restoring vanilla Google in Mint Firefox

In all versions of Mint to date, the default search results from Google in Firefox appear in a format I find disturbing and seriously inconvenient on small screens - sponsored links occupy quite a large area at the top of the page.

See here for an early description of the "problem", from April 2008; and the "problem" persists 3 years later, so from this page, here is a summary of the fix:

Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3682
Install the addon and restart Firefox
Go to google http://www.google.com
Right click in google search bar and select “add to search bar”
Left-click arrow at left side of firefox search combo
Select “manage search engine”
You should find google at the bottom of the list
Move it to the top

Along the way you might need to refer to an icon: In mint10 you can find one at

/usr/share/deskbar-applet/art/google.png