Disable slash and apostrophe from opening quick find on firefox
Good news: as of Firefox 63 there is finally a feature to disable this!
Go to about:config
Find accessibility.typeaheadfind.manual
and set it to false.
Found the info here: https://techdows.com/2018/06/disable-quick-find-firefox.html
Actual bug thread tracking this issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418033
Yes, you can disable it (or alternatively, remap it), using an extension, the SearchHotkeys: https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#searchkeys
mozillaZine has this information as well: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Find_bar_opens_when_typing_in_textbox
2016: searchhotkeys no longer maintained after firefox switched to xpi extensions. Disabling addon signing to install it (about:config , xpinstall.signatures.required : false) still doesn't mean it works. Not an answer, but hopefully will save people following signs towards dead ends.
I also searched for "search" in about:config and came up short.
edit: now solved, see this thread for workaround: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=942269