If you can discover URL parameters that give you the old results page -- try pasting from IE's address bar to Firefox's -- you can add those parameters to the URL in the search plugin so Firefox sends them every time.

Please make a backup of your updated google.xml, because files in the program folder will get overwritten when you update.

If it can't be done through the URL, then CSS or an extension or user script would be your best workaround.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Pasting from IE's address bar to Firefox's - I get the same new layout.

Do you know what's IE's equivalent to FF's google.xml? And its location?

I don't know whether IE8 supported search plugins for its search box, but if it did, it probably would be in the dialog that opens when you use "Manage Add-ons".

If you want to see Google results in an old-time format, have you considered using https://startpage.com/ ?

Hi jscher,

Thanks again.

https://startpage.com/ is good but it lacks some functions.