NB: ⌘-T is actually much cooler than ⌘-t (which you are describing): it opens up the last tab you just (accidentally) closed.

⌘-k: Focus to search (G:) menu [Same as Thunderbird]
⌘-l: Focus to address bar

What extensions do you have installed? My initial suspicion is that one of those extensions is overriding the default behaviour. Perhaps temporarily disable all your extensions, and see if Firefox reverts to the original placement of focus?

I knew about ⌘-F12 to bring back a deleted tab but not ⌘-Shift-t. I deleted the search bar from my browser so I'd have more room for the address bar. (I have shortcuts for common search engines instead; "g some google search", "y some yahoo search", etc.) But at least ⌘-l will save me from fiddling with the trackpad. Thanks, Keith!

Jason, I suppose extensions are a good place to start. The bug's arrival was not coincident with a new or updated extension, so I didn't bother testing. Sloppy debugging on my part.

A different extension caused the same behavior on my mac - the rewind/fastforward buttons. This was SO SO annoying, and somehow I haven't thought of extensions till now. Kept typing things in old windows even though opened new tabs...

Thanks.

This annoys me as well; whereever the cursor might be, it´s apparently right before the adress bar, so hitting the tab right after opening the new tab also gets you there..

I´m aware that this is probably caused by tabmixplus or the like but still using shift doesn´t do the deal for me; when i open a new tab, 90% of the time i want to type something, otherwise i´d have opened it from bookmarks/recent tabs/whatever, right?

Ugh, now this is happening to me too. I'll try turning off extensions. Thanks for creating this page; I'll track it and wait for a solution.

I realize that this broke when I missed with my toolbars. I'd removed googlebar lite extension and was trying the firefox search box. I've reverted to googlebar lite and now focus works again as I expect when I create a new tab.

I want the focus to default to the search bar... any ideas of how to do this, or know if it's even possible yet?

I've been waiting for this for a while, I never type in addresses in the URL bar, in fact I think it's dangerous (whoops I went to goggle.com). I use YubNub.org as my default engine and EVERY time I open a new tab with ⌘-t I seal the deal with ⌘-k...

I know that this post is REALLY old, but looking for a solution, I came across this very forum. So for those who have the same problem, deactivating skype addon should fix it. At least id did work for me. Thanks