How To Disable Firefox Quick Find

[Note added 2009-07-19: The advice given in this post is now out of date.  In modern versions of Firefox it is possible disable Quick Find using the menus.  On windows, click: Tools > Options > Advanced > General and deselect Search for text when I start typing.  On Linux click: Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General and deselect Search for text when I start typing.]

Recently I have found that when I start typing into a text box in Firefox I often get a Quick Find bar coming up at the bottom of the screen.  This happens if I am typing ahead.  Firefox seems to be interpreting characters typed at a web-page as a search string.  I don't remember having asked for this behaviour and I find it rather annoying.  I would much rather have Firefox silently ignore the type-ahead characters.  At least then I would not have to go to the trouble of removing the unwanted Quick Find bar (or sitting and waiting until it removes itself).  Fortunately a little research revealed the following fix:

Enter about:config in the Firefox URL line and click Go.

Select the line starting accessibilty.typeaheadfind and double click it until the Value field is false.

Comments

[pluvialis]

Thank you thank you thank you. It has been driving me mad. Right up there with paperclip nonsense.

[Gerd]

Thanks a lot! This simply is great :-) The behavior of quickfind drove me mad. Strange enough, tips like this regularly I only can find on English speaking web pages. There is little to find on German speaking pages (I'm writing from Germany).

[christdude]

Thank you so much for this tip. It seems like quick find would keep me from typing in search boxes, and that simply wouldn't do. Had to rid of it. Thanks again!

[Cyn]

Thank you for the solution! It's been annoying me like hell for months. Finally got to changing it.

[s]

Thank you so much! this feature bugs the crap out of me.

[Paul B]

Thank you, quickfind is the biggest pain in the ass ever introduced to firefox.

[Rob Conley]

Thanks a million!!!!

[Patrick]

Impressive young Skywalker. Obiwan has taught you well.

Thank you very, very, very much!

[carazy]

Easier way. TOOLS-->OPTIONS-->(ADVANCED TAB)

Unclick "Search for text when I start typing"

[CampPostal]

Thank God!!

[TMoody.com]

THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!!! Really.... I love you for this. This has drove me crazy!

[Hazuki]

Wow that stupid thing was driving me crazy thank you. :)

[zorca]

thank you!!!!

finally.

[trombone13]

Thank goodness! Quick Find has driven me insane for far too long. Thanks so much for the info! :D

[Mark Baker]

If you type a forward slash the Quick Find comes up - how do you get rid of that?

[alex]

Holy Moly !
THANKS SO MUCH I WAS ABOUT TO GO CRAZY TRYING TO GET RID OF THAT THING !!!
thanks again !

[student]

Thank you so much! :-)
It was very annoying.

[pj]

Thanks a ton!

[asicok]

Of course, Thank You!!!
Firefox/mozilla should make this readily configurable with their
options/preferences, not buried in their mystery files.

[SmokyOkie]

There are about 10 different typeahead find entries, all with different extensions. Which on do I want?