[mrob]

I don't even want my browser to support searching from the browser UI. If I want to send information to Google I'll visit their web page directly. I don't want to do it by a misclick.

It's surprisingly difficult to disable searching from the browser UI in Firefox. Firefox insists you have at least one search engine enabled at all times. The best option I know of is to set the undocumented setting "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to "true" in about:config, which enables an "Add" button in the Search preferences for adding custom search engines. You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine.

[crtasm]

I achieved this by turning off a handful of config options for the address bar's suggestions; setting the search input to be separate from the address bar, and hiding it via Customize Toolbar.

I think these were the most important:

  keyword.enabled
  browser.fixup.alternate.enabled
  browser.urlbar.suggest.searches

[mrob]

For many versions now, removing the separate search bar via Customize Toolbar reverts to combined URL bar and search bar. It also leaves the search option in the right-click menu.

[JohnFen]

Oooh! That explains why I haven't been able to disable that stuff from the omnibar. I hate the omnibar -- I just want text entered there to be interpreted as a URL and nothing else -- but at some point, I wasn't able to configure it to be that anymore.

If this is why, you've just made Firefox better for me! Thank you!

[crtasm]

That may be the case, but typing into my address bar does not trigger or suggest searches. Good point about the right click.

[lagniappe]

>You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine.

YES! My friend, you have found my holy grail, thank you

[autoexec]

There are a bunch of about:config changes you can make to prevent searching from the address bar. I follow that up by going through and just deleting nearly every string with a URL in it.

[int_19h]

FWIW in Vivaldi you can completely disable search from address field in settings and then remove the search field from the toolbar.

[elaborate4013]

Are you talking about the address bar search? Just disable keywords in about:config then.