Independent search box toolbar no longer lets you hit enter to go to your default search provider

[shin0bi272]

I just noticed in firefox 128.0 that I can no longer click in the search box and hit enter to go to my default search provider's homepage.  That was the way I got to that page for years and now all of a sudden it doesnt work.  While sure I can just search using that search provider in that box, that box also keeps a record of my searches while going to the search provider homepage doesnt. 

[NotAlex]

Adding to the comments. It seems like an odd choice to remove this from an accessible point of view. Typing Gmail into the url bar is more clicking than the single click for a blank search to google home page to get to ones email. This brings good usability value as It’s a lot harder to navigate via typing for some. That or it’s time to remove the Firefox “homepage” so the new tab is now google. 

[Draft]

Adding to the comments, this is a terrible change for my typical workflow. The search window took me to the search page when I hit enter, whether I pre-supplied a search term or not shouldn't matter.

[Ololeg]

Put it back, please.

[EzekyleA]

I need it back, it feels so broken now.

I have to enter a random character only to delete it on the new tab's search again ._.

[Xardius]

This search bar is really the only thing that keeps me using Firefox. If this gets broken now too, I won't bother with you any longer.

[2SS2]

I used to go to search provider's main page by clicking search bar panel icon. But it no longer works... It's very upset... I hope they will fix it... If they did it on purpose I do not understand their goals. It makes the product worse and disappoints users. What is the profit of such decision?

[FF-user]

Now even the mouse click on the search engine icon doesn't work on v.129 :facepalm:

And, as @FF-gets-worse mentioned, they made another one, a few versions ago. If you use both the non-Private Firefox icon and Firefox Private icon pinned to Win taskbar or desktop, just try to launch the Firefox Private first and then launch the non-Private Firefox, this trick/bug/feature will automatically open the last opened web page in the non-Private Firefox browser.

They didn't fix this, but they "fix" the press Enter on search bar 🤣

[Cyris]

I used to open the dropdown menu with a blank search bar and click on the YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc., icon to go directly to the respective site's homepage. Bring back that BuG, i neeeed it, FF searchbar WAS selling point

[romanpaladino]

Yes, I use it exactly the same way.  Without this search bar feature might as well use a different browser.  I hope that they bring it back!

[agedude]

Using search bar icons as shortcuts was an outstanding feature I've used for many, many years.  Please return the function!

[Gonzague]

That was my main shortcut to access youtube homepage and google image search, what kind of genius thought it was a good idea to remove a functionality which wasn't causing any issue? Awful decision.

[Eildath]

Removing this functionality has made the browsing experience considerably worse.  Please revert this.

[LogUserFX]

This is a real pity. It was very convenient to use the search bar also as quick bookmarks by opening the search engine homepage, and I remember that the engines themselves can be added and customized.
It is to be hoped that ESR was not involved in this unnecessary and unproductive change. At the moment I seem to be suffering from the phantom search engine syndrome.

[Gmetotbo]

It's for our own good, and we're too dumb to know better.

How much does Google pay to encourage you to deprecate your own work?

[nljqdkwjqe]

This issue hit me yesterday and I signed up specifically as a result.

It doesn't matter if the devs believe that the removed feature "doesn't seem to adding much value" when clearly - to some people - it does.

For my own reasons I prefer the long-standing previous functionality. Since it went away my muscle memory has been leading me to click fruitlessly on the search box toolbar and it is deeply frustrating.

I really, really would prefer that this change is reverted.

As already pointed out by KellyClowers: "Users hate change" and given Firefox's current market share I simply can't understand why anyone would even consider making changes that might antagonise users.

[XangelMusic]

Similar to this I would click on one of the search engine buttons, e.g. X, to go to their search engine or Home Page. Now since I can't do that anymore, the Search Bar feature is rendered useless to me. I guess I have to use the Address bar instead. Thanks Mozilla.

[The_Madhatter]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sometimes uses the search bar as a "shortcut" to open a blank page of different websites and start from there. Sometimes I want to specify some search parameters before I enter the search term. I hope they bring this back. Otherwise, I'm going to ditch the search bar completely and add a folder to the bookmarks toolbar.

[NomAnor]

It's a really annoying change because it makes me jump through extra hoops of adding more unnecessary bookmarks. Especially while relaxing in bed i have to enter more prompts on my keyboard instead of just using my mouse to simply navigate to a website like Youtube and Amazon and i have to enter something in the search bar which doesn't even send me to the frontpage of the website i want to go to.

[SuperGorila]

Please get this back.
I use the search icons from my engines as a "bookmark" to go to the websites home page 😅 (like YouTube)
Adding a space to the search does not go to the site's home page, it does a search...

(edit: I registered here just to give this feedback)

[Adrian4711]

+1

Such a shame. Every single time I get used to a userflow dynamic in FF, they eventually ruin it for no real reason. The "bug" that was addressed with this change was minor and completely irrelevant compared to the functionality taken away by this "fix".

[FF-User1]

Agreeing with everyone here, after I got used to clicking the search icon to get to the search engine's homepage after Firefox removed the "hitting enter in blank search bar", the latest update removed that workaround as well!

Very strongly disagree with their rational in removing this functionality (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1912132) - if I wanted the search toolbar to function the same way as the address bar, then why bother using the toolbar in the first place?

[Modgamers]

The new changes also make it impossible to open a new tab by juts clicking in the icons with middle mouse button. It used to work, and you can restore that feature by changing "browser.tabs.searchclipboardfor.middleclick" from false to true in about:config. But you can't do it, when the search bar is empty. So you have to - as someone suggested - put one space bar into the search bar to use it as before.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

For information purposes
https://www.camp-firefox.de/forum/thema/138058-benutzt-eigentlich-noch-jemand-das-suchfeld/?postID=1...

[The_Madhatter]

Hey thanks, with the referenced script I was able to fully restore the old behavior.👍

Normally I don't like messing around at this level, but now I'm set until Firefox maybe reverts this change.

[FF-gets-worse]

THX! But I guess I have to find an alternative on the long run, being neither being Firefox or Chrome based ...

[ttt7]

Is there English information on how to use that script somewhere? I can't read German.

[LogUserFX]

https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts?tab=readme-ov-file#userchromejs

https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js?tab=readme-ov-file#scripts

At the moment this useful script perform an empty search and I doubt the opening of the homepage can be restored like before especially for users who customized it.

[RHimadiiev]

Please, bring it back.

[peprojo7]

absolutely disgusting change, i'll uninstall Firefox unless this is reverted. Typing my search in the top bar allows me to see previous visited pages way faster!

Undo this change!!!!!!!

[ttt7]

Any updates on when we can expect a fix? The previous behaviour had no real downsides. "Doesn't seem very useful to me" is not a reason to go out of your way to remove some long-standing functionality that clearly a non-negligible amount of users relied on. None of the workarounds suggested are anywhere near as comfortable as the previous behaviour.

Like entering a space -- it needs the extra keypress to start off, then it takes you to the search results page instead of the home page, which (among other significant differences) does not start with the search bar highlighted, so to be able to type your query you need to click it, or use awkward hotkeys like "/" (in the case of Google). Compare all that nonsense to just... pressing enter. Done.

Just like the recent change that forced private sessions to not be grouped with non-private sessions on the Windows taskbar, this is another functionality downgrade with no clear upside that obviously was implemented without much thought about how it might affect users with a different use case to that of whatever devs were involved with the decision. And just like with that change, I hope you won't be too stubborn to go back and return the functionality to what it is. More generally, I plead those involved in UX decisions to more directly involve users when it comes to weighing the pros and cons of suggested changes. Firefox is such a great product in general, I've been using it for decades and I do what I can to convince more people to switch over... but there are also so many instances of self-inflicted wounds over the years. I understand making some bold changes that might alienate a few existing users when there is at least the promise of a big upside on the other side. Most FF "fails" over the years are not really like that. They are just semi-arbitrary decisions where the risk involved in the change wasn't even recognized ahead of time, so the fact that any upsides would be negligible at best wasn't seen as particularly problematic, until the update hit regular users and complaints flooded in.

[LogUserFX]

🚦  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1912540

[romanpaladino]

Taking away this feature was a bad move.  I've been using FF as my primary, if not only, browser for 15+ years. One of the things FF had over other browsers was the search bar, and with that particular feature.  Without it might as well use DDG or Brave. For now I reverted back to a previous version and will keep ignoring the prompts to update until it becames a problem. Hopefully by then this will be fixed.

[Brianb253]

Hey Firefox - PUT. THE. CANDLE. BACK!  Please

[kfall]

I registered just to complain about this. I read the rationale for the change and it's absurd. That one dev personally does not use this functionality so he has unilaterally decided it doesn't add value. I used this functionality repeatedly on a daily basis. It is extremely annoying now.

[dbunting]

It's gotten even worse now. With 128.0 you could still click on the magnifier, then click on the default search provider's icon, or any of the others installed, to open a new tab with that provider loaded. Now with 129.0 you can't even do that. I mean, what's the point of even having "This time, search with:", it's totally useless now. What's next, killing the Enter key support altogether to totally disable the search box?

[jscher2000]

---

@dbunting wrote:

It's gotten even worse now. With 128.0 you could still click on the magnifier, then click on the default search provider's icon, or any of the others installed, to open a new tab with that provider loaded. Now with 129.0 you can't even do that. I mean, what's the point of even having "This time, search with:", it's totally useless now.

---

Classic short search bar? You need to type your query in the box first before clicking the one-time search button (to send to a new tab, you can either hold down the Ctrl key while clicking, or in about:config, switch browser.search.openintab to true so a regular click sends your query to a new tab).

[romanpaladino]

Now, with 129.  But many of us don't want to need to type a query first.  127 was perfect in that regard, there was no need to muck with it.

[Brianb253]

Put the option for search/no search in the About:Config area. Let US make the decision, not an engineer who thinks it is not needed. PLEASE

[romanpaladino]

Exactly. That option should be available in the about:config.

[Pazuzu]

Dear FireFox team: Engineers don't know anything about UI/UX. Please stop letting them make those decisions, and if they do, let them just add a switch. This was the change that prompted me to make an account. Enough. Let US decide and please add it back.