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Firefox Signs Five-Year Deal With Yahoo, Drops Google as Default Search Engine 400

Posted by samzenpus from the new-couple dept.
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.
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Firefox Signs Five-Year Deal With Yahoo, Drops Google as Default Search Engine More

Firefox Signs Five-Year Deal With Yahoo, Drops Google as Default Search Engine

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  • Ba Da ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @07:45PM (#48422135)

    Bing!

    • Re:Ba Da ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by linear a ( 584575 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @07:55PM (#48422207)
      Yahoo has a search engine?

      • Re:Ba Da ... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @09:06PM (#48422649)

        Yahoo has a search engine?

        Yes, powered by Kim Kardashian.

        • I was surprised that i guessed the address at the first try, search.yahoo.com, and i honestly havent touched a yahoo product since yahoowidgets was a thing.
          It promptly suggested to "try the full experience at yahoo.com"

      • actually, yahoo is the perfect fit here. it's a mainstream search engine and yahoo doesn't have a competing browser product. sucks for goog. personally, i use duck duck go.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sootman ( 158191 )

        Quit being so lazy. It's easy to find the answer to your question. Just type "yahoo search engine" into google to find out about it.

    • Big ba-da boom!

  • DuckDuckGo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Crypto Cavedweller ( 2611959 )
    I switch the default on every install anyway, so ... *shrug*

  • Yahoo! is cool again? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fortfive ( 1582005 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @07:48PM (#48422151)

    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?

    • Re:Yahoo! is cool again? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rockout ( 1039072 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @08:21PM (#48422359)
      Not sure how you got from your first 4 points to "Yahoo is cool again"; it's pretty clear that Yahoo is so uncool at this point that they're making a desperate effort to get cool again by paying Mozilla. I have my doubts about this strategy working.

    • Once upon a time, when we talked about things like "Web Portals," and people knew who Jerry Yang was, Yahoo! was cool.

      The walled gardens of the app world have taken much of the steam out of the browser wars --- and threaten to make the browser itself irrelevant.

      Searching Google for "live jazz on the net" will return 40 million hits, "live jazz streams," 9 million hits, "live piano jazz streams", 840,000 hits, which is no more useful. The point being that the open web the geek so admires has become unmanageable.

      I don't want to wrestle with a search engine, I simply want to listen to the music.

  • Murder-suicide? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpoulton ( 689851 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @07:48PM (#48422159)
    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.

    • Re:Murder-suicide? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @08:00PM (#48422249)

      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.

      • Do you really think the 10% of search queries that go through Yahoo will have much if any effect on Firefox use? I doubt it.

      • I've been using Linux Mint lately, and fucking up my system royally. So I've had to fall back on the LiveUSB installation to repair the system. Mint doesn't get a financial kickback from Google, so they ship Yahoo! as the default search engine instead. This has led me, by accident, to use Yahoo! a few times when looking for information.

        I'm not saying that I would rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon than use Yahoo! search; that wouldn't make my system boot. Was it worth it to continually type in 'google' a

        • Ahhh that must be why my firefox defaults to Yahoo. I use mint as well. And the first thing I do is change the defaults to google.

          Hope you didn't bork your system too severely. I've been using mint since unity came out and have found it to be excellent.

      • I still use Firefox primarily, and most IT people I know do the same. Chrome is glorified IE that runs in Linux too.. big whoop I don't wanna use it because I have very little trust for Google or MS. Opera is my 2nd favorite, but can be bothersome for certain tasks. Firefox used to be a friendly thing for Google, but Google now pushes their own browser..their prerogative, I don't mean that as an insult.

        So Firefox defaults to Yahoo.. no biggie. I can turn that off as easily as I can change IE to somethi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skids ( 119237 )

          I still use Firefox for any "real browsing" because the others don't have a separate search box without adding an extension, an extension which eventually breaks or robs you of another 5 minutes of your time when you have to start fresh on a new system. Having that extra box hanging around so you can modify search terms while still having a url bar to type in is just too essential when actually doing serious research on the web.

          But for performance and thorough feature support I sometimes have to use chrome

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So if two listing, burning ships strap themselves together, do they float better?

      yes they become a ghetto catamaran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • So if two listing, burning ships strap themselves together, do they float better?

        yes they become a ghetto catamaran.

        But make sure they're aligned properly when you tie them together. Otherwise, you end up with not a catamaran but a katamari [wikipedia.org], which doesn't float quite as well.

  • Difficult to assess (Score:4, Interesting)

    by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @07:53PM (#48422189)

    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.

    • 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.

      Just Google "Quality of Bing search results".

      But seriously, I'm so thankful that Firefox has search built into it because, you know, bookmarking Bing.com is so damn difficult.

    • Since Yahoo uses Bing now, I assume my Bing experience will basically carry over.

      Google sometimes detects my entire ISP as bots (I think we're carrier-NATed to a handful of IPs). When that happens, I use Bing rather than fill out a CAPTCHA for every query.

      It's not bad. It doesn't have the same level of "this is what I think you're trying to do so have a special box of whatever I think is appropriate", which is sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. I do eventually go back to Google, mostly because I

    • I'd also say that the group of people willing to install a non-default browser (not IE, not Safari) are also more likely than average to change default search providers.

    • Don't people change the default search as part of the first set of things you do when you install a browser?

      I'm sure I have had to manually add google as the default search on firefox for ages (not in the us)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msobkow ( 48369 )

      Personally I find it to be useless for my needs. Most of my searching is for tech documentation, example code, how-tos, and such. For whatever reason, Google just finds a lot more relevant material than Bing, and usually what I need is within the first 3-4 links on the results page. With Bing, I find that one often has to go through a page or two of results, skipping the obvious chaff in order to find anything relevant.

      I've no idea how the two compare on non-technical searches, though.

  • Migration away from Google? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bomarc ( 306716 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @08:10PM (#48422297) Homepage
    Interesting that more companies are moving away form Google. A couple months ago, RealNetworks [real.com] (ya, reliable I know) changed it's default 2nd party offer from Google / Chrome to Ask [ask.com]. (Fun for the day: use Ask search and search for Ask toolbar [ask.com] ... examine the results).

    For me, it is getting harder to use Google search, especially if I want to search for more than two words. For simple searches ... 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 [ebay.com] -- if I wanted eBay I would search eBay). Google's image search [google.com](method) is much better than Bing's ... but is there a viable option "B" general text / info search?

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @08:29PM (#48422403)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • WHY IT ISN'T THE DEFAULT - is anyone's guess.

        Simple answer: People type poroly and have speling difficulties.

      • WHY IT ISN'T THE DEFAULT - is anyone's guess.

        It's quite obvious, actually... it's not the default because it doesn't work as well for most people. Verbatim is good when you're searching for fairly specific terms, spelled correctly. If you're asking a more general question, with words that may appear in many variations, or if you don't spell well or are lazy, then the "new" Google works dramatically better.

        I think a lot of complaints about Google search today, especially by people who have been around for a while, really boil down to the fact that th

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • It works very well for most people. Google is popular precisely because that mode works well for most people. And virtually everyone I'm talking to right now, geek and non-geek alike, agrees Google's new search mode is shit.

            Google search has been very obviously moving towards shit for several years now - the latest round of 'enhancements' is just the coliform-filled icing on a crappy cake. But what I fail to see is why they have to cripple the damn thing for people who DO have some search savvy. It seems to me they could just as easily have a default brain-dead mode for all those people searching for Kardashian gossip, AND a 'strict mode' for people who actually have a clue. It's gotten really hard to get useful results, espec

    • Yes, theres a trend of failing companies who make stupid decisions to make stupid decisions.

      While there are plenty of great reasons to leave Google's services, both of your examples left Google for an inferior competitor because the competitor, who is also failing and/or pretty scummy paid them to do so.

      They didn't leave Google because the competition was better.

    • frequently Google will substitute terms (that don't belong)

      If you put the search term in quotes google won't make substitutions.

  • Libre Browsers offer DuckDuckGo (Score:3)

    by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @08:26PM (#48422395)
    In other news, Libre browesers like icecat, Iceweasel, and Abrowser offer search engines.like DuckDuckGo and Blekko. Wolfram Alpha comes in handy on ocassion. You don't have to live in a Google/Yahoo!/Bing! world. May myriads of search engines bloom in a more diverse interweb.

  • There, fixed that title for you /. editors

  • Google was paying Mozilla before for traffic driven their way, that will presumably end now.

    So if I'm using Firefox and switch back to Google (because I don't want to use reskinned Bing), Mozilla won't be getting anything anymore.

  • Netscape (Score:4, Funny)

    by melchoir55 ( 218842 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @09:06PM (#48422647)

    Then Netscape said to Firefox: "You and me, we've got nowhere to go but up!"

  • More Weasel Words (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Atog Lord ( 230965 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @09:32PM (#48422803)

    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.

  • Coke vs Pepsi (Score:3)

    by rssrss ( 686344 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @09:47PM (#48422861)

    If you run a restaurant, and you serve soft drinks, you can serve Coca-Cola Products or Pepsi products.

    Many years ago (before 1997) some restaurant chains objected to Pepsi products because Pepsi owned restaurant chains including Pizza Hut and KFC, and cross promoted its drinks with the restaurants.

    Back then Pepsi would pay restaurants to use their products in stead of Coke. So they were able to overcome some of the competitive objections to using their products. Coke never paid.

    In the late 90s, Pepsi solved the problem by a corporate separation of the restaurants and the drinks. The restaurant company is now called Yum! Brands. I assume they stopped paying restaurants to take their products.

    To me Google vs Yahoo resembles the Coke vs. Pepsi situation. And, it is just as important.

  • Firefox, with its marketing deals and in-browser ads is no longer "it". It would be great to have an independent project driver by developer enthusiasm rather than anyone's business needs. Linux kernel and many other projects manage that somehow. Only then the software can do uncompromisingly right things for users and web developers. Why silently pick one search engine when query can be submitted to several in parallel and user given a quick tool to compare results?

    On developer side, we need a truly great

    • Firefox, with its marketing deals and in-browser ads is no longer "it".

      Yeah, those in browser ads you'll probably never see.

      It would be great to have an independent project driver by developer enthusiasm rather than anyone's business needs.

      And it'll succeed, just like Linux has succeeded on the desktop.

      Linux kernel and many other projects manage that somehow.

      There is a lot of money behind the Linux kernel. Many changes that go in are explicitly because of business needs.

  • Why would Google want to crush Firefox? What motive does it have?

    Firefox is an open-source browser that poses zero threat to any of Google's businesses. It can't be used in the same way IE was to limit competition. There will always be some people who aren't using Chrome. If they can't have everyone using Chrome, the next best thing is putting Google on as many browsers as possible. Chrome is all about making it easier for people to use their services, the browser itself is not that important.

    A good

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jopsen ( 885607 )

      Why would Google want to crush Firefox? What motive does it have?

      No, but the way Google is creating a mono-culture, creating chrome-only services (only porting to other browser later), and increasingly rolling features out to the web around the standard bodies (I hangout a guy who works on web components at Mozilla); maybe Google is increasingly becoming a problem for the open web... (maybe not intentionally, but still going too big)
      Mono-cultures are bad. With different default search deals in multiple geographical regions, Mozilla is not only diversifying it's revenue

  • The saddest part for Yahoo! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DulcetTone ( 601692 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @11:03PM (#48423205)

    is that this is true:

    "This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years."

  • Firefox's default search engine is switching from Google to Yahoo in the United States.

    So clearly, Firefox have agreed on $$$$$$ sum from Yahoo.

    My question is, considering the project is "open source", who receives the money?

  • Yahoo doesn't have a search engine. (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday November 20, 2014 @03:11AM (#48424171) Homepage

    Yahoo doesn't have a search engine. They resell Bing. Yahoo got out of search five years ago. So this is puzzling. One could see Bing paying to be the default in Firefox, but what's the gain in running it through Yahoo?

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