Simple extension to add a Google.com search box to the standard Firefox New Tab page. The New Tab page displays up to 9 thumbnail pictures of your most frequently visited web pages – many people find it a helpful way to jump to their most popular sites and Chrome offers a similar feature.
However, one thing it lacks is a Google Search box which would be useful if you often open a New Tab purely in order to do a search via Google…
[It is possible to change New Tab to just always open the Google homepage but then you lose the functionality offered by the thumbnail history.] A simple add-on can help:
Add Google Search to New Tab Page – this Firefox extension adds a plain Google search box to the New Tab page (above the thumbnails) – without having to click in the Search Box first.
Download it from Mozilla Add-ons here. Install the add-on and restart Firefox – there are no options to configure, it takes effect automatically.
Now whenever you open a New Tab you will see a Google search box just above the 9 thumbnails – the cursor is already focused in this search box so you can just start typing your search immediately as shown in the example below:
Search Google box, cursor auto focused in it
Conclusion
Add Google Search to New Tab Page is a simple add-on which does the job – it’s not overly pretty but it is effective. There are currently no options to change to a country-specific Google search or to use Autocomplete within the search box – hopefully the developer can add such features in the future.