Slashdot Mirror
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.
Bing!
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?
So if two listing, burning ships strap themselves together, do they float better? Or do they just sink faster? It seems to me that if your browser market-share is dropping and you're losing relevance, the best move is probably not to attach yourself to a search engine whose market share and relevance were lost years ago.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
doesn't Bing supply yahoo's search results now? so it is.. literally Bing -- right?
You're right, but probably Microsoft wasn't interested in paying them while Yahoo! was.
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.
when I felt my gmail was violating my privacy, and adding bloat I never asked for.
LOL:
When you use Yahoo Mail, our automated systems scan and analyze your communications and also the content sent and received from your account to detect, among other things, certain words and phrases (we call them “keywords”) within these communications. In addition to using the keywords to show you contextually relevant content and ads, these keywords may also contribute to our understanding of things that interest you. These interest categories are displayed in Ad Interest Manager.
Umm, if you chose it for "privacy" you probably made the wrong choice.
I use Firefox in preference to Chrome because of the superior and more permissive add on ecosystem, fine grained JavaScript controls, better tools for privacy protection and better (yes, really) memory management for my browsing habits.
Just the fact that I can have hassle free ad blocking on Android makes it worthy of consideration.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
The main advantage of Firefox has always been the add-on system, and these aren't getting ported to ARM. They're all x86. They're even having problem convincing add-on makers to recompile them for x64 version of the browser which is why it has remained a non-starter so far. ARM recompiling is basically "not going to happen" land, which means that Firefox on phones is just another browser that has no advantages over most of the other ones.
This is false. Firefox addons are interpreted Javascript, not compiled code. They work the same on all FF browsers. On Linux we've been running 64-bit for many years with no addon problems.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
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