Firefox 57 to drop the search bar

For most modern browsers, the search bar is a thing of the past now. The uni-bar design is quite handy when browsing the web on a mobile phone, but it looks great on large-screen devices as well. However, Mozilla Firefox is the last major browser that still displays the search bar next to the address bar. 

Mozilla Firefox 57 will come with a new user interface that is called Photon and comes without the traditional search bar. Right now, this element of the program's interface is redundant, as the user can search using the address bar. Even on large screens, the space currently occupied by the search bar could be used for something else.

Google Chrome (and the whole bunch of browsers based on it) and Internet Explorer/Microsoft Edge feature no search bar or it is hidden by default. On the other hand, the team behind Vivaldi decided to keep the search bar in business.

The Photon interface is expected to go live with Firefox 57 on November 14, but those who would like to keep the search bar around will be able to do so without too much hassle. New Firefox users will get the interface without a search bar, but to bring it back, they just need to go to Preferences > Search > Search Bar and to enable the "Use a single bar for searching and navigation" option.

Firefox's initial release arrived on September 23, 2002, and it took 7 years for Mozilla's browser to reach the peak of its popularity, hitting the 32 percent market share barrier at the end of 2009. Unfortunately, Google Chrome's ascension pushed Mozilla Firefox to a market share of around 13 percent by August 2017.

This move will not bring Firefox back on top of the food chain anytime soon, but it definitely looks like a step in the right direction. For a quick look at the changes that Firefox 57 promises to bring, feel free to check the movie below.