The Find Bar was redesigned for the upcoming Australis user interface, coming in Firefox 28.0 or 29.0.

See this support thread - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/976166 - cor-el posted userChrome.css code for fixing the Firefox 25 Find Bar without the need for installing an extension.

Thanks for your reply and for pointing me to the .css code, it works great!

I understand that this change has been made for future releases, but change should be for the betterment of the product, not just for change sake. This change is not a step forward.

Thanks!

I haven't liked the Find Bar, period. I have been using a Retro Find extension for the last 6, 7, or 8 years since either Firefox 1.5 or 2.0 (whichever version the Find Bar was first introduced), to have a floating Find Box that can be dragged to a different position in the browser window. And it stays where you close it for the next use of it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/retro-find/
Believe it or not, that extension still works in the Nightly-UX version, which is slated to become Firefox 28 or 29. Woot!

Yeh, I considered that, but I prefer the static location so I don't have to move the search box out of the way. To each his\her own, as they say!

The dev team has also brilliantly removed the ability to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate the results in several contexts.

Before FF25, alt-n (and alt-p) would perform a 'find next' (or 'previous') if the button was visible. No longer.

Now, we can use enter and shift-enter to browse the results when the find bar is invoked with ctrl-f, aka the 'normal' find bar. Quickfind, however, doesn't support this feature. This seems backward, as quickfind is, if anything, more useful on limited keyboards.

F3 and shift-F3 remain valid in all contexts, not that they're documented anywhere. Good luck using them on Australis UI on tablets and phones, too.

Right now I no of know way to restore the functionality of quickfind. In particular, pure-keyboard navigation with "quick-find (links only)", is completely broken with no way to get to anything but the first matching link - this is 100% of my navigation technique for a home theater setup that lacks a mouse and whose remote keyboard lacks function keys.

I agree that the change to the find bar in 25 is very irritating. I noticed it immediately and starting looking for a reason why they would do something so stupid.

Note that current releases have an "Help > Keyboard Shortcuts" menu item that has been added because of these changes.

I agree - lots of Fx changes (but in other browsers, too) seem to be for the sake of change. Some software devs seem to make changes that improve productivity & are MORE intuitive.

Most browsers DON'T fall in that group. I guess "the masses" are so fickle & easily entertained, that any change, no matter how pointless - creates new excitement. Like new season's fashion; Ooh! Is lime green spandex going to be in? Or new Windows versions - which usually breaks about as much as it fixes.

I don't give a rat's A about "upcoming changes in Fx v42 & that's why they put part of the Find controls on the opposite side of screen." Makes perfect sense. Besides, any "upcoming changes" that by design, require putting part of options (for * A * feature) on OPPOSITE side of screen, doesn't make sense.

It's counter productive. Not just "I liked it the way it was & can't stand change, etc." It does NOT make sense to have options for same feature split between sides or top / bottom of screen.

Why not have a search engine search boxes at the top of screen (like now) & put the drop list to change engines... at the bottom of screen?? It makes as much sense.

Great: the more "mature" a software gets, the LESS user friendly it gets.

Even our worst skilled users know how to use Alt-xxx shortcuts. But now,

- users have to study a keyboard help documentation (before, it was obvious) - the Find function offers less features and is no longer obviously usable by keyboard

It's a nightmare, that you have such UX Designers and that they are able to put such ideas into productive releases.

Kind regards, Thomas