Mozilla shares details on newly released Firefox address bar and search improvements

Earlier this month, a senior Mozilla exec explained why it will be nearly impossible for Firefox to survive without help from Google. The firm understands that it has to do better in order to keep its user base and win more new users over (For reference, here is the latest May 2025 Statcounter data showing browser market share). As such, the company is trying to focus on its core areas, and in doing so, it recently killed two features: Pocket and Fakespot.

Mozilla also recently released another significant update. At the start of April, the firm rolled out a "Firefox Address Bar Refresh 2025," with headlining features like "Unified Search Button, Contextual Search Mode, and Contextual Search Engine Options" and more. You can check the release notes of that version, 137.0, in its dedicated article. At the time, Mozilla had shared some details about the features for a quick glance. However, this week, a new blog post was published where a more in-depth look has been provided.

There are multiple search-related improvements with this. Users can toggle and choose between every search provider, like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and options like History. This is meant to make it "easier to switch between providers and search modes" and to give "users real choice in how they explore the web."

Another neat quality-of-life improvement is how the original search still remains visible with this 2025 address bar refresh instead of being replaced when a user tries to alter the search provider. For example, say if you were trying to switch from Google to Bing, then previously, the address bar would remove the original search query and replace it with the Bing address.

Aside from these, Firefox is making it simpler to look up tabs, bookmarks and history using plain keywords. Also, actions like “clear history,” “open downloads,” or “take a screenshot” are possible with such commands by typing them into the address bar.

You can find the blog post here on Mozilla's official website.

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