how do I turn off search suggestions, totally and permanently?

Hello,

To turn off search suggestions in Firefox, click the menu button, select settings, selecting search tab in the left, and uncheck show search suggestions.

Thank you, but I had previously done that and it had no observable effect - tons of suggestions. I did it again and it still has no observable effect. I even unchecked every box including history, etc. No effect. I was using Google as my search engine; I even tried using DuckDuck Go as my search engine, still can't stop the suggestions.

Hi, not sure what exactly you are looking for, but try what's suggested here: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1284577#answer-1305964