how do I get my google search bar back in the middle of my page insead of the Blank searh engine that is on my start up page now
Before I did the last upgrade with Firefox, I had the Google search bar in the middle of my start page. Now , after the upgrade, my Google search bar is up on a tool bar at top of the page and the when you type something in the large Firefox box in the middle of the page does nothing even though it has the Search box to the right of it. The restore last session is under that. I just have a large box in the middle of start page that does nothing. I wish that was my Google search box again.
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Restoring Google Search page as the home page
What you are looking at on the web page is a search form, not a search bar. Mozilla changed the default home page to about:home which is supposed to be faster because it is on your computer, but they piled on a few ornaments. There is a space which is essentially advertising space for Mozilla, or to tell you that you have a previous session available below the search form area.
You can replace that page with a real Google Search page http://www.google.com which like other Google pages has links at the top to other Google applications and tells you if you are logged into Google such as for GMail.
"Alt" > Tools > Options > General >
- When Firefox starts: "Show my homepage":
- Home Page: http://www.google.com
- Press "Ok" at the bottom of the options window.
Specific information on installing a home page is in
Some problems with terminology
The search bar is part of your toolbars and you can bring up any search engine you want in it.
Google has their own "Google Toolbar" extension, which you would do well to avoid.
The large empty space on the about:home default home page, is to tell you that you have a previous session available. You don't need that notification you can bring up your "Previous Session" from the History menu, and after that you can bring up previous windows (or all of them also from same History menu).
In fact if you would like to see the notification at the end of your session, enabling you to restore your current tabs see item #31 (#tabslost) in the following: ...
You can make Firefox Firefox 5.0 look like Firefox 3.6.18, see numbered items 1-10 in the following topic Fix Firefox 4.0 toolbar user interface, problems (Make Firefox 5.0, or 4.0.1, look like 3.6). Whether or not you make changes, you should be aware of what has changed and what you have to do to use changed or missing features.
If this answers your question please mark it as solved -- to remove from the unresolved problems.
With only the about:home homepage loaded, paste this code into the URL / Location Bar, and hit Enter.
javascript:{localStorage["search-engine"]="{\"name\":\"Google\",\"searchUrl\":\"http://www.google.com/search?q=_searchTerms_&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a\"}";void(0);}
This code is supposed to reset the searchContainer search engine on the about:home "page".
If the Google logo doesn't reappear and the searchContainer is still dead after running that code, your localStorage may be disabled. If so, localStorage will need to be re-enabled and that code run again.
Let us know it that works or not.