v30 !!). And remember - you always know the best my user preferences. Whatever you decide without asking users, it will be always the best for them. Those poor stupid users who never know what they really want... By the way - I've never seen an official announcement that Microsoft has acquired Mozilla Foundation. When exactly it happened?

Best regards sad FF user.

Clap clap clap! +100 for sadFFuser!

You can leave your feedback and comments at the http://input.mozilla.com website.

Why post comments there? No one is listening. FF has become bloated and slow slow slow. And don't bother telling me I need to disable add ons or do a clean reinstall. I've been there.