Firefox Search In Ubuntu 10.04 Changed To Google

kai_hiwatari writes "Sometime back Canonical decided to change the default search in Firefox that comes Ubuntu 10.04 to Yahoo! from Google. In a surprising turn-around, Canonical have decided to a ditch Yahoo! for Google. Rick Spencer from Canonical announced that Google will now be the default Firefox search in Ubuntu 10.04, not Yahoo! as was previously decided."

Comments

Re:Unfortunately

[I confirm I'm not a]

Fortunately one Canonical employee is prepared to share what they know with us: from TFA:
Rick Spencer, who announced the change back to Google, said that Canonical have decided to change back to Google after deciding that Google Search will be more familiar to a lot of users upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04...

Of course, you may choose not to believe that. But Canonical are providing an explanation.

Re:Good for them

[BrokenHalo]

Click on the first link in TFA, read approximately 1.5 lines of text and you have your answer.

It doesn't cost you anything to elaborate:

"Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, revealed today that it has established a revenue sharing agreement with Yahoo. As part of the deal, the Firefox Web browser that is shipped in Ubuntu will be configured to use Yahoo as the default search engine . . . "

Re:It probably doesn't matter

[Shikaku]

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/2109

FEBE makes this a quick backup and restore process. It will back up just about everything for you.

Useful for portable versions of firefox as well.

Re:Give us a choice! Let us pick!

[natehoy]

Why? No, seriously, why?

Canonical is a for-profit business that builds a seriously kick-ass distro of Linux, and they put a lot of work into doing so, and they give it to you for free. They even let other smart people use their hard work to build derivatives like Mint.

If they can make a few sheckles from setting the default search engine in their distro, when anyone with opposable thumbs and an IQ over 50 can click on the search engine logo and choose another one, why should they be going to the trouble of programming a random-order list?

If they took away the choice list, or blocked all search engines but their "preferred" one, OK, I could see an objection. If choosing a new search engine was as hard as downloading and installing a browser, I could see an objection. But this is literally a two-mouseclick choice. Other than the "in random order" part, Ubuntu already provides exactly what you propose.