Firefox Community Forum

My current version of Firefox is 151.0.4 (64-bit) & for the past 2 weeks or so every time I use the search bar to google something it triggers one of those "We've detected unusual activity from your network" requiring a Captcha. At first I tried all of the typical stuff [antivirus, vpn, extensions, etc...] to make sure that wasn't the issue. But as of yesterday & confirmed today I can actually go to Google's website first & do the search from there with no issue & no captcha.

So, whatever the issue is has to do specifically with doing the search via the search bar... for some reason. Is this a bug in the browser, or is there perhaps some setting that could cause this to happen in the about:config page? Though, I doubt a setting could be it because I've changed the settings I've changed now for years without causing this issue.

I wish to search fs paint numbers but keep getting this message cannot accsess gb.search.yahoo.com.

Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.

We can’t connect to the server at gb.search.yahoo.com..

Apologies for not being able to follow instructions. I went to settings/search/default search engine and selected the one I want in the dropdown. But I don't see how to save this change and now it defaults to Bing.

While I enjoy the capability of selecting a search engine as I see fit, I would prefer that my local drives take precedence. Is there an easy way to enable this for everyday casual use? In other words, can I specify "search local drives first, followed by the web i.e. casting a wider net to search on the world wide web, and an arbitrary third placeholder such as foreign sources (example only) or foreign news items (again, fictitious example)

A while back they made an annoying change to the search field and I wondering if there's a setting to get it back to the way it was.

My default search is Google but lets say I want to buy something. I type "garden hose" in the search field and switch the search to Amazon. Nothing happens. It used to go automatically at that point. Now I need to press enter or the arrow next to the search field. Not a big deal but why did they change that?

Next I want to find out about the 15th US president. I open another tab and search for the "15th president" and it goes to Amazon again. I realized I changed my default search engine. It used to be that I could temporarily change the search engine and it would immediately go back to my default.

I think these 2 facts make the current search field much worse than before.

Is there some way to change it back? I looked over the settings but couldn't find anything.

If I type a URL incorrectly I https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?q=doh&cat=web&language=english displays. How can I eliminate this and just get notification that the address cannot be found?

My search engine has stopped working. I just get blank pages when I enter any subject in the search bar. I am forced to open a private window which always works without issues. Closely related to this problem I believe, is the fact that any online forms I try to complete and submit will not submit. Again if I copy and paste the address into a private window, I can complete and submit without any issues.

It is getting very frustrating to keep having to go private windows.

When I open a new tab, it opens fine, I get all the articles as per normal. But when I enter my search criteria I get nothing (see attached screenshots)

Hello! I saw that the Test day event had started. In Firefox Beta, I entered messaging-system-action.testday in about:config, put it on a string and set the value to testday as it said in the instructions. When I restarted Firefox, the welcome window did not appear and there was also no letter S next to the search as it should be. Please help!

Thanks for the answers!

Vexi

When I use the search engine it will not open and says "Hmm we're having trouble finding that site". My Bookmarks all work and open fine but i cannot search anything?

I actively use keywords to search from the address bar, mainly g for google, gs for google scholar and w for wikipedia. Until a recent update (until last week, I think), pressing ctrl + L to go to the address bar would select all the text in the address bar, including the keyword, such that if I had made a google search by typing g and some query, I could immediately do a wikipedia search by typing w and some query.

Now, with an updated firefox (141.0.3, on xubuntu 24.04), the search engine from the previous search remains when I press ctrl + L, so I have to type backspace(s) to remove the search engine keyword, before typing a new keyword.

Is it possible to get the old behaviour back?

I used to be able to right click on the search drop down menu and open YouTube without typing anything. Now it requires a search. A minor inconvenience I know, but all the same.

Thanks

I am trying to change my default search engine to Firefox and it isn't allowing me. What could be preventing this? and how do I get around it? Thank you in advance for your help.

I have Brave set as default search engine. I type in the address bar, hit enter, and always get a Brave screen with "404 Nothing matches the given URI". I downloaded the Brave browser and the problem goes away. But I prefer Firefox as my browser, so I'm hoping there is an easy fix to this.