"Ctrl+K" will put you at the search bar, but you want to start a new tab, and you can do both by always having your search be presented in a new tab. As it is you can enter your search into the search bar then press "Alt+Enter" to open in a new tab.

Likewise if you type a url into the location bar ("Ctrl+L") and want it to be opened in a new tab instead of the current tab use "Alt+Enter".

But for search better to set your options. Keep in mind that any options set within Google would have to be done for each id and for unsigned in.

Google Search results > upper right corner gear/settings:
Results Window:  [x] Open search results in a new browser window.
Google no longer uses Target="_new", so this option does what it should, either opens in same window/tab, or opens in a new window/tab (not a reused window named "_new")

and then in your Firefox about:config settings:
browser.search.openintab   Boolean   True -- When performing a search from the Search Bar, open the results in a new tab.

Also see (perhaps a little better written 4 months ago)

• https://support.mozilla.com/questions/840504

Please mark "Solved" one answer that will best help others with a similar problem -- hope this was it.

Ctrl+K and Alt+Enter are great to know, thanks! But not quite what I was looking for. What I want is for my cursor to automatically be in the search box. The equivalent of pressing Ctrl+K, but without having to do that. So whenever I open Firefox, it's already there.

You can have that in the default Firefox home page. Type about:home into the location bar to see if you like that -- I can't stand the page, but it acts like what you want.

The main point I'm trying to make is that there is no advantage to starting from a search page. You have a much better advantage starting from a search engine. There are also keyword shortcuts.

Personally i like to have my browser start on a blank page and then i commence my search from the search bar built in to firefox, im having the same problem as the op the question I'm asking and i think the op is asking the same thing, is there a way too have the cursor focus to the firefox (built in) search bar on opening? is there some about:config cursor focus setting? is there some script or something i could run when ff opens to Ctrl+k to my search bar