Seeing as this topic seems to be pursuing this issue … there are two schools of thought (for me).
- Set a different search engine to the least obnoxious one. That’s what I have done. So obviously not Google.
- Set a different search engine to the least likely to be used one and then use DNS poisoning to hijack (and/or block) that one. However I fear that this approach to controlling the address bar might also stop the search bar from working, which may or may not be what someone wants.
What I would really like to be able to do - directly from the Firefox Preferences GUI - is disable search from the address bar. Period.
Another thing I would like to be able to do, particularly in the absence of being able to disable it, is easily introduce a Custom search engine that is completely under my control. That is, as I already run multiple web sites, I would really like to be able to direct the default search to a custom search engine and then it can decide with more nuance what to do with the search. (I have no interest at this time in actually implementing a search engine, so my custom search engine is either going to block some or all searches and, if allowing some searches, just relay the search to a real search engine.)