[InfamousRece]

That shitty search bar behavior is extremely annoying to me as well. Luckily it can still be disabled in about:config (the setting is called browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.improvesearch.handoffToAwesomebar or similar). “Awesome” bar is not that awesome.

[DidYaWipe]

Thanks, someone did point that out after I raised an issue. But one wonders why time was spent on such a misguided "feature."