You probably have some adware or toolbar that has changed the page used for a newtab.

• Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page
  • The search reset addon is useful for resolving this problem https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchreset/

The addon installs, changes settings, and uninstalls itself. But you may need to remove adware or that could change settings again. BUT note if you are using en-US (American) Firefox the addon resets to Yahoo as the search engine and you need to manually select Google afterwards.

Whatever the search engine selected to be used for the search toolbar should be the one used in the other Firefox searches including the location bar and new tab.

• See Search bar - add, change and manage search engines on Firefox

_{(edit couple of typos )}

john99,

You were right, I had multiple add-ons that were hijacking my tab search ; I disabled them and am now back to a more pleasant internet experience.

John, I can't thank you enough - you made my day.

Best regards,

MacCasey

You are welcome. Glad it is working again, and thanks for posting back.