Firefox dropped Google as default search engine and signed a five year contract with Yahoo on November 19th.
It has been 10 years that Firefox came into existence and since then it has kept internet in each of our hands. It gives people the choice and the ability to control their lives online. The biggest core part of the Internet is web search and Firefox users search the World Wide Web more than 100 billion times/year.
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Firefox has partnered with many great Internet companies including Yahoo, Google and many others in order to provide a better and improved search experience. Not only this, Firefox is able to generate revenue in order to advance Mozilla’s mission with the help of these partnerships.
Unlike other search engines Firefox did not accept the commercial terms that plea exclusivity, on the contrary, it broke all Industry standards and provided pre-installed alternatives. A user could easily add, change or remove the search engine.
Google and Firefox have been partners for more than eight years, but recently Firefox has ditched Google and explored other options. Firefox has made arrangements with Yahoo. However, both the parties did not disclose the terms of the deal, but the partnership is going to last for the upcoming five years. Yahoo is going to be Firefox default search engine. Nevertheless, the users would be allowed to change, add or remove the default search engines.
Chris Beard, Mozilla CEO explained in a blog post that despite the partnership between Firefox and Google has ended, yet Google will still be the pre-installed search option for Firefox. In addition to this, he said that Mountain View will still power Firefox geo-location and Safe Browsing feature. He then said that the ending of this funding relationship with Google is going to leave Firefox without one default search engine throughout the world.
Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer said in a blog post that this is a very important partnership for Yahoo. She then said that the company is really proud of the fact that Mozilla, one of the leading web browser, has chosen Yahoo to be its default search engine for the next five years.
Rather than using one default search engine throughout the world, Firefox has adopted a new idea. Every country will have a different default engine.
United States
In the United States the default Firefox search engine for the next five years is Yahoo and the users will be able to enjoy the new enhanced Yahoo search engine from December onwards. Also, Yahoo will support DNT (Do Not Track) in Firefox because of the partnership. Nevertheless, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo will continue to be the default alternative search options.
Russia
In Russia, Firefox will introduce Yandex search engine as the default search engine. Nonetheless, it will still have Ozon.ru, DuckDuckGo, Mail.ru, Google and Wikipedia as inbuilt search alternatives.
China
In China, the default Firefox search engine is going to be Baidu. Alternative in built search engines includes Google, Youdao, Bing, Taobao and various other local offers.