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Firefox Signs Five-Year Deal With Yahoo, Drops Google as Default Search Engine
mpicpp writes with news that Yahoo will soon become the default search engine in Firefox. Google's 10-year run as Firefox's default search engine is over. Yahoo wants more search traffic, and a deal with Mozilla will bring it. In a major departure for both Mozilla and Yahoo, Firefox's default search engine is switching from Google to Yahoo in the United States. "I'm thrilled to announce that we've entered into a five-year partnership with Mozilla to make Yahoo the default search experience on Firefox across mobile and desktop," Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said in a blog post Wednesday. "This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years." The change will come to Firefox users in the US in December, and later Yahoo will bring that new "clean, modern and immersive search experience" to all Yahoo search users. In another part of the deal, Yahoo will support the Do Not Track technology for Firefox users, meaning that it will respect users' preferences not to be tracked for advertising purposes. With millions of users who perform about 100 billion searches a year, Firefox is a major source of the search traffic that's Google's bread and butter. Some of those searches produce search ads, and Mozilla has been funded primarily from a portion of that revenue that Google shares. In 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available, that search revenue brought in the lion's share of Mozilla's $311 million in revenue.
I switch the default on every install anyway, so ... *shrug*
Once upon a time, when we talked about things like "Web Portals," and people knew who Jerry Yang was, Yahoo! was cool, and offered a lot of useful curating and information. Also some good times playing hearts and backgammon on Yahoo! games.
Then there was babel fish.
Then there was Google beta.
Then Deja News was no more.
And now Yahoo! is cool again?
It will be hard for anyone here to assess this move. Having not used Yahoo! search for a long time, I have no idea about the quality of their search results. It is even less clear whether the typical Mozilla user will care about any possible differences, or the extent to which Mozilla users might change browsers because of this
If I had to guess, I'd say that very few people choose their brower based on the default search engine, and therefore very few will change browers because of this. If the userbase is really fixed then Mozilla should try to maximize their revenue by letting Yahoo! and Google bid for the rights.
Google has no reason to help Firefox at this point and money in is money in, regardless of who is providing it. Yahoo! is currently a much better choice than Google, they might even promote Firefox in the way Google pushes Chrome.
Yes, but there are rumblings of them trying to launch their own engine again. http://searchenginewatch.com/a...
Yahoo's never been effective at writing their own search engine; they were powered by Google up until 2004, and before that Inktomi. In 2004 they tried their own engine for the first time, but it sucked. In 2009 they cut a deal with Bing.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Interesting that more companies are moving away form Google. A couple months ago, RealNetworks (ya, reliable I know) changed it's default 2nd party offer from Google / Chrome to Ask. (Fun for the day: use Ask search and search for Ask toolbar ... examine the results).
... Google works fine. However ... frequently Google will substitute terms (that don't belong), add obvious sales links (that don't apply), or have a referral to a second level search (which has always useless: best example is returning searches for an items from eBay -- if I wanted eBay I would search eBay). Google's image search(method) is much better than Bing's ... but is there a viable option "B" general text / info search?
For me, it is getting harder to use Google search, especially if I want to search for more than two words. For simple searches
Funny; FF has been my default browser for almost a decade now. Why? The plugins and the ability to control it all myself. Chrome/Chromium are too tied to the mothership for me -- and I say that as someone who uses 8.8.8.8 for DNS.
That said, if NoScript starts working on Chrome, I'd likely switch eventually -- and no, NoScripts isn't a real replacement.
>Went Chrome years ago and have not looked back.
Then your opinion is basically worthless.
I've actually tried Firefox out regularly and noticed that for all the bluster of your average Slashdot sycophant, Firefox is actually getting good enough that I no longer care which browser I'm using. In fact I can't remember much of value coming down the pipe from Chrome, even counting the web video stuff. Firefox may be bleeding some users due to a lengthy period of retrofitting and revamping, but the real reason they'll die is because they can't get a foothold in the mobile market - Google doesn't allow Android devices to be bundled with another browser by default, and Apple and Microsoft don't even let another browser engines run on theirs.
But don't let reality weigh you down. It's trendy to bash on Firefox, after all.
Mozilla still has Seamonkey. The far superior, all inclusive browser.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
But I think Google cut Mozilla out of some revenue sharing thing. It doesn't look like there was much choice.
This is not the case... I was the internal meeting at Mozilla earlier today, and it was made very clear that all options (including Google) had stronger economic terms (than the current deal).
So it wasn't because Google cut Mozilla out.
See the official announcement too:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/...
Personally, I see how this can only foster more competition, less monoculture and thus a better web.
Note the specific language being used.
"Yahoo will support the Do Not Track technology for Firefox users, meaning that it will respect users' preferences not to be tracked for advertising purposes."
The Do Not Track tag clearly specifies that the user does not want to be tracked. However, Yahoo is twisting its meaning such that the user is not tracked for advertising purposes. Two very different things. Unfortunately, despite considerable effort, there is no standardized meaning for Do Not Track. All too often, corporations invent new meanings for those simple three words in order to continue making a profit by tracking users who have explicitly indicated not wanting to be tracked. So much for notice and choice.
is that this is true:
"This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years."
tone
DDG uses a multitude of sources for it's results, like Yandex, Bing, Yahoo, and others (it will directly pull stuff from Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, etc) including it's own crawler. So no, it's not just a front end for someone else's results, it's more of an aggregator with a focus on privacy/anonymity.