Update (Nov. 13, 2011): The workaround listed below has apparently been removed by Google.

I've been receiving a great deal of mail recently asking about why search terms in Googlebar Lite disappear after navigating away from a Google search results page. The short answer is that Google is to blame, and that Googlebar Lite will work around this issue in the next release now fixes this problem. For a longer explanation of what's really going on, feel free to continue reading.

Google recently mentioned that they would encrypt searches performed by those who are logged into their Google account. One of the changes of this new behavior is that Google no longer passes your search terms on to the website you visit. They claim to be doing this for security reasons, but from my point of view, this only hurts website authors. No longer can a website author see what search terms are bringing logged-in users to their site.

Here's a technical look at what happens: when you are logged in to your Google account, and you perform a web search, your search results are presented over an encrypted channel (an https URL). When you click on a search result, Google first forwards your click to an unencrypted channel (<an http URL), stripping your search terms in the process. They then send you to the search result website. Googlebar Lite picks up on that first step (the forward to the unencrypted channel), and gets confused as a result. It sees the search terms have been stripped, so it removes them from the search box.

There is one way you can currently work around this issue, until I can put a fix into Googlebar Lite. Be forewarned, however, that this workaround will send your searches over an unencrypted channel (i.e. the old Google behavior). Here's what to do:

1. In the Googlebar Lite main menu, click the "Search Preferences" menu item (which takes you to the search preferences page at Google).
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and uncheck the option labeled "Use a secure HTTPS connection when available."
3. Save your changes.

After performing the above, your search terms should no longer disappear from the Googlebar Lite search box. The latest version of Googlebar Lite fixes this issue. Please note that a fix will be placed into the next release of Googlebar Lite to solve this issue in a cleaner manner. I am hard at work on the next release, and am in the midst of a complete overhaul of the options code. As such, it may be a few more weeks before a new release is available. Stay tuned for further updates.