https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1334131

I use the Firefox page as my home page, and I never use Google to search. I use DuckDuckGo. I avoid Google like the plague. I don't like tabs, either. I've tried to have each page pop up separately. With tabs I have to switch back and forth, which is a pain when I'm trying to compare things written in separate locations. If I'm comparing, I watch to be able to see what I'm comparing at the same time.

Somehow I found this, and it expresses my sentiments exactly! Thank you, Steve!

"We come to firefox to avoid all the crap the other browsers force on you. I like to search from the google search window on my firefox homepage. It is very distracting to have it automatically move to the address bar. Please leave basic functions alone. Please stop showing us all that is new. If we want to see new features we can look for them. If there is a feature we want, we can look to see if it is available. When I open firefox I only want to see a clear screen with an empty google search window in the middle. Then I want to type something into that search window and have it stay in the search window. Then I want to hit return and have firefox take me to google showing my search results. Please I only want what I was looking to find. I do not wish to upset anyone, but you have absolutely nothing worth while to ever suggest for me. Remeber that if I want to find something I will go and find it. The same may apply to features. Turn them all off and let us choose what we wish to use. Default should be off for everything that doesn't disable the browser. Steve"

What Steve said. Thank you, Steve. Only difference ~~ I don't use Google, I use DuckDuckGo. And when I start to type in the Search Bar, what I type shifts up to the top, and nothing appears in the Search bar where I'm typing. And when it shifts to the top, the window comes down with all kinds of suggestions and hides the Search bar that I want to type in anyway. Look, I'm 76 years old with cataracts. I can see the nice large Search Bar. That small address bar duplicates what I'm typing, but it's hard to see. It's too small. And the window that comes down with all of the crap on it makes it worse. I've used Firefox for years, decades even ~~ but this is terrible.

Have you noticed the solution I posted: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1334131

Franz_von_Suppe Top 25 Contributor

Yes, Thank you for your solution. But because I'm a senior gal of 76 who didn't grow up with the jargon used by computer people, I wasn't sure about the words. I've had to guess what the Address Bar is compared to the Search Bar. The Address bar is the small one on the left at the top? And the Search Bar is the larger one in the middle? That's what I'm assuming.

By looking though what you posted, I've seen that I'm not the only person who has a problem with this. So I've read what a lot of people have said. I found some post that said that I could disable the suggestions on the drop down menu on the Menu bar. But I have no idea where the Menu bar is or what it looks like or how to use it.

Once again, if things show up in tabs, the previous page with the directions on it is hidden! I need separate pages in order to follow the directions step by step!

Thank you so much for the help that you have provided so far. I am really frustrated with the new 89 format which I finally decided to try just a couple of days ago, and I regret it already: Fully 3/4 of my computer screen is all white with the Address bar and the Search bar and the word Firefox with much too much white useless space between them all. I have to scroll down to find the squares that show the sites that I like to go to, and they are much tinier than they used to be. It's a bad design for people with poor eyesight, and it leads to too much scrolling down to find anything at all. All of that bright white is terrible for people with cataracts!

OK ~~ I found this sentence: "The address bar will give you search suggestions (if they are turned on), SO HOW DO I TURN THEM OFF? I thought that I found the answer earlier ~~ something that I could do from the Menu bar (wherever that is) but it wasn't to turn off the suggestions, just to change Search Engines. This is just too much confusing reading with no answers in 1. 2. 3. 4. format, and it's killing my eyes.

I never wanted to go to Safari (I have a desktop iMac, so maybe that's the problem) ~~ but Firefox has so much of my stuff saved, and if I try Safari I'm starting all over again. I'm too impatient to do that.

I HATE YOU FIREFOX, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THE NEEDS OF SENIOR CITIZENS WHO HAVE USED YOU FOR MANY YEARS.

You can set keyword.enabled to false on the about:config page.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can click the button to "Accept the Risk and Continue".

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox

You can also check the settings in "Options/Preferences -> Search".

To all of the nice people who wrote here and tried to help me:

Somehow I found a way to turn off the drop down box with the annoying suggestions. There was a suggestion about finding "Menu" at the top of the Firefox page, but it is not labeled in any descriptive manner. But by clicking around, I finally found a page where I could uncheck all of the boxes that had to do with showing previous searches, so now the drop-down box with previous searches doesn't occur anymore. I have no idea how I found that page. I just kept searching different articles that were linked to various answers.

So my problem is half-way solved because the annoying drop-down box is gone! I still type in the larger Search box, and no typing appears there. It stays blank, and what I type still goes up to the address bar. I don't understand it's purpose for being there if what you type there can't be seen there, since it takes up so much room on the page! So if anyone can give me directions on how to make the typing in the Search bar visible to those of us with aged eyes, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you again to those who tried to help me, and to those who wrote similar questions previously.

To Cor-el:

Thank you for trying, but your instructions ended up with this:

"Warning: Changing these advanced settings can sometimes break Firefox or cause strange behavior. You should only do this if you know what you're doing or if you are following trustworthy advice."

Because I didn't understand so much of the jargon on that page, I didn't even try it. I don't know what many of the words in "computer-ese" mean or what they will do if I mess with them. As I mentioned before, I am firmly stuck in the 20th century and I liked it there!  :)

If you do this, you can type again in the large Search box:

(1) Type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste handoff.

(3) Double-click the browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar preference to switch the value from true to false.