Firefox Community Forum

I had to actually sign up fort a Mozilla account,the multiple hoops I had to jump through were ridicules, in order to ask a question of Firefox. I do not want my address bar to be my search engine. How do I disable the search engine in my address bar? And now I have to wait for an answer!!!!!!!! I used to love and trust Firefox. Not anymore.

Since latest upgrade (1/16/2026) I cannot log in to Outlook email. This is specific to Firefox 147.0.1 (Chrome and Pop Peeper logins to Outlook work fine). I tried clearing cache, updating, restarting, rebooting, trouble-shooting mode, private window etc. to no avail. I get 400 error from Outlook.

Previous solution: switch browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar to false does not work anymore.

Please help.

Regards, Victor

I went to [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-backup] and under "Create a Firefox backup file" at step 3 it says, "Scroll down to Backup, and click Manage backup" but when I went there no such "Manage backup" option exists as you can see in the attached screen capture. So what gives? How can I "Create a Firefox backup file"? I am using Firefox v147.0 (64-bit) on Windows 11 Please instruct. Thanks RJB

A heart has recently been included in the Firefox icon in my taskbar. What's the reason for it and what do I have to do so that the Firefox icon no longer has it? I've run a number of antimalware programs and they came up with nothing.

When I try to make a Google search I get the following message, "I'm not a robot" with a reCAPTCHA: "Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it's really you sending the requests, and not a robot. Why did this happen?". This happens on Firefox, but not Chrome or Edge. If I 'Allow' Google in the 'Exceptions - Cookies and Site Data' then I do not get the message, but it takes several seconds for Google display the resulting page. However, if I delete the cookies/cache the message will return and I have to redo the reCAPTCHA. I have scanned with Malwarebytes, Bitdefender, Hitman Pro, Trend Micro House Call and Microsoft Defender, nothing detected. Running Win 10 (64) with 'Extended Security Updates', Firefox 147.0 (64), no additional Extensions or Plugins. Also I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox.

Suddenly I cannot search from the search bar. It defaults to the address bar. why "fix" something that was not broken. Being forced to use the address bar is frustrating. If you go directly to the address bar, it tells you it cannot find that site.

I set the about:config settings when I got the new computer early last year. It's been working fine. Suddenly, searches are popping up again to the urlbar.

browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar is still set to false. Keyword.enabled is still set to false.

I see a couple of site references to browser.fixup.alternate.enabled, but it doesn't exist.

How do I get FF back to proper search in the search bar?

We hate this useless so-called feature and you've completely failed to give us an OFF switch! It's been many months with countless complaints and still no OFF switch! We've had this conversation before, all of your ideas must come with an OFF switch, especially so for the dumb ones like tab pinning! You don't ever force this dumb crap on us, ever!

Where is the fkin OFF switch already!?!?!?

I've tuned in to Firefox this morning to find that I'm kind of shut out, no access to my usual apps, and required to enact some difficult backing up etc. When I explore, it seems to relate to Windows 10 losing its backup from Microsoft. But I'm running Windows 11, not 10. What's going on? Is this legitimate? If so, why is it complicated and why wasn't it forewarned (by Firefox)?

Ever since Firefox updated (to 147.0, I assume), I can no longer get ChatGPT to work. It does nothing when I click on "Log in" (I have a ChatGPT account), and the up arrow that you hit (or enter button) after asking a question does nothing (and the up arrow stays greyed out even while you are typing the question). I can use ChatGPT just fine on my Safari browser and iPhone. I used my iPhone ChatGPT to take me through steps to help, and it had me do several things (all of which did not work). These included: 1) refreshing the page/restarting; 2) open chat.openai.com, clicked lock icon and clicked "clear cookies and site data" and reloaded the page; 3) did same and clicked on the shield icon and toggled off "enhanced tracking protection"; 4) Went to file and "new private window", then chat.openai.com; 5) went to "about:support" in Firefox and clicked "refresh Firefox"; 6) Went to Firefox Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Permissions, then Block pop-up windows, then clicked exceptions and added "https://chat.openai.com"; 7) Then to Firefox Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Cookies and Site data, then manage exceptions, then added also "https://openai.com"; 8) Then changed enhanced tracking protection to Custom and unchecked cookies (cross-site tracking cookies) and restarted Firefox (I have since rechecked the box); 9) When I log into Firefox, it was showing a banner that read "Your privacy matters. Firefox now securely routes your DNS requests whenever possible to a partner service to protect you while you browse." Chat said to click "Disable" for this.; 10) After refreshing Firefox I chose (the 2nd time) "Restore only the ones you want" and opened a new tab. 11) At one point, I hit "Log in" for ChatGPT and the screen went slightly blurry and a new small rounded rectangular box (about 3 inches long) popped up, and Chat told me to hit the "X" to close that box, it then said to right-click on "Log In', and to choose "open link in new tab", but that option was not available. Chat says Firefox is still failing to load the embedded login frame, even after refresh. 12) I logged into "https://chat.openai.com/auth/login, and that still didn't work in Firefox, either. 13) Finally, I changed to Safari and successfully logged in. But I prefer Firefox as my main browser and want ChatGPT to work! I've even tried adding it to my sidebar (the new feature), and the same problems are occurring. It won't let me log in, and I can't ask it any questions. Help!  :)

The Firefox icon looks like it has a shopping cart on the top-left hand side. What is this for? It is only happening on the Windows 11 taskbar (not the desktop or menu shortcut).

Firefox has been my browser of choice for well over 20 years. I have a game I play every day (from FaceBook) just this week when I try to go to it on my laptop - it says your browser does not support WebGL. it has always opened using Firefox - this is a new error message. and the computer is only 5 months old and has Windows 11 on it. I do not want to switch to Google or Edge.

Like I said - opening the app worked every day up until about a week ago. What gives?

Examples of webpages I've entered today that receive an error message are https://leafscape.com & Mint Mobile

I would like to remove the search options from the address bar because I preferred the old setup with a separate search window (and the address bar was just unable to perform searches). How can I set this up?

Dear Folks at Firefox, Mozilla

In last few days I really have a big problem with trying to browse with my favorite browser Firefox. It is that cursor always goes to address bar instead of search bar when I am trying to surf the web. I tried all the fixes that I found online with changing things in about:config still with no solution.

I am running on Windos 11 and using latest Firefox version.

Kind regards Aljosha Mileta