There is a bug on file to address this, but I haven't checked on whether it will be back in Firefox 35 or maybe later. In the short run, you can upgrade to Firefox 34 and turn off the new search bar to use the earlier design. Here's how.

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste sear and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.search.showOneOffButtons preference to switch it from true to false. Then test in a new window (you can launch a new window by pressing Ctrl+n). The bar in the existing window(s) doesn't change.

This worked perfectly, many thanks!!!

You can use the Tab key to cycle through the search engines that show on the bar at the bottom. You can choose which are enabled via the "Options/Preferences > Search" window

cor-el said

You can use the Tab key to cycle through the search engines that show on the bar at the bottom. You can choose which are enabled via the "Options/Preferences > Search" window

Thanks, but that does not work for me. I need to constantly go back and forth between two or three main search engines, cycling through all the search engines is far from practical while the previous shortcuts work great.