hello, yes this is (unfortunately) the new intended behaviour in firefox 23 and upwards & was introduced to address the issue that many toolbars/adware are overwriting the keyword.url preference without the knowledge of users...

also refer to bug #738818 (please don't post in bug reports).

Additional comment the restartless add-on Keyword Searchmay solve the problem please see my post /questions/963439?page=2#answer-463664 ~J99

It is intended behaviour, another improvement. I am on Aurora and so notice this every now and again. Mild irritant & I have not yet tried to figure out if there is a workaround.

the change doesn't make much sense to me, since this change is making the search bar rather repetitive. the foobar addon does a nice job integrating it into the address bar: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/foobar

Hmm, interesting. Unfortunate change as far as I'm concerned, but I guess I'll have to live with it. Thanks for the replies, all!

I also found

• Quick Search Bar https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quicksearch/?src=search

But have not tried it.

I liked having the location bar use Google whilst having a choice of the defaults plus whatever else I have installed, from the search bar. No doubt someone will make an add-on that recreates that, maybe it already exists.

Now I sometimes key something in to the location bar and only realise when I get the odd results that I need to reset the searchbar.

Not sure I follow the logic of this helping with a search hijack. What's to stop a search hijack messing with the search bar options. Yes that can be reset but so can the keyword.

I am sure I will get used to it.

This is an interesting one

• http://www.cusser.net/extensions/contextsearch/

As the name suggests it works on the context search

I'd like to cast my (imaginary) vote in opting out of this behaviour. I hate it.

We previously had the option of two search bars. Now it's reduced to one.

The URL bar should be for URLs with default to google for real name searches. That's what makes sense. Not having typos look up YouTube, The PirateBay or whatever you have specced in the Search Bar.

Really, really, stupid change. At least give us the option of restoring the old system.

I believe the plan is that the Search Bar is going bye-bye in Firefox 25, leaving the Location Bar and the about:home page for searching.

You can consider to use a one letter keyword search for searching via the location bar.
You can set a keyword for an installed search engine via Manage Search Engines.

@the-edmeister, the screenshots for the australis redesign still show the presence of the search bar (though following this change it would be the next logical step to remove the bar)... i think this is part of the ongoing process of "dumbing-down" the browser.

Yes, assigning a keyword to Google will do it. I'll try that for a while. It's still an unneccessary annoyance though. Thanks.

What a moronic change. It significantly removes functionality, I'm sure there are ways of addressing programs changing the Keyword.URL value without completely destroying the point of having the keyword.URL value in the first place.

Seriously firefox, reverse this now. Some of us like having 2 different search options- address bar stays on google, and the search bar is usually on Wikipedia or something. Saves time and effort. I use firefox, despite its bloat, despite more and more frequent crashes, because it's customizable and has more functionality. If you make a slow browser that crashes a lot and doesn't allow for user control, then mozilla deserves to die.

All we try to do on this forum is try to solve users problems.

If you wish to leave a short feedback comment please use

• https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

Not sure where this subject may be discussed but it may be on topic at one of the developers fora:

• http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#general-development

I think there may be talk of considering developing search tabs that presumably may be multiple and customised with choice of search engine.

If you want to solve my problem, give me a way to go into the about:config and restore the old behavior. Because right now, I do have a problem, not a suggestion. Only trouble is, I just learned that my problem was intentional.

I am not aware of a method of changing this back, short of using an old, unsupported, insecure version of Firefox.

Finding one before 23 graduates from beta might be wise, then.

I'd go one further: fix it in the next beta.

Everyone I've spoken to is currently yelling at their screen over it.

No point in complaining here all we do as fellow users is try to help other users solve Firefox support problems.

We do not discuss development issues & development decisions.
You will not get developers attention here.
You my wish to post a short comment in feedback

• https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback

The change is apparently intentional, and unlikely to be reversed.

If you find a suitable workaround or addon that helps with this issue please post details.

So developers don't pay attention to the place people are coming when they have problems with firefox? No wonder they don't seem to be addressing any of the issues people actually care about, like the memory problems. They have their heads up their asses and don't actually know what's going on with their userbase.

That does explain a lot.

I understand developers will get results from the following

• Crash Reports that are submitted
  Mozilla Crash Reporter
• Telemetry reports (and to some extent and in the future FHR)
  Share data with Mozilla to help improve Firefox
• Summaries of Comments analyses from the Feedback system
  https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback
• Bugs that are filed

Remember this thread is relating to a deliberate decision that will have been made months ago. All we can do to try to help in this forum is to discuss workarounds.

Memory problems are an entirely separate issue, but in many cases will not now be caused directly by Firefox.