topic Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again in Discussions

A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

kywarai — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:27:11 GMT

In the recent version 149.0, they've once again changed the behavior of the search bar. I can no longer open a search engine's homepage by simply pressing Shift+Enter.

Now it requires two extra steps: clicking the search engine icon to open the selection menu, and then holding Ctrl while clicking the search engine in the menu.

You have to understand - back in the previous frustrating update, version 128.0, they took a feature that originally required just a single press of Enter or a single mouse click, and changed it so that you had to press Shift+Enter instead.

For someone unfamiliar with how convenient that feature was, it might seem like no big deal, just one extra key.

But for me, it was a significant disruption to over a decade of browser habits. Even so, I eventually had no choice but to accept that change. At least it was still usable, right?

But now, even that small convenience has been taken away, again.

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

Agentvirtuel — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:05:33 GMT

Hello

Is it, about, Add the Search bar to your Firefox toolbar
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-search-bar-firefox-toolbar

For information https://github.com/Endor8/userChrome.js/tree/master/userChrome#hinweis
Firefox 128 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uhf1MuZ8ME
https://github.com/alice0775/userChrome.js/tree/master/149
Tested under Firefox 149 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1w_FcAbAiM

These discussions
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/update-149-0-made-searching-more-difficult/td-p/120608

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

TechHorse — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:54:16 GMT

kywarai, I noticed that as well.

I suspect that it might be due to the fact that the address bar does not respond to shift+enter on an empty field either, and the new search bar has started to share more of the address bar's code?

If that is correct, then perhaps this is just an oversight on their part when changing the search bar from its original code. When they realise, they may put the functionality back into the shared code and so it will now work in both bars?

On another note, I am still not sure why they changed the original enter / click-only behaviours for the search bar in the first place, and added in a shift?

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

Agentvirtuel — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:00:32 GMT

Hello

https://www.camp-firefox.de/forum/thema/138058-benutzt-eigentlich-noch-jemand-das-suchfeld/?postID=1254087#post1254087
I remember of this long discussions of several pages, Independent search box toolbar no longer lets you hit enter to go to your default search provider. These discussions no longer exists, due to probably a lot advertising spam links.

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

ClickRick — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 21:38:37 GMT

Similarly:

Ctrl+T (new tab)
Tab (move to search field)
Type search term

is now harder, needing an extra tab. Muscle memory counts for so much and they've broken something that wasn't broken.

Again:

Ctrl+T (new tab)
Tab (move to search field)
Type search term
Tab x n (select carefully-curated search engine)

And there's no way to restore the old behaviour.

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

Agentvirtuel — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 05:59:30 GMT

Hello

This information https://www.camp-firefox.de/forum/thema/140371-allow-search-oneoff-with-empty-text-uc-js-funkioniert-seit-ff-148-nicht-mehr/?postID=1288252#post1288252

Starting with Firefox 151, it works without a script to open the search engine via the separate search bar if nothing is entered in the search field and enter is pressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO_Uo1If1MY

Re: A frustrating update. They've changed the search bar behavior again

Agentvirtuel — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 07:29:23 GMT

[meta] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2002830

According to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2026230