Russia will get Yandex and China will have Baidu

Nov 20, 2014 07:38 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla is making some important changes to the Firefox internet browser and they have decided that it was time to change the default search engine option from Google to different alternatives, including Yahoo.

The default search engine in the Firefox browser might not seem like a big deal, but that's not true. The fact that Google has been the default search option in Firefox for the last 10 years had made Mozilla millions of dollars. Back in 2011, Google was offering Mozilla a $300 million (€239 million) per year deal to remain the default search engine, and now that deal has ended.

Things have drastically changed in the past few years. Firefox is no longer the second most used browser after Internet Explorer and Google has made Chrome a real success. So much so that the market share for Firefox has dropped from 30% to 20%, while Chrome has increased from 20% to about 45%. Simply put, Google no longer needs to secure the default place in Firefox because that browser is not as relevant as it used to be.

Google search option is not going anywhere

The new deal made by Firefox, to include Yahoo search by default instead of Google, doesn't mean that the other options won't be there as well.

Selecting another search engine can be done just with a single click, but a large swath of the user base won’t do that. Yahoo counts on them to increase its market share in the never-ending struggle with Google.

"With Firefox, we popularized the integration of search in the browser. We partnered with Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and others to provide an improved search experience and generate revenue to advance Mozilla's mission."

"Google has been the Firefox global search default since 2004. Our agreement came up for renewal this year, and we took this as an opportunity to review our competitive strategy and explore our options," reads the Mozilla blog.

This can be translated in a couple of ways. It's possible that Mozilla simply asked for too much money from Google, or Google simply didn't want to give them a similar deal with the one made in 2011, given their dominant position in the market with Google Chrome.

In any case, Firefox users will now have different default search engines, depending on the part of the world they’re in. For example, Yahoo is now the default in the US, Russia will use Yandex, and China will obviously feature the default Baidu option. If you're not in one of these countries, then most likely you'll also get Yahoo as well.

Mozilla has also explained that Yahoo is committed to supporting Do Not Track (DNT) in Firefox and that the developers are working on a new enhanced Yahoo Search function that should arrive in December. The deal with Yahoo is a five-year commitment, so it's here to stay regardless of what the community might think.

Yahoo & Google Search in Firefox and Chrome (7 Images)

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