Firefox opens with cursor in Search box not Address box. Can this be changed?
When Firefox opens in (Firefox) Home page the cursor is in the Search box, not the Address bar. Can that be changed? I see nothing in the Options pages to do so. I do see on the Community that others have asked for the reverse. It appears Mozilla have changed the default around in the latest/recent versions of Firefox. But I don't see any instructions on how to alter the default.
MOZILLA : May I suggest that this is made an Option configurable item (set in the General or Search page) so that the default behaviour can be set per User?
Chosen solution
Generally speaking, when Firefox loads a page with a "real" document body, the focus is placed on the body of the page. The new tab page is a special exception because regardless of what page you load in the new tab, Firefox will try to select the address bar. (In some cases, the page will override Firefox's efforts.)
The built-in Firefox home page (about:home) has an autofocus attribute on the search box, which is a feature of HTML5 forms to give websites better control of the flow of their pages. You can disable Firefox from following the autofocus attribute by toggling browser.autofocus to false in about:config, but this only restores the default behavior of the body of about:home being focused.
Maybe there's an add-on for this? Otherwise, as a workaround, Ctrl+L or Alt+D will move the cursor to the address bar.
Suggestions for future versions of Firefox may get more notice here: https://input.mozilla.org/feedback
Read this answer in context 👍 5All Replies (8)
Dear IanBJ, Yes, this can change!
You have to do some little change in your Firefox Browser. Go to "Open Menu" and click on Options.
Then you can see Startup setting in General. Then change Show my home page to Show a blank page.
Finally restart your Firefox browser. Now your cursor will stay at adddress bar. Thanks.
Thank you, Sohelranapw, for your reply. Unfortunately that changes the Home page to a blank page - which I do not want - though I do see a Search box remains on the Address toolbar area.
I was really hoping that when Mozilla changed the default over from "start with cursor in the Address bar" to "start with cursor in the Search box" they might have added a switch in the Options so users could set the startup cursor position to either box. Sounds like that's not yet so, but it would be helpful and good practice.
Set your own choice of a home page. See - How to set the home page
"start with cursor in the Address bar" never existed as a preference; has never been something the user had direct control over, either.
In the past Firefox used http:www.google.com as the default home page in Firefox for many years, which had focus in the search field, too - [personally, I didn't like it then, and still don't like it]. The default home page was changed to an "internal page" in Firefox 4.0 = about:home. When the now existing about:home internal page was made the default in Firefox 4.0, having the cursor focus in the newly added "search container" was planned to be that way. I have never liked that myself, so usually I change my default home page to something else and have the cursor focus in the Location Bar / address bar.
The actual Search Bar is and always has been on the Navigation Toolbar [Address toolbar area? - as you mentioned] , along the the Location Bar; where a number of different feature / control "buttons" are placed, too.
There are two startup settings, one for the startup behavior and another for the home page setting. You can set the home page to about:home and the "When Firefox starts" setting to "Show a blank page". Alternatively you can add -url "about:blank" to the target field of the Firefox desktop shortcut.
You can click the Home button to open the about:home page if necessary.
Chosen Solution
Generally speaking, when Firefox loads a page with a "real" document body, the focus is placed on the body of the page. The new tab page is a special exception because regardless of what page you load in the new tab, Firefox will try to select the address bar. (In some cases, the page will override Firefox's efforts.)
The built-in Firefox home page (about:home) has an autofocus attribute on the search box, which is a feature of HTML5 forms to give websites better control of the flow of their pages. You can disable Firefox from following the autofocus attribute by toggling browser.autofocus to false in about:config, but this only restores the default behavior of the body of about:home being focused.
Maybe there's an add-on for this? Otherwise, as a workaround, Ctrl+L or Alt+D will move the cursor to the address bar.
Suggestions for future versions of Firefox may get more notice here: https://input.mozilla.org/feedback
Thank you all for the history and explanations, especially JSCHER2000. Clearly there's no existing direct way to do what I'd hoped for, but the workarounds are useful to know - or I may just choose a nicer Home page! Have made the suggestion on Feedback as you advised. Many thanks all.
to be clear, in version 42.0, "Show a blank page" does what long-time Firefox users like myself expect.
But there is a new option in that popmenu, "Show my windows and tabs from last time".
imo, this should be a separate checkbox, as if there is no prior windows, then it seems to default to the "home page" which isn't set, thus displays the search page, which isn't what we want.
If there is no prior windows, then it should be the blank page, with cursor focus in the address bar.
Hi nharkins, can you get what you want if you type or paste about:blank as your home page address? Or do you already have that?