Firefox changes default search to Yandex and Yahoo

Yahoo will replace Google in the US, Yandex - in Russia

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that pursues many goals that are useful to humanity. Despite all the lofty intentions, its existence is associated with banal financial problems.

Therefore, to embed a default search engine in your browser, Mozilla makes agreements with private companies. In 2010, it was believed that Google’s search for Firefox costs about $ 100 million a year. And for Mozilla, this item of income remains the largest, for example, for the same 2010, a total of 123 million dollars were collected.

Mozilla has completed a deal with Google since 2004. Last May, Yahoo bought Tumblr, where Marissa Meyer’s corporate blog is now being run. A post published by the executive director says that Mozilla and Yahoo have entered into an agreement for the next 5 years. No data on the financial side of the contract was announced.
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Now Yahoo Search will be the default search in Firefox for US residents. In addition, the Yahoo search results interface will be updated in December. At first, the new Google-like design will be available only for America, but in 2015 it will be rolled out for the rest of the world.

By agreement with Mozilla, Yahoo will support the setting of Do Not Track. In Firefox, it is not enabled by default, so the targeting of search engine advertising will not suffer much. Of course, Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter and the English “Wikipedia” will remain optional search engines, which can be changed in just two clicks.

As part of the slogan on “promoting choice and innovation” in Russia, the default search will again be Yandex. Google, DuckDuckGo, OZON.ru, Price.ru, Mail.ru and the Russian “Wikipedia” remain the pre-installed search engines. The user has no particular difficulty to switch to them. It is not yet known whether it cost the Russian search engine a lot of money, or whether Mozilla is simply going for the similar due to the break of the ten-year agreement with Google.

In China, Baidu will be the default search, but the user can switch to Google, Bing, Youdao, Taobao and other local options at any time.

In other countries, Firefox promises to "remain a browser for everyone, regardless of search preferences." 61 search engines are available for selection in other versions with 88 available languages, but for now Google remains the default search. Mozilla will actively seek new partners in other regions.

Breaking the contract does not mean that Firefox will refuse the Safe Browsing and geolocation malicious websites database provided by Google.

Since June 2012, Google has become the default search engine for the Russian version of Firefox. Yandex is losing ground a bit. Recently, the spread of the Android operating system, where Google is the default search, has become apparent. Yandex is trying to play this reduction by spreading its own browser and by agreement with the manufacturer of smartphones Lenovo.

Innovations in Firefox are a huge plus for Yandex. According to various estimates, the Mozilla browser is used by several tens of percent of Russian Internet users.