Using your browser to perform a quick search usually sees Google being used as the default search engine, and why not? After all Google is one of the biggest search engines around at the moment, so it only makes sense to use their services, right? Well there are alternatives, such as Yahoo and Bing, and the good/bad news for Firefox users is that Mozilla has recently announced a partnership with Yahoo.
This five-year partnership will see Firefox browsers turn to Yahoo’s search engine as the default browser on its mobile and desktop version of the browser. The partnership will also see Yahoo roll out an enhanced new search function for Firefox users which will also support the Do Not Track function which was included in the latest Firefox release.
According to Mozilla’s CEO Chris Beard, with Firefox users searching the web an estimated 100 billion times a year, this will prove to be a huge boon for Yahoo which at the moment has ceded market share to the likes of Google. For example only 10% of web searches are made through Yahoo, so with the partnership with Firefox, we expect that those numbers will be seeing significant gains.
Beard also wrote, “We believe it will empower more people, in more places with more choice and opportunity to innovate and ultimately put even more people in control over their lives online.” It should be noted that the switch to Yahoo will only affect the US version of Firefox as Mozilla will rely on other search engines for different countries, such as Yandex for Russia.