In this article, we’ve told, with the addition of Search Suggestions and One-click Search engines to the address bar in Firefox 55, Mozilla has made the search bar redundant.
The address bar in Firefox can now do everything or more what the search bar can. Modern browsers like Edge, Chrome and Opera also doesn’t ship both location and search bars.
Firefox 57 no longer displays search bar by default
And the Photon design which Firefox 57 ships with, demands for unified location and search fields. Anyway, Mozilla has removed the search bar and decided not to display it by default for new profiles in the main interface.
The Search bar has been moved into customize window, so that the Firefox user can drag and drop it onto the navigation toolbar.
Here, the location of search bar has to be controlled by a check box in about: preferences, which still needs to be added and the spec for it (looks like below) with default -‘Use a single bar for searching and navigation’- and optional -‘Display additional search bar in toolbar’- settings looks like below.
If you now install Firefox 57 with a new profile or visit customize dialog and click ‘Restore defaults’ button, you’ll see the Firefox toolbar having location bar with flexible spaces around it and no search bar for you, welcome to the new Photon UI!.
- Firefox 57 : Flexible Spaces added around URL and Search bar, Bookmarks button replaced with Library
The latest updates have added Downloads button to the Library panel.
Do note Mozilla seems to have abandoned the decision of offering downloads button by default in customize dialog, it will be in the main nav toolbar by default in addition to downloads in the Library panel.
- Firefox 57: First Look At Page Action Menu
- Firefox 57 adds ‘Duplicate Tab’ item to Tab Context Menu
- Firefox 57 gets a Preference to open bookmarks in a new tab
- Firefox 57 lets you Prevent Accessibility tools from accessing the browser
So when Firefox 57 releases, will you use the location bar for searching? Or bring the search bar using customize to toolbar and use it? What do you do then?
