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Google Returns As Default Search Engine In Firefox (techcrunch.com)
Mozilla today launched Firefox Quantum, which the company is calling "the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." It brings massive performance improvements and a visual redesign. It also sets Google as the default search engine again if you live in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan. TechCrunch reports: In 2014, Mozilla struck a deal with Yahoo to make it the default search engine provider for users in the U.S., with Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and others as options. While it was a small change, it was part of a number of moves that turned users against Firefox because it didn't always feel as if Mozilla had the user's best interests in mind. Firefox Quantum (aka, Firefox 57), is the company's effort to correct its mistakes and it's good to see that Google is back in the default slot. When Mozilla announced the Yahoo deal in 2014, it said that this was a five-year deal. Those five years are obviously not up yet. We asked Mozilla for a bit more information about what happened here.
"We exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo! based on a number of factors including doing what's best for our brand, our effort to provide quality web search, and the broader content experience for our users. We believe there are opportunities to work with Oath and Verizon outside of search," Mozilla Chief Business and Legal Officer Denelle Dixon said in a statement. "As part of our focus on user experience and performance in Firefox Quantum, Google will also become our new default search provider in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With over 60 search providers pre-installed as defaults or secondary options across more than 90 language versions, Firefox has more choice in search providers than any other browser."
"We exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo! based on a number of factors including doing what's best for our brand, our effort to provide quality web search, and the broader content experience for our users. We believe there are opportunities to work with Oath and Verizon outside of search," Mozilla Chief Business and Legal Officer Denelle Dixon said in a statement. "As part of our focus on user experience and performance in Firefox Quantum, Google will also become our new default search provider in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With over 60 search providers pre-installed as defaults or secondary options across more than 90 language versions, Firefox has more choice in search providers than any other browser."
It was only a couple days ago when Firefox was quoting Vogue Culture News for this:
Whatever Mozilla. Keep pretending the "champion of the Internet", it's part of your act.
Surely if Mozilla really had users' best interests in mind they'd make DuckDuckGo the default search option?
RR
I was hit with an automatic update from firefox 56 32 bit which worked fine.
Even thought updates were off I ended up with firefox 56 64 bit! A real PITA, lockups while using, heck it only started up every other time every time.
While battling this crap, I made sure update was disabled!!! Now I have 57.0!!!!!
What the heck are the shakers and movers at mozilla doing this is a cluster frak!
If they really had the user's best interests in mind, they'd default to DuckDuckGo, just like the Tor browser.
Fuck Google.
A lot of Firefox haters all the time. But I like it.
So, suck it bitches.
"Firefox Quantum is here and the biggest story is that the evil monopolistic corporation is partnered with again, what good news for our evil overlords! Aren't you happy for them citizen? FEEL HAPPY!"
I'd like my news as non evil corp propaganda free as possible please thank you.
Where NoScript? NO NoScript, NO FIREFOX.....!!!!!
It is kind of hurtful to recognise that it definitively is. Many of their policies are horrible, sell every bit they have about you, some of their products aren't that good lately, etc. But their search engine is certainly good. What is even worse: the competition (for a so juicy market!!) is quite weak or, at least, aren't doing all what is required to really beat Google.
Some time ago, I wrote various posts here asking slashdotters about reliable alternatives to Google. I have been testing some of them during the last months and, so far, the best option has been startpage.com/ixquick.eu. Although I have found some problems, in general, the experience has been reasonable good. The main issue here is that the results are precisely provided by Google! A restricted (and theoretically respectful with your privacy) version of what you can find there.
I have still to do proper tests with yandex.com (which looks quite nice, but as a Russia-based search engine might have some issues) and bing.com (whose performance in the past wasn't too good, but perhaps they are better now; on the other hand, as a Microsoft company might also have some issues). A so big and profitable market, so much available money and knowledge (no idea if in general, but if you give me enough resources and a reasonable time frame, I will certainly create something really good) and so much crap! How can this be possible? We are constantly reading articles about VCs throwing lots of money at virtually anything! This is one of the safest bets ever! And all what you need is money, doing things properly and some patience!
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Yahoo was a microsoft bing deal to make bing the default search engine
The Moz devs work hard, I am certain, but I have disagreed with every UI change made in years.
However, all or almost all of the changes are optional - you can, if you know what to do in about:config, revert them.
This is a profound blessing because the other browsers on the market are the enemy. Usng software *provided by* MS or Google or Apple is catagorically unthinkable.
As it is however I find more and more sites which do not work in Firefox.
Actually, I have to come to the view *all* web-sites are broken, in one way or another, and I try not to use the web for anything much these days, because it's usually so painful to get web-sites to function, and often it's impossible.
...it's good to see that Google is back in the default slot...
What now?? Why in the world would this be good?
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If you visit mozilla.org the first thing you'd see is the announcement of the browser and this screenshot:
https://www.mozilla.org/media/...
"Top Sites", "Pocket".
And you see an immediate link "Firefox Privacy Notice" that says how it shares data by default.
So many deal breakers just from the front page alone. Why would ANYONE want to switch from Palemoon to Firefox?
Upgraded this morning. Odd that my theme was changed, but that prompted me to grab a new one. Simple and now I have a better theme!
Very impressed with the speed. Feels much snappier.
Perhaps Google's excellent search engine will help Mozilla find all the missing Firefox users.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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Especially Firefox's flexbox implementation had a noticable performance issue when used with many child elements. Much of this has been solved, which is really great.
On websites like https://www.iconfu.com/ where a lot of computing is done inside the browser, you can still feel a slight performance difference, but it is almost negligible. It feels nice to have a real competition again.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
Mayer?
Challenge accepted!
The use of the term "user experience" is a clear flag to me that they are on the wrong track still.
Mayer?
Challenge accepted!
I don't want any of her "tunnel buddies" infecting my bits.....
FireFox 'quantum' IS faster (even vs. Palemoon, CyberFox & Waterfox) - a welcome & needed improvement vs. Chrome engine browsers...
* ONLY 2 things I can't use/do (no webextensions 'ports' from xul addons) are Silverlight for NetFlix & NoScript (not that big a deal really, I was REALLY mostly out to test how much faster javascript response is in the new browsers (Opera 12.18 64-bit based on EMCA script older std. isn't 'cutting it' on SOME new sites = why) - it is TRULY quicker there alone...).
NoScript's REALLY USEFUL to me finding script src tags to block for hosts (lol, & hosts do THAT much faster in kernelmode minus stack addons slowups way, Way, WAY BEFOREHAND, no parse needed)).
In any event - I can wait those extensions out. NO biggie...
APK
P.S.=> Overall I LIKE IT - Can't wait for the gents @ Palemoon/WaterFox/CyberFox to take the new engine code & IMPROVE IT (& removing any 'new browser hotness' (not) TRACKING/ADVERTISING MACHINE bs many have (not really Mozilla's fault - I'm sure their 'sponsors' IF NOT WEBMASTERS pressure them on that front to keep it there or put it there))... apk
Google is terrible anymore. More than half the time it strikes out the key words I have typed in and brings me common search results. I used those specific words for a reason. So then I have to go back and put quotes around those words so they aren't ignored. Once I was looking for documentation on the Pelco camera RS232 protocol and Google changed "Pelco" to "Arduino".
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
So biting the hands that feed you is a fix?
Mozilla did this for one reason: REVENUE.
Yahoo is going bankrupt and they needed to link back up with Google because contracting the default search provider is their primary revenue source. Without it, Mozilla goes under. As a business decision, of course it makes sense, but it also makes their anti-Google marketing hype extremely dubious.
What they should have done is contract with Startpage / Ixquick as the default. It still gives Google results, but does it in a way that protects user privacy. That would have made sense, because even though Google is a giant data miner it still undoubtedly produces the best search results. DuckDuckGo would also be an option but that may not be lucrative. Startpage has a contract with Google so there would have likely been no compliance issue; using Startpage would have been best for Firefox users and still have been significantly revenue-generating for both Mozilla and Google.
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Has anybody really compared Google's search vs Yahoo vs all others? I'm just wondering which is really better or if they are all about the same now. And if they are the same, lose money by defaulting to Google?
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Does nothing for me; where I still have to switch to DDG.
as if Mozilla had the user's best interests in mind...Firefox Quantum (aka, Firefox 57), is the company's effort to correct its mistakes
And dropping XUL while not having an equivalent substitute in WebExtensions is doing that? Nope.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
A year and a half ago, FF started freaking out on me. I would launch it with an empty about page (default), or even with a link via email, and it would open and just sit for 30 seconds. It was unresponsive, and my cpu/,memory was fine. Then it would magically become responsive and work fine. I deleted my profile, disabled add-ons (I only had 3 or 4 basic ones like adblocker, gestures, etc.). I went through several new versions, hoping it would be fixed. Nothing worked. After about 6 months, I gave up - which was hard to do. Being a Linux user, FF was my browser since before it was called FF. I did try Opera and Chromium for a little bit, but never really quit using FF.
Luckily I found Pale Moon, which has given me back the FF of old. Maybe FF will eventually get their shit sorted out, but as of right now I have zero reason to go back to it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Since Mozilla didn't throw Thunderbird entirely to the wolves, does this meant that Thunderbird's offensively cozy relationship with Bing will also end? (The default contextual action for highlighted text in Thunderbird has been a Bing search for the text, for perhaps two years now. Searching with Google is an option buried in a context menu pick list.)
Why wouldn't you just cram an instance of searx on your server and completely be done with the Search Engine Battle?
I downloaded the Linux version of FF57 to try out on my KDE Neon User Edition and the first thing I did was to check the search engine. It was set for DuckDuckGo.
I quickly changed it to StartPage.
FF57 automatically carried over my FF settings from the previous version, including links and add-ons. Only one add-on didn't work, but the email button continued to work fine.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
now I am looking at chrome