Awsomebar. Please Fix This! Or allow us to!

[Scarabrae77]

Since Firefox updated to 147.0.3 on my Windows 11 Pro 64-bit system, typing in the search box on the New Tab page keeps getting redirected to the address bar even though handofftoawsomebar is set to false.

I checked about:config to confirm that handofftoawsomebar is definitely false, but the issue still started immediately after the update.

It’s extremely frustrating. On a large monitor, I have to physically look up to see the address bar, so having my typing redirected there every time is really disruptive.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Take a look at Firefox 147.0.3 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2016227

Firefox 148, browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar has been removed
Take a look at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/firefox-148-0-is-not-allowing-me-to-use-the-search-bar-it... similar question

[PaulFirefoxUX]

Hello!

Firefox search UX designer here.

It sounds like you have been using the unsupported config setting that allowed the search bar in the middle of the homepage screen to work instead of jumping you up to the address bar.

As a result of seeing other threads on Connect and on Reddit about this, we've decided to revive this config setting asap. You can track this from comment 7 here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2017049#c7

For context: we're working on an improved search experience for the homepage so that everybody can have a much better search without being bounced to the address bar. (we call this bounce the 'handoff', and we know it's not a good user experience).

The first part of prepping for that work was to change the code for the existing homepage search bar – but we hadn't ancitipated that some people were using the unsupported 'disable the handoff' config setting as an accessibility workaround.

Since we saw that that was happening, we're reinstating it until the longer term improvements are ready.

[Scarabrae77]

When is it being reinstated? 

[PaulFirefoxUX · Accepted solution]

It's in Nightly today, and should be in Release at the next dot-release on March 10. That's the earliest opportunity.

[Scarabrae77]

Thanks Paul, but until then I'm afraid I shall be using other browsers. After using FF since it's inception, I nearly had a heart attack when I read elsewhere you'd hardwired it....

[PaulFirefoxUX]

You can use Firefox Nightly today. It has all the latest in-development features in it before they get released widely. It's the third link on this page: https://www.firefox.com/en-GB/channel/desktop/

Not sure what you mean by "hardwired it" – you mean removing the config? As I explained in my first reply, the plan is to make the search on the homepage actually work for everybody without the need to set a hidden config setting. We agree that making it jump up to the address bar is not a good user experience (I wasn't on the team when that happened, so I can't speak to the reason for it!).

[PaulFirefoxUX]

This config setting has now been reinstated 🙂 (in 148.0.2 – released today, March 10)

And more good news: we hear what people are saying in this thread and others like it, and we agree! We're moving towards making the search bar on the Firefox homepage work for everybody, without needing a hidden config setting.