In theory, the Quick Find bar should not activate when pressing the apostrophe (‘) and slash (/) keys when you are in a text-box. However, many users have reported that the Quick Find bar does activate when pressing the apostrophe (‘) and slash (/) keys even if they are in a text-box. There is an extension called SearchHotKeys that will disable the apostrophe (‘) and slash (/) keys from invoking the quick find bar. You can still invoke via CTRL+F. This should work for Firefox 2 and 3*. Follow these steps below:
- Go to http://www.nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#searchkeys
- Right-click and select ‘Save Link As…’ on the link for your version of Firefox (1.5/2.0/3.0)
- Make a note where you are saving the extension (hint: save to desktop)
- Open the add-ons manager via Tools, Add-ons
- Locate the file you downloaded in Step 3 and drag into the Add-ons Manager window to install
- Restart Firefox
- Open a new tab and in the address bar type about:config
- Click I’ll Be Careful, I Promise on the ‘This Gun Is Loaded’ or ‘Void Your Warranty’ or any other warning
- In the Filter field type searchkeys.disable.all
- Double–click on entry to switch value to True
*Note with Firefox 3 you may not need to do steps 7-10 as it seems to automatically disable by default.
Update: 02/21/09 new link
The Firefox Extension Guru's Blog 
[…] Disable Apostrophe Invoking QuickFind Bar […]
This would be fine if I didn’t have any use for the QuickFind bar, but I do. How do I make it work on web pages but not inside rich text inputs?
[…] to add: I found a fix to the apostrophe opening the quickfind box here. Now I just need to get the arrow keys […]
[…] You can find the fix here, but I’ll give the summary. You got to install an Add-On (which is really just a cheat so you don’t have to do a bunch of hand coding yourself). If you’re lucky, that’s it. If you’re unlucky like me, then you also got to change a setting in the deep level config file. Plus make sure you undo a “fix” from another message board that, in fact, does the exact opposite of what you want to do (the correct setting is to uncheck the Search-For-Text box in the Tools>Options>Advanced>General settings). 1 hour and a few choice words later, I can now blog again. […]
Praise be! I was going to lose my mind if this didn’t fix it.. Thank you!
It looks like they moved their site from a .DE to a .ORG – the extension is now at:
http://www.nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#searchkeys
Thank you so much! I was going nuts, particularly since I use Yahoo mail and I couldn’t use the ‘ without activating quick search.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was driving me nuts but this worked like a charm!!!
Just want to write to say thank you. Like everyone else who posted here, I was slowly being driven nuts but how formal my emails were sounding. Simple fix and worked flawlessly so far.
Thanks,
Sadly, even with this plug in, and the searchkeys.disable.all set to true, I still have this issue.
Oh thank you so much! This has help greatly; indeed it has!
I love you! Thank you so much. I too was going nuts and thinking about *sob* giving up Firefox before I found your solution!
Oh man…LIFESAVER, I was going CRAZY
For heavens sake, I have gone through the routine numerous times trying to get FireFox to disable that Quick Find nonsense once and for all – seems when I do it it works for awhile then Quick Find comes back – I don’t want to have to do this every time I come in to use my email. If you disable it it should stay disabled! This is making me angry! I need to know what to do to stop it for good or, sadly, will have to find another internet provider because this is a royal pain & total annoyance!
As everyone else has said, THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Just did the install for FF 3.5.7 and it all worked great… and as you guessed, no need for items 7 to 10.
Thanks. Worked perfectly.