It's possible that you are having a problem with some Firefox add-on that is hindering your Firefox's normal behavior. Have you tried disabling all add-ons (just to check), to see if Firefox goes back to normal?

Whenever you have a problem with Firefox, whatever it is, you should make sure it's not caused by one (or more than one) of your installed add-ons, be it an extension, a theme or a plugin. To do that easily and cleanly, run Firefox in safe mode (don't forget to select Disable all add-ons when you start safe mode). If the problem disappears, you know it's from an add-on. Disable them all in normal mode, and enable them one at a time until you find the source of the problem. See this article for information about troubleshooting extensions and themes and this one for plugins.

If you need support for one of your add-ons, you'll have to contact its author.

If the problem does not disappear when all add-ons are disabled, please tell me, so we can work from there. Please have no fear of following my instructions to the line, as all can be easily undone.

It is not just on the google page but in the search bar of Firefox that I am experiencing incredible lag after the last update. I am on Mac (Lion).

You have disabled my add-ins as you pretty much do on every minor update which is also very very annoying. Can't you guys publish an extension API that you guaranteed stand behind and stop breaking my set of tools I would like to always have at hand? Sorry.. digression.

Breaking something as simple as a text entry field (search bar) is completely beyond what is acceptable in any browser. How did you manage to release without seeing this? When is it going to be fixed? I am loosing patience with Firefox. And no, it is not acceptable to tell your users to track down the providers of any add-ons when such basic functionality is screwed up.