Hi bionfa, it sounds like this problem is in the search results page of your favorite search site.

If it's Google, they are known to occasionally conduct user interface experiments on some of their users for a few days, or until enough people complain on their forums. A possible way to escape the test group is to clear cache and cookies, which is part of my "usual things to try" list...

If a site is generally known to work in Firefox, these are general suggestions to try when it stops working normally:

Cache and Cookies: When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, try either:

• right-click (on Mac Ctrl+click) a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info > Security > "Clear Cookies and Site Data"
• (menu bar) Tools > Page Info > Security > "Clear Cookies and Site Data"
• click the padlock or "i" icon in the address bar, then the ">" button, then More Information, and finally the "Clear Cookies and Site Data" button

In the dialog that opens, you will see one or more matches to the current address so you can remove the site's cookies individually without affecting other sites.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?

Double-check content blockers: Firefox's Tracking Protection feature and extensions that counter ads and tracking may break websites that weren't built to operate normally without the blocked components.

Do you see a shield icon toward the left end of the address bar, near the lock icon? More info on managing the Tracking Protection feature in this article: What happened to Tracking Protection?.

Extensions such as Adblock Plus, Blur, Disconnect, Ghostery, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin or uMatrix should provide toolbar buttons to manage blocked content in a page. There may or may not be a number on the icon indicating the number of blocked items; you may need to click the button to see what's going on and test whether you need to make an exception for this site.

Testing in Firefox's Safe Mode: In its Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the option/alt key when starting Firefox. (On Windows, hold down the Shift key instead of the option/alt key.)

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

thanks jscher2000 this is quite bizarre, after cleaning the cache the behaviour was back to normal but after a few hours it reverted to the same problem. I tried your other suggestions to no avail, to confirm it just happens with google on ff I tested it on chrome and there it's fine should I revert to a previous version?

edit: I tried an older version and a new beta but it didn't fix it

Hi bionfa, I'm not sure what else you can do to revert the page. I think I had it for a couple days several months ago and it eventually went away. I generally use Google logged out, which you could test by opening a private window and trying Google search there.

and in fact with a private window it works as expected this is a very odd action from google's side, I'll try contacting them I will just need to be logged out for the time being until it's sorted thanks again

Hi jscher2000 now with private windows and signing out I'm also unable to select the address. looks like google has decided and this is it. Are you maybe aware of any addons or hacks that could revert this to the normal state?

Hi bionfa, since we last spoke...

I have a "user script" that was broken by this new Google feature, because it works by clicking on the green URL text. As a workaround, the script now moves the green URL line out of the link. I can suggest trying that, even if you don't really need what the script does, at least as a temporary workaround:

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1679-google-site-tool-site-results-exclude-sites

(Scroll down and review the full description before trying to install.)

thanks man, always helpful, will check it