mozilla firefox search keeps changing to bing

We will likely be able to get some idea of how much money is changing hands when Mozilla reports its finances the first year after Firefox 4 is released.Īlthough some open source extremists might be unhappy that Mozilla is acknowledging Bing as an acceptable search engine choice, it's really an unsurprising development. He declined to say, however, what percentage Microsoft offers or how the deal with Microsoft compares financially to the one that Mozilla has with Google. He also confirmed that Mozilla has established a referral revenue sharing agreement with Microsoft so that it can get a cut of the search profit. He believes that Bing has become a suitable option that should be easily available to users.

He says that the standard search engine choices were overhauled for Firefox 4 in order to ensure that the options are modern and consistent with user expectations. We discussed these changes with Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of products. Creative Commons search was removed because it is becoming less distinctive as it increasingly relies on conventional search engines like Google. The Creative Commons search engine and have shipped in recent versions of Firefox but will not be included in Firefox 4. The other websites that will be included as standard options in the Firefox 4 search box are Amazon, eBay, and Wikipedia, and Yahoo. Mozilla has labored, however, to ensure that this relationship doesn't have undue influence over the decisions about which services are supported in the search box.

Google pays millions of dollars for Firefox search referrals, which means that Google's privileged placement as the browser's default search engine is Mozilla's primary source of revenue. Mozilla says that the decision is a response to the increasing relevance and maturity of Microsoft's search engine and growing demand for the service among Firefox users.

Google will remain Firefox's default search engine, but Microsoft's Bing search will be available as one of the standard options.įirefox 4 users who want Bing as their default browser search engine instead of Google will be able to simply select it from the search box drop-down menu without having to perform any additional configuration steps. Mozilla has announced its plans to update the search options in Firefox 4, the next major version of the popular open source Web browser.

Mozilla firefox search keeps changing to bing