Mozilla's 'Failed' Bet on Yahoo Takes Spotlight in Google Trial

Mozilla Foundation's decision to switch the search engine built into its Firefox browser to Yahoo from Google was a "failed" bet that degraded the user experience, the company's chief executive said. From a report: Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Baker said Mozilla decided to switch to Yahoo's technology in 2014 after CEO Marissa Mayer took over and promised "to make a big bet on us."

"That bet failed," Baker said in a videotaped interview from 2022 played Wednesday in Google's defense during the Justice Department's antitrust trial. "The search experience that Yahoo was providing to Firefox users deteriorated." The Mozilla example -- the only situation in which a browser has switched the default search engine provider -- has been cited by both Google and the Justice Department to support their arguments in the case. [...] Yahoo agreed to pay Mozilla a minimum of $375 million -- more than the $276 million a year that Google was offering, Baker said. It also agreed to reduce the number of ads and offer less user tracking than Google, but over time Yahoo reneged on that and began showing more advertising, she added.

The problem with Yahoo

[rsilvergun]

is the same Problem Google is starting to have, instead of a couple adverts at the top in text and clearly labeled the page is full of nonsense I'm not interested in and the search results are littered with pictures and video that mean I have to scroll pages and pages to find what I want. It's that same annoying "engagement" crap that is meant to keep me on their page.

Re:

[GreaterTroll]

I’m a troll. I don’t live in mountain caves and under bridges so that people will care about me.
I eat foolish adventurers and crush lesser trolls.

Rsilvergun is a fantastic poster because the way he drives you nuts while rarely giving you the dignity of a response makes arguably makes him a better troll than you. If I had any notion how he made you so mad I’d troll people with it constantly but I suspect whatever it is may be special to you.

Change the search engine yourself

[mfh]

Itâ(TM)s easy to switch the search default in Firefox to whatever you want. I use duckduckgo, personally.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Going by your post history and uid, do you get thawed out every year for a comment?

Re:

[Oryan Quest]

I suspect he’s a reddit refugee. Awesome user though he’s made good use of slashdot’s arcane and forgotten features like bookmarks and journals.

Re:

[monstercoo]

Some of us have been here for awhile, but don't comment often...

Re:

[serafean]

No, it's not... (well, it is, but for us)
Many people don't know the difference between a browser, a search engine, and the Internet.
Change their search engine, they'll come crying that the internet is broken.

Re:

[chrish]

I'm paying Kagi ever since DDG announced they were going hard on Bing's AI nonsense. Results have been great.

All browsers are Google funded

[xack]

Safari and Firefox get Google blood money. Microsoft gave up their independence in the browser market. Unless a big enough company invests in a true non Google influenced browser, Google will convert the internet into a walled garden.

Re:

[Alascom]

"...invests in a true non Google influenced browser..."
You must be new to the internet...

When Chrome launched in 2008, Microsoft owned 70% of the browsers, following by Firefox at 30%, and Safari in the single digits.

Chrome WAS the big investment in a new browser.