Mozilla engineers aren’t removing the search bar altogether, but Firefox will hide this UI element by default. Users can still re-enable it by going to “Preferences ➝ Search ➝ Search Bar” and choosing the second option, as portrayed in the screenshot above.
Besides dropping the search bar and launching a new browser UI, Firefox 57 will also come with other major changes.
The biggest of these is that Firefox will drop support for add-ons built on its legacy Add-ons API. Only add-ons built on the newer, Chrome-compatible WebExtensions API will work in Firefox 57. Currently, about a fifth of all Firefox add-ons have been ported to the new WebExtensions API.
Further, Firefox 57 will also prevent accessibility apps from spying on users.
While Firefox will remain its own separate browser with its unique core engine, because of the addition of the WebExtensions API and by dropping the search bar, there will be critics that will call out Mozilla for “Chromifying” Firefox.
