20 ms·

New Search Strategy for Firefox

430 points by Osmose 12y ago

s4sharpie 12y ago
Looks like a smart move by Yahoo to be the default search for a major browser: google/chrome, bing/ie. This also means that Firefox will likely get some serious support from Yahoo in $$s to build back market share. Question is can they catch Google?
- huhtenberg 12y ago
  Don't forget though that Yahoo Search runs off Bing.
  - chuhnk 12y ago
    But for how long? They've reached the mid-point on the Bing deal. Yahoo has been working on two search projects internally. They want to own search once again.
    - cpeterso 12y ago
      Does Yahoo's 10-year search deal with Microsoft/Bing restrict Yahoo from working on competing (i.e. not internal) search engines? Is Yahoo developing their own search engine, just waiting to deploy it when the Microsoft/Bing deal expires in 2020? :)
      - chuhnk 12y ago
        Good questions heh. The Mozilla deal is 5 years right? Plausible that this allows them to push forward in the search avenue without compromising the Bing deal while continuing the work on their own tech. I'm a big believer in Marissa Mayer's strategy so in full support of this Mozilla deal.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > They want to own search once again. Yahoo! never owned search before. The brief period where Yahoo! Search was an independent, rather than provided by a third party, was after Google became dominant (and Google was the last exclusive provider of Yahoo! Search before that independent period, which ended with the most recent Bing deal.) Before Google, Yahoo! Search was Inktomi (who was later bought by Yahoo! after Yahoo! stopped relying on them), and before that AltaVista (also later bought by Yahoo!) Yahoo! has only ever owned being the interface to search.
      - dec0dedab0de 12y ago
        I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory. It was not quite search, but it was their own results, and they dominated the market. Edit: type-o/clarity.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory. Yeah, that was the pre-search strategy that Yahoo! (and others) pursued, and Yahoo! did own that for a while (I'd argue that their focus on such a curated list while search ramped up is what left them behind on search, leading to them relying on series of search providers -- which they kept buying up even after abandoning them as search providers), but they never caught up even when after those acquisitions they tried to go it alone. So, sure, maybe they want to own search the same way they owned curated-directory-based web information, but that's different from wanting to own search again.
        dec0dedab0de 12y ago
        Fair enough. Though I would say it still counts as search, whether they're crawling the internet or forcing sites to sign up manually. I agree that the focus on a curated list is what held them behind, though it may be nice if someone were to provide that today at scale.
- mightykan 12y ago
  It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing. Although we might never find out, I'm very curious to find out the terms of the deal. Did Yahoo pay more? What about Microsoft? Were MS as motivated since they, essentially had two horses in the race (Bing and Yahoo) vs. Google? Lots of fun little details. Edit: Typos
  - graeme 12y ago
    >It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing. Does Yahoo do their own tweaks? I just checked my site's ranking for a few terms in Bing vs. Yahoo. Bing gave much the same results as Google, whereas my site ranked significantly worse in Yahoo.
- capkutay 12y ago
  "Question is can they catch Google?" I don't think so...but maybe in Yahoo's next 3 or 4 earnings reports they can say 'search revenues are up 50% this quarter' which will boost their stock price and lead to financial articles titled 'Will $YHOO kill $GOOG?'
- fhd2 12y ago
  > Question is can they catch Google? I suppose they could, if they went for the same questionable bundling [1] and SEO [2] tactics as Google :) Adding to that the fact that Google occasionally promotes Chrome on their various products (search engine et. al.), they haven't been particularly fair all in all. I doubt Mozilla will go that low, and I doubt they could gain significant ground even if they did. [1] https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome [2] https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/NAWunDzJSHC https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/NAWunDzJSHC
- MLR 12y ago
  I hadn't thought about it before, but I wonder if Yahoo would be willing to front a Firefox advertising campaign across its portals; similar to how Google used to (stil does?) promote Chrome across its own properties.
briholt 12y ago
Anyone have any insights into this? From the outside it looks like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of Chrome. Interesting they went with Yahoo and not Bing.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Anyone have any insights into this? From the outside it looks like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of Chrome. Looks more like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of money -- whether Yahoo! offering more than Google has in the past or Google offering less. (Though, looking at historical usage share measures, there's a good argument that if Google is offering less, its likely because Chrome eclipsing Firefox -- and by some measures IE -- has reduced the value of default search placement in Firefox.)
  - gcp 12y ago
    if Google is offering less, its likely because Chrome eclipsing Firefox -- and by some measures IE -- has reduced the value of default search placement in Firefox Yahoo is looking at the same marketshare numbers, so that actually can't be the reason.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Yahoo is looking at the same marketshare numbers, so that actually can't be the reason. It certainly can be the reason that Google's offer isn't as strong -- the value of default search place in the third-place-with-continuing-declining-share browser is conceivably quite different to a party that owns what is, depending on which measure you look at, either the first- or second-place browser and a party that doesn't have any browser.
      - gcp 12y ago
        I don't see how that follows. Why would it? That x% of users represents X amount of users who click ads, which means y% of lost revenue. Why would the monetary value of that y% be so different to another search engine vendor? Either it's scaling effects (owning a few percent makes you more known, which drives new users) or Yahoo is better at selling ads through those users. Note that in the former case, there's even more incentive for Google to block. And if the second is true, oh boy, they certainly have a problem at G...
pwnna 12y ago
One question: wasn't Yahoo supposed to be a part of Bing at some point?
- metzman 12y ago
  I think they made a deal that Yahoo search results would be provided by bing
- acdha 12y ago
  Yahoo has used Bing's search infrastructure for awhile but they've kept the independent front-end and, based on my logs, some level of crawling, presumably to keep their options open so they could switch in the future.
- dec0dedab0de 12y ago
  I think yahoo is/was sending off search results to Bing. A long time ago they used to send them to Google. Before that they would refer to themselves as a web directory, not a search engine. And WAYY before that every result page had a link to search on different sites, web crawler, lycos, maybe even google my memory is kind of fuzzy. The point is that Yahoo cares more about getting people to their portal, not so much what technology it happens to be using.
- mightykan 12y ago
  When Microsoft failed to purchase Yahoo to $47.5bn billion in 2008, they reached a 10-year deal in 2009 for Yahoo to use Bing's infrastructure and "backend" for search [1]. Yahoo provides their own UI/UX and Microsoft provides the actual data. So, technically, Firefox will be showing very similar (if not identical) results to Bing. [1]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm
AshleysBrain 12y ago
Does this mean Yahoo outbid Google for being the new default search? How much is the deal worth? What about outside the US?
- gcp 12y ago
  Outside the US it's Yandex and Baidu for their respective locales.
  - fpgeek 12y ago
    Um, there's more to the world outside the US than Russia and China...
    - gcp 12y ago
      That doesn't appear to have been announced. I wonder if it's because the EU was asleep.
agapos 12y ago
Doesn't that mean that Google giving up on one of the biggest markets means they no longer need Mozilla and it can ditch it's support altogether? Will Yahoo be able to support Moz as Google did? Will this became precedence for other countries too (aside from exceptions like Russia's yandex)?
- todesschaf 12y ago
  You're assuming Google gave up on Mozilla, and not the other way around. Your assumption is incorrect.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- Osmose 12y ago
  You're assuming that Yahoo is paying more, assuming that money was the motivation for making the deal, and assuming that Mozilla employees believe that partnering with Google is better for the open web than partnering with Yahoo.
- kumar303 12y ago
  The deal is only for the default engine. Firefox users are still free to switch it to Google, Duck Duck Go, or Yandex or anything
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- callahad 12y ago
  I suspect many Mozilla engineers are actually cheering this partnership. I certainly am. To wit, disrupting hegemony is how we got our start, and I'm proud to see Mozilla striving for a competitive, open Internet.
  - Yoric 12y ago
    I am a Mozilla engineer, and yeah, I think it's a good thing to do.
sp332 12y ago
I'd swear this happened already... I updated Firefox on an old Android tablet yesterday and the default search was already switched to Yahoo. Edit: ah, now that you mention it, it was a Beta version.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  Firefox for Android has been testing Yahoo as the default search engine for a few months. Mozilla's search deal with Google did not cover mobile browsers. Firefox OS uses Bing.
  - soapdog 12y ago
    Firefox OS does not use Bing. It used Bing a long time ago but all consumer devices are set to Google these days.
- mythmon_ 12y ago
  Pre-release versions (Beta, Aurrora, Nightly) on Android have been running experiments with Yahoo for a while.
dec0dedab0de 12y ago
The real question is did Google stop paying? did Yahoo offer way more? Or did Mozilla want to break out from Google's shadow? Edit: I mean to say did Google decide to end it, or did Mozilla, and why?
- lzecon 12y ago
  Yup, they didn't renew the google contract
- potch 12y ago
  Mozilla was the one who decided not to renew.
- mnemonik 12y ago
  All of the potential partnerships (including going with Google again) offered an improvement economically over the last deal partnership. Mozilla chose not to go with Google again.
- mythmon_ 12y ago
  Mozilla's deal with Google ran it's course. Instead of inking a new deal with Google, Mozilla decided to go with another option.
- ngokevin 12y ago
  There was a strong option in place from Google, but Mozilla decided not to go with them as a global default in order to promote choice.
  - anExcitedBeast 12y ago
    I don't think I follow this argument. Can you explain it further? It feels like Yahoo probably just offered more money.
    - gcp 12y ago
      Google currently has the overwhelming share of the search market, which means a large advertising income. If other players get a bigger chunk of the pie, that means more competition.
victor27 12y ago
Curious - do people here view the Yahoo! Search Experience to be better or worse than Google Search?
- mythmon_ 12y ago
  This is kind of a moot point. If you read the article carefully, you'll notice that Yahoo will be bringing "a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S"
  - cpeterso 12y ago
    > "a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S" I wonder if or how Yahoo's "re-imagined" search experience will be affected for non-Firefox users. UPDATE: Yahoo's press release says their "clean, modern, and immersive search experience that will launch first to Firefox’s U.S. users in December and then to all Yahoo users in early 2015." http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313
    - jfoster 12y ago
      Interesting that Firefox users get it first. If they're clever (I think they are), that's a tactic to help Mozilla with user acquisition. (assuming the reimagined search experience is something that they can make people want to try)
  - jonknee 12y ago
    That's just corporate non-sense. It will be Bing's results with a different stylesheet and different set of ads.
    - zobzu 12y ago
      Actually it makes sense IMO. Current yahoo "stylesheet" and ads are freaking terrible. If they bring a clean UI with few or no ads this makes it way more useable.
huhtenberg 12y ago
Here's the option to suppress the change - http://i.imgur.com/HwHqQU9.png http://i.imgur.com/HwHqQU9.png
- chuckharmston 12y ago
  It's worth noting that Google isn't disappearing from Firefox; you will still be able to manage your search engines as you have before.
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    But not in the "new tab" page I assume?
    - mbrubeck 12y ago
      The "new tab" page in recent versions of Firefox uses whichever search engine you select in the search toolbar. So it's easy to switch it to Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or others.
- aluhut 12y ago
  I was already unchecked in mine.
- sp332 12y ago
  Clicking the search drop-down and picking the engine you want takes even less time.
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  I'm not sure that will affect this. I believe that's for updates to user-installed search engines, which are distributed and updated separately from the browser. Default search engines are part of the browser code itself, so they update when the application does. Note that Google will still be included as an option, so all you need to do is click on the search box icon to choose it. (I'm an occasional Firefox contributor and I once worked on the search engine and add-on manager code a little bit, but I'm not an expert so take this with a grain of salt.)
andrewl-hn 12y ago
Note that is affects only U.S.-based users of Firefox. Good move for both parties, and I hope they can struck deals with regional search engines in other locations as well. Diversification is good for everybody.
- y0ghur7_xxx 12y ago
  I too think that diversity helps: google has a monopoly in search, and a push for yahoo in search queries may even help them make the search engine better, and maybe they will become a much needed google competitor.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Does Yahoo still operate a search engine? I thought they used Bing.
  - cpeterso 12y ago
    Mozilla and Google have been "frenemies" for a while. Now that Firefox is no longer supporting Google's search monopoly, I wonder how Google's search traffic (and stock price) will look in six months. I think Mozilla's decision is good for increasing search competition.
    - venomsnake 12y ago
      It will be same. Unless Yahoo have a real winning product (which given their track record, I doubt) people will just switch to google.
rdl 12y ago
This makes me less likely to use Mozilla, but I was already a Chrome or Safari user (despite supporting the Mozilla mission). Seems like a bad decision for Mozilla.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  Yahoo will just replace Google as the default search engine for Firefox users in the US. Like Yahoo and Bing in today's Firefox, Google will still be an option.
- mythmon_ 12y ago
  Why does this make you less likely to use Firefox? The default search engine is just that: the default. You can change it to something else, and always have been able to. If you care enough to know what search engine you use, you should be able to change it.
  - dingaling 12y ago
    > You can change it to something else, and always have been able to. You can't change the default search engine in Firefox for Android, at least through the UI. And mobile is a high-frequency user of search, which makes that decision even more interesting.
    - gcp 12y ago
      Of course you can. Well at least in Nightly you can, it's possible this was reworked recently (and today's announcement would explain why).
    - enigmango 12y ago
      Menu > Settings > Customize > Search. Tapping any of the search providers brings up an option to set it as the default. Are you using an older version? (Tested on v33.1)
- callahad 12y ago
  Why would this be a bad decision, or make you less likely to use Firefox? Mozilla exists in large part due to the abuses that come with monopolistic control over the Internet. Google is dangerously close to that line. Choosing a different partner seems like the most mission-aligned option for Mozilla.
andreastt 12y ago
The correct link is https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an.... Seems the link was changed.
- Osmose 12y ago
  They're separate posts, I hadn't seen that one until you shared it. I think it's a better article than this one, and would be happy if a mod changed the link and title. :D
  - andreastt 12y ago
    Oh, my mistake entirely.
    - Osmose 12y ago
      The original link is now redirecting to the better link anyway, so I've changed the title to match the new article.
tn13 12y ago
It is hard to figure out what a "strategic partnership" really means at the moment but .. - I hope this strategic partnership does not mean 0 organic search results above the fold. That is what Yahoo is doing at the moment. - I hope FF does not come up with any Yahoo spyware/Toolbars etc. Search is a weird thing on internet.
- ngokevin 12y ago
  I don't believe that will be the case. I personally believe Yahoo can step up and deliver an improved search experience.
mnemonik 12y ago
Related blog post: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an... More details, Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China, etc.
nnethercote 12y ago
Some more details: * This is a new, more flexible partnership strategy. * Continuing the existing relationship with Google was an option, but Mozilla chose to end the Google relationship. * All the options Mozilla considered had strong, improved economic terms (but the concrete numbers are not public). Because all the options had improved economics, that allowed Mozilla to really consider the strategic outlook. * The Yahoo agreement in the US is for five years. * Yahoo will be rolling out a new, improved search tool soon. * Mozilla has agreements with Yandex and Baidu for Russia and China. * Google will remain an included option in Firefox and Mozilla will continue to support its use.
- chuckharmston 12y ago
  Some details of the new Yahoo experience are available on their corporate Tumblr: http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  Note: nnethercote is a Mozilla employee (as am I). These details are straight from the horse's mouth (dino's mouth?).
  - olssy 12y ago
    As long as the horse is in the house, has Mozilla ever given any thought to creating its own search service?
    - mbrubeck 12y ago
      I don't know of any actual projects to that end, but certainly people have thought about it. I know from personal conversations that Asa Dotzler in particular has given it some very detailed thought, though I don't know if or where he's written up any of those ideas...
    - wodenokoto 12y ago
      I believe I have seen the notion pop up once or twice on planet.mozilla and it has been why its not a mozilla project.
jlebar 12y ago
I'm getting 500 errors. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oALd2oTUZ2AJ:https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/yahoo-and-mozilla-form-strategic-partnership/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oALd2oT...
Osmose 12y ago
FYI blog.mozilla.org is down, IT people are working on it.
DevX101 12y ago
This is why Google built Chrome. Google's strategy has been to remove the layers between the user's intent to search and Google's own server. Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the tubes). Each of these channels is an opportunity for disruption by some competitor search engine and Google wants to make sure they don't get blindsided. Or one of the gateways could demand a massive tribute for Google to pass through (cable companies are pushing for this via the war against net neutrality). If Google didn't have Chrome and Firefox was the leading browser, they'd be in big trouble with this news. Lucky for them they thought about this a long time ago and built a browser which now accounts for 50% of market share. Yahoo NEEDS this deal. For Google, it's a nice to have.
- pillowpants2 12y ago
  When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the tubes). You forgot Google Glass (control the eyes).
  - threeseed 12y ago
    From all indications Google Glass is being shifted towards being an enterprise product e.g. helping people pack shelves. So in this case it doesn't really apply.
    - eitally 12y ago
      As an enterprise dev mgr who has been thinking about prototyping an app to do exactly this (well, actually the opposite -- to guide warehouse staff in the kitting process for manufacturing), I'm curious: where have you seen indications of Glass evolving toward the enterprise? I haven't seen it anywhere, but Google has tons of AR competition in the industrial space already, many of which are FAR more capable than Glass, which is 1) fragile, 2) feature-limited, 3) low res crappy display, 4) not at all intended to work autonomously.
throwawaymoz 12y ago
(throwaway account) While I believe the party line is probably true ("Mozilla decided not to go with Google"), it's also disingenuous. Mozilla chose not to go with Google because Google wasn't willing to pay what they were before. They straight up told Mozilla this 3 years ago when they signed the billion dollar contract; Mozilla had 3 years to become profitable. That's why they switched focus to FirefoxOS; they thought that by now they'd be profitable via selling phones and the app store. (At the time, Bing was bidding against Google, however Mozilla went with the smaller check from Google because they knew using Bing would seem like selling out.) For the record, Google made billions off being Firefox's default search engine. They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years, but that was only a small fraction of how much Google profited from Firefox searches. Not sure if it's still true, but three years ago they made more from Firefox than they did from Chrome. So, yes, Mozilla could have gone with Google still. It's not like Google said "nope, you can't use us as the default!". However, they went with Yahoo! because Google wasn't willing to pay what Mozilla needed. The whole "Mozilla picked Yahoo! to enable choice" has been tweeted by every Mozillian I know (and said multiple times in this thread), but it's a meaningless statement. If they really meant that, you'd be prompted when you opened Firefox the first time to pick a search engine.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > For the record, Google made billions off being Firefox's default search engine. They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years, but that was only a small fraction of how much Google profited from Firefox searches. Not sure if it's still true, but three years ago they made more from Firefox than they did from Chrome. Google doesn't really make money from Firefox or Chrome (the browser), per se (except insofar as Chrome increases the value of things that Google does sell that include it, like Chromebooks, Nexus devices, etc.), it makes money from searches, whether default or not. 3 years ago, sure, more searches -- to Google or any other search provider -- came from Firefox than Chrome because Firefox had more usage share than Chrome. That's rather dramatically reversed since then.
  - throwawaymoz 12y ago
    Don't forget that Chrome users are more tech savvy on average than Firefox users, meaning they click ads less.
_pius 12y ago
Note that Mozilla is making Yahoo reinstate support for Do-Not-Track, which it had dropped earlier this year. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150981/yahoo-drops-do-not-track-policy-in-favor-of-personalized-experience.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150981/yahoo-drops-do-not-tr...
- mythmon_ 12y ago
  Yahoo will only respect DNT for Firefox users. This is because DNT was essentially ruined after Microsoft turned DNT on by default in IE. Since it didn't represent an explicit user choice, it carried much less weight. It is an explicit choice in Firefox.
  - thezilch 12y ago
    And how will they target only Firefox users? Should we expect IE to start masquerading as <insert Mozilla browser> again?
    - yuhong 12y ago
      What is funny is that they are: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-edge-our-next-step-in-interoperability.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-...
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    What if, and this is crazy I know, you needed an explicit action to track me instead of relying on users not knowing such a thing exists to avoid.
    - nnethercote 12y ago
      You're going to love Firefox's new Tracking Protection feature, which is currently under development: http://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-the-effects-of-firefoxs-tracking-protection/ http://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-t... It allows you to block things coming from known tracking domains, giving better privacy and faster page loads on many sites.
ihuman 12y ago
Haven't they done something like this before? I remember Yahoo promoting a Yahoo-branded Firefox. It's default search and homepage were Yahoo, and every titlebar had "Firefox and Yahoo" at the end instead of just "Firefox."
- Yoric 12y ago
  Yeah, there was an experimental Firefox + Yahoo distro, for download on Yahoo's servers. There was also a Firefox + Bing distro, iirc.
kibwen 12y ago
It's always seemed as though Google's and Mozilla's relationship would weaken over the years, though honestly I expected Bing rather than Yahoo to be the one to step up and fill Google's shoes. Also surprising is that apparently Mozilla was the one to initiate the switch. As a Firefox user, all in all I'm rather pleased. I've just tried a few of my typical searches on Yahoo and though the expected links aren't the top results (seeing links for Rust-the-game instead of Rust-the-language...), they're on the first page. Let's see if that improves with time as I use it more. And I'm happy to support some more diversity in this space.
- bjz_ 12y ago
  As a long time Mozilla lover, I have been quite concerned about their dependence on Google for quite some time now. I'm really thankful that they have had the courage to cut ties. Must have been a scary decision.
- nnethercote 12y ago
  The new Yahoo search that's coming soon is meant to be much better. So I suggest you reserve your judgment until then :)
  - modeless 12y ago
    Is it still based on Bing?
    - praneshp 12y ago
      Nope.
- riffraff 12y ago
  isn't yahoo search powered by bing anyway?
  - tempestn 12y ago
    It uses the Bing index, but there are at least some differences in how it retrieves and prioritizes results. (If you run the same search on yahoo and bing, even with fresh cookies, you won't normally get identical results.) Yahoo may do some spidering of their own as well, although not to my knowledge. I know at least the above is true though. Also as an aside the Yahoo BOSS API is significantly more powerful than the comparable Azure Bing web search API. Unfortunately, they also just doubled the access price this month.
digitalnalogika 12y ago
What will be the default engine in countries not listed in post? It is not exactly clear, apart from saying that Google will be pre-installed (but not default?).
sroerick 12y ago
Mozilla is making some major moves these days. They've ditched Google as their main revenue source, partnering with Tor and Yahoo. Yahoo is angling to be a digital magazine, which I like as a business model much more than Google's. Firefox is making a strong case for itself as the privacy centric browser. I still remember when Firefox started gaining market share. Even non-tech-savvy people were getting firefox, because IE was so bad for security, and so hard to maintain. Excited to see what the next few months brings.
- joosters 12y ago
  I thought that Google was still far and away their main revenue source?
  - mbrubeck 12y ago
    It has been for the last three years, but Mozilla decided to go with Yahoo/Yandex/Baidu rather than renew the deal with Google. So Yahoo (and others) will replace Google as the main revenue source.
    - joosters 12y ago
      Have they disclosed the new financial terms of the agreement though? I'd be interested to see how the numbers have changed.
      - mythmon_ 12y ago
        The only public numbers are from the the previous Google search deal (the one from 3 years ago). It will be a long time until the details of this new deal are public. In the mean time I (as a Mozilla employee) can say that all of the options Mozilla had for the new search deal were better economically than the now-ending Google deal. This was really nice, because Mozilla got to make a choice that wasn't about money, but was about strategy and what we want in the web instead.
      - gcp 12y ago
jimmaswell 12y ago
Is this why Firefox mobile started using Yahoo as the default and I can't change it? I tried changing it and it just kept using Yahoo.
- gcp 12y ago
  Yes and no. Changeable search engines were obviously a prerequisite for this kind of deal, and Yahoo was one of the first ones to offer the needed APIs (and IIRC, over HTTPS which was required by Mozilla). Changing search engines can be done via Customize->Search->Installed search engines. Click the one you want and you'll get a popup offering to remove it or make it the default.
- zobzu 12y ago
  I use mobile firefox as well and it switched to yahoo as well. i could change it back without any issue. i think they changed defaults - but if you had put your own engine yourself it didnt.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- ngokevin 12y ago
  FWIW, Bing has looked similar to Google for a very long time.
math0ne 12y ago
For me at least then moving away from google is a huge selling point. I think if they marketed themselves as a googless web experience it could be really good for them.
drewda 12y ago
"Google will also continue to power the Safe Browsing and Geolocation features of Firefox." It's disappointing to hear that Firefox isn't yet using Mozilla's location services project [1]. Background: These are the services that will, say, take the SSID of your current WiFI access point and map that to a latitude/longitude. My understanding is that almost all commercial users subscribe to Skyhook Wireless's database[2], other than Google, which has built its own WiFi AP maps using its StreetView trucks. I think Mozilla's "open" service, contributed by individual users, is a welcome alternative, since it means you no longer have to send your location to a large corporation on every look-up. [1] https://location.services.mozilla.com/ https://location.services.mozilla.com/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless
- gsnedders 12y ago
  It's almost certainly down to the fact the Mozilla project just doesn't have the coverage yet.
panabee 12y ago
google has been apple's greatest competitor for a while. apple has > $160B in cash. mobile bing is comparable to mobile google. the strategic value of weakening google seems to far outweigh the financial value of defaulting to google search (assuming google is willing to outbid microsoft). so why hasn't apple defaulted to bing yet, and when will it?
kevincox 12y ago
I'm really curious about the financial angle of this. I'm wondering how much was gained/lost based on the decision they made versus making a deal with Google for a similar system as in the past.
opinali 12y ago
Yahoo! is OK, but... Yandex and Baidu are not exactly recommended company for an organization that pretends to hold the Open Web's moral higher ground. They practice large-scale censorship, they are instruments of repressive regimes. How does that make any sense?
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  Note that Mozilla has had revenue arrangements with Yandex and Baidu previously. And Google doesn't exactly have clean hands in China itself.
  - hackuser 12y ago
    > Note that Mozilla has had revenue arrangements with Yandex and Baidu previously. And Google doesn't exactly have clean hands in China itself. What did Google do in China? I remember them pulling out of China, declining to participate further in censorship there, and being attacked (hacked) by the Chinese government. What am I forgetting?
    - mbrubeck 12y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#China has a short summary. You're correct that since 2010 they've refused to assist with government censorship; I had been thinking of what came before that. I think you have a good point that today, Google is the better actor in China.
  - opinali 12y ago
    As you mention with the Wikipedia ref, there was controversy with Google's early attempts to work in China. What happens here is that Google tried to do a "best-effort" service for Chinese users, with the assumption that partial service would be much better than no service (and certainly WAY better than what Chinese users get from their own web companies like Baidu, that not only enforce censorship but also report "bad users" to the government, actively help to spy on dissidents etc.--something Google never considered doing). The search UI would notify users that some results were excluded due to government-enforced restriction, which was at least transparent--and not unlike what Google has to do today in the EU with the "right to be forgotten" censorship. But this wasn't good enough for the PRC, their firewall would impose harsh punishment to users who tried to browse forbidden things; I don't remember details now but it was like: you try to search for certain words, you'd be cut off the internet and not only your IP but other people too. So in a later attempt, Google search tried to warn users in advance, with a customized Google Instant so the user could avoid submitting a "bad" query that could result in blocking. This idea didn't work because the firewall was quickly updated to crack down on it, and I think that was the last attempt, then Google desisted to fight this battle because any progress would clearly require too much compromising, more than could be justified by an attempt to provide a pragmatic, partial service. [Disclaimer: Googler, but not especially intimate with the events above; none of this is internal info either, it's all widely reported stuff.]
mrschwabe 12y ago
This seems like a positive step forward for Mozilla (away from Google) but there's no denying how much more awesome this announcement would have been if the new default search provider was DuckDuckGo :)
cwyers 12y ago
I can't get at the post, so maybe they answer this, but... in this thread, I'm seeing that it's Yahoo! in the U.S., Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China. That seems to leave... a lot of the globe unspoken for. What's the default search for those places?
- fpgeek 12y ago
  I can get at the post and I also couldn't see anything about the default outside of US/Russia/China. What makes this particularly interesting is the rest of the globe includes some of Firefox's strongest markets. My gut suggests this is obscure because Google will remain the default there, but that's just a guess. EDIT: My gut seems to be wrong. The Yahoo post on this ( http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 ) mentions "the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets". I think that means Yahoo will end up being the default outside Russia and China, though the rollout may take some time.
tn13 12y ago
Honestly I dont see how this is a "choice". In fact this sounds exactly opposite of the choice. In this particular case Firefox has made the choice on our behalf that we are better off using Yahoo's crappy search results instead of market leader Google. If you are making a browser which is focused on giving freedom to users you are supposed to : 1. Either let the users chose the search engine as an on-boarding step. 2. Offer industry best/leader as default. In this particular case Firefox has made a suboptimal choice on our behalf in the name of "choice". How exactly is this different from : 1. Comcast taking more money from Netflix to give them better bandwidth ? Now my grandmother will end up seeing 0 organic search results above the fold and will have to learn to either change the search settings or simply use that icon with Red Green and Yellow around a blue dot (Chrome).
- userbinator 12y ago
  Mozilla are known for their doublespeak (best example to-date being https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...), but this is one of their more honest pieces - they are giving users a choice of search engines; nonetheless, I can see why the title rubs you the wrong way, and I'd also prefer the original one which was "Yahoo and Mozilla form Strategic Partnership".
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  > Now my grandmother will end up seeing 0 organic search > results above the fold Part of the deal is that Yahoo improves the presentation of search results so that this doesn't happen.
mcintyre1994 12y ago
To be blunt, where's the innovation in Yahoo! Search? They're using Bing data and the result page images in the article look like a clone of Google's.
spikels 12y ago
Yikes I never realized Mozilla was so dependent on Google % of Revenue from Google Search Royalties: 2013 Not released yet (usually 11 months! after end of year) 2012 88% (90% of 304,539/311,005) 2011 84% (85% of 161,904/163,474) 2010 83% (84% of 121,109/123,206) 2009 84% (86% of 101,537/104,305) 2008 98% (91% of 83,600/77,737) 2007 80% (88% of 68,238,803/75,125,640) 2006 78% (85% of 61,561,496/66,840,850) 2005 91% (95% of 50,516,268/52,906,602) Sources: 2012 - https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Financials_2012.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi... 2011 - http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundation%20and%20Subsidiaries%202011%20Audited%20Financial%20Statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio... 2010 - http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundation%20and%20Subsidiaries%202010%20Audited%20Financial%20Statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio... 2009 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2009-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2009-audit... 2008 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2008-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2008-audit... 2007 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audit... 2006 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2006-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2006-audit... 2005 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2005-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2005-audit...
- glomph 12y ago
  Where else did you imagine their money coming from?
  - spikels 12y ago
    It's a non-profit serving the public interest so I had assumed donations from individuals and foundations would be a bigger source of revenue. It looks like they have collected less than $2.2 million in the 8 years covered by the financials. This is nothing for a organization that spent $150 million last year. I hope they got a generous deal from Yahoo - who has a ton of Alibaba cash burning a hole in their pocket - but the fundamentals of a shrinking desktop advertising market and share don't look good.
patcon 12y ago
Anyone interested in search engine alternatives should look into yacy! Its distributed and runs locally. You can share your node with others of you really want to help :)
agumonkey 12y ago
It would be nice to have search engine keybindings too. Stupid example Ctrl+K Ctrl+<Initial> to pick an engine (hopefully not too many starts with the same letter). Even better, hell revolutionary : multiple search at once. /s/m
- Yoric 12y ago
  I do * Ctrl + L to use DDG (my default search engine); * Ctrl + L "go" to use Google; * Ctrl + L "tlf" to search in my dictionary; * etc. To set this up, lookup the documentation of "keywords" in Firefox.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    Pardon my french, but Dude, where did you learn about that ? I'm not the finest follower but I care about this kind of features and scroll through changelogs and missed this entirely. This is beautiful. damn, the abstracted bookmark url is at least from 2006 http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html #dumbfounded
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

430 points by Osmose 12y ago

Looks like a smart move by Yahoo to be the default search for a major browser: google/chrome, bing/ie. This also means that Firefox will likely get some serious support from Yahoo in $$s to build back market share. Question is can they catch Google?

huhtenberg 12y ago
Don't forget though that Yahoo Search runs off Bing.
- chuhnk 12y ago
  But for how long? They've reached the mid-point on the Bing deal. Yahoo has been working on two search projects internally. They want to own search once again.
  - cpeterso 12y ago
    Does Yahoo's 10-year search deal with Microsoft/Bing restrict Yahoo from working on competing (i.e. not internal) search engines? Is Yahoo developing their own search engine, just waiting to deploy it when the Microsoft/Bing deal expires in 2020? :)
    - chuhnk 12y ago
      Good questions heh. The Mozilla deal is 5 years right? Plausible that this allows them to push forward in the search avenue without compromising the Bing deal while continuing the work on their own tech. I'm a big believer in Marissa Mayer's strategy so in full support of this Mozilla deal.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > They want to own search once again. Yahoo! never owned search before. The brief period where Yahoo! Search was an independent, rather than provided by a third party, was after Google became dominant (and Google was the last exclusive provider of Yahoo! Search before that independent period, which ended with the most recent Bing deal.) Before Google, Yahoo! Search was Inktomi (who was later bought by Yahoo! after Yahoo! stopped relying on them), and before that AltaVista (also later bought by Yahoo!) Yahoo! has only ever owned being the interface to search.
    - dec0dedab0de 12y ago
      I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory. It was not quite search, but it was their own results, and they dominated the market. Edit: type-o/clarity.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory. Yeah, that was the pre-search strategy that Yahoo! (and others) pursued, and Yahoo! did own that for a while (I'd argue that their focus on such a curated list while search ramped up is what left them behind on search, leading to them relying on series of search providers -- which they kept buying up even after abandoning them as search providers), but they never caught up even when after those acquisitions they tried to go it alone. So, sure, maybe they want to own search the same way they owned curated-directory-based web information, but that's different from wanting to own search again.
        dec0dedab0de 12y ago
        Fair enough. Though I would say it still counts as search, whether they're crawling the internet or forcing sites to sign up manually. I agree that the focus on a curated list is what held them behind, though it may be nice if someone were to provide that today at scale.
mightykan 12y ago
It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing. Although we might never find out, I'm very curious to find out the terms of the deal. Did Yahoo pay more? What about Microsoft? Were MS as motivated since they, essentially had two horses in the race (Bing and Yahoo) vs. Google? Lots of fun little details. Edit: Typos
- graeme 12y ago
  >It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing. Does Yahoo do their own tweaks? I just checked my site's ranking for a few terms in Bing vs. Yahoo. Bing gave much the same results as Google, whereas my site ranked significantly worse in Yahoo.
capkutay 12y ago
"Question is can they catch Google?" I don't think so...but maybe in Yahoo's next 3 or 4 earnings reports they can say 'search revenues are up 50% this quarter' which will boost their stock price and lead to financial articles titled 'Will $YHOO kill $GOOG?'
fhd2 12y ago
> Question is can they catch Google? I suppose they could, if they went for the same questionable bundling [1] and SEO [2] tactics as Google :) Adding to that the fact that Google occasionally promotes Chrome on their various products (search engine et. al.), they haven't been particularly fair all in all. I doubt Mozilla will go that low, and I doubt they could gain significant ground even if they did. [1] https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome [2] https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/NAWunDzJSHC https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/NAWunDzJSHC
MLR 12y ago
I hadn't thought about it before, but I wonder if Yahoo would be willing to front a Firefox advertising campaign across its portals; similar to how Google used to (stil does?) promote Chrome across its own properties.

briholt 12y ago

Anyone have any insights into this? From the outside it looks like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of Chrome. Interesting they went with Yahoo and not Bing.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Anyone have any insights into this? From the outside it looks like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of Chrome. Looks more like Mozilla is parting ways with Google because of money -- whether Yahoo! offering more than Google has in the past or Google offering less. (Though, looking at historical usage share measures, there's a good argument that if Google is offering less, its likely because Chrome eclipsing Firefox -- and by some measures IE -- has reduced the value of default search placement in Firefox.)
- gcp 12y ago
  if Google is offering less, its likely because Chrome eclipsing Firefox -- and by some measures IE -- has reduced the value of default search placement in Firefox Yahoo is looking at the same marketshare numbers, so that actually can't be the reason.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Yahoo is looking at the same marketshare numbers, so that actually can't be the reason. It certainly can be the reason that Google's offer isn't as strong -- the value of default search place in the third-place-with-continuing-declining-share browser is conceivably quite different to a party that owns what is, depending on which measure you look at, either the first- or second-place browser and a party that doesn't have any browser.
    - gcp 12y ago
      I don't see how that follows. Why would it? That x% of users represents X amount of users who click ads, which means y% of lost revenue. Why would the monetary value of that y% be so different to another search engine vendor? Either it's scaling effects (owning a few percent makes you more known, which drives new users) or Yahoo is better at selling ads through those users. Note that in the former case, there's even more incentive for Google to block. And if the second is true, oh boy, they certainly have a problem at G...

pwnna 12y ago

One question: wasn't Yahoo supposed to be a part of Bing at some point?

metzman 12y ago
I think they made a deal that Yahoo search results would be provided by bing
acdha 12y ago
Yahoo has used Bing's search infrastructure for awhile but they've kept the independent front-end and, based on my logs, some level of crawling, presumably to keep their options open so they could switch in the future.
dec0dedab0de 12y ago
I think yahoo is/was sending off search results to Bing. A long time ago they used to send them to Google. Before that they would refer to themselves as a web directory, not a search engine. And WAYY before that every result page had a link to search on different sites, web crawler, lycos, maybe even google my memory is kind of fuzzy. The point is that Yahoo cares more about getting people to their portal, not so much what technology it happens to be using.
mightykan 12y ago
When Microsoft failed to purchase Yahoo to $47.5bn billion in 2008, they reached a 10-year deal in 2009 for Yahoo to use Bing's infrastructure and "backend" for search [1]. Yahoo provides their own UI/UX and Microsoft provides the actual data. So, technically, Firefox will be showing very similar (if not identical) results to Bing. [1]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm

AshleysBrain 12y ago

Does this mean Yahoo outbid Google for being the new default search? How much is the deal worth? What about outside the US?

gcp 12y ago
Outside the US it's Yandex and Baidu for their respective locales.
- fpgeek 12y ago
  Um, there's more to the world outside the US than Russia and China...
  - gcp 12y ago
    That doesn't appear to have been announced. I wonder if it's because the EU was asleep.

agapos 12y ago

Doesn't that mean that Google giving up on one of the biggest markets means they no longer need Mozilla and it can ditch it's support altogether? Will Yahoo be able to support Moz as Google did? Will this became precedence for other countries too (aside from exceptions like Russia's yandex)?

todesschaf 12y ago
You're assuming Google gave up on Mozilla, and not the other way around. Your assumption is incorrect.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Osmose 12y ago
You're assuming that Yahoo is paying more, assuming that money was the motivation for making the deal, and assuming that Mozilla employees believe that partnering with Google is better for the open web than partnering with Yahoo.
kumar303 12y ago
The deal is only for the default engine. Firefox users are still free to switch it to Google, Duck Duck Go, or Yandex or anything
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
callahad 12y ago
I suspect many Mozilla engineers are actually cheering this partnership. I certainly am. To wit, disrupting hegemony is how we got our start, and I'm proud to see Mozilla striving for a competitive, open Internet.
- Yoric 12y ago
  I am a Mozilla engineer, and yeah, I think it's a good thing to do.

sp332 12y ago

I'd swear this happened already... I updated Firefox on an old Android tablet yesterday and the default search was already switched to Yahoo. Edit: ah, now that you mention it, it was a Beta version.

cpeterso 12y ago
Firefox for Android has been testing Yahoo as the default search engine for a few months. Mozilla's search deal with Google did not cover mobile browsers. Firefox OS uses Bing.
- soapdog 12y ago
  Firefox OS does not use Bing. It used Bing a long time ago but all consumer devices are set to Google these days.
mythmon_ 12y ago
Pre-release versions (Beta, Aurrora, Nightly) on Android have been running experiments with Yahoo for a while.

dec0dedab0de 12y ago

The real question is did Google stop paying? did Yahoo offer way more? Or did Mozilla want to break out from Google's shadow? Edit: I mean to say did Google decide to end it, or did Mozilla, and why?

lzecon 12y ago
Yup, they didn't renew the google contract
potch 12y ago
Mozilla was the one who decided not to renew.
mnemonik 12y ago
All of the potential partnerships (including going with Google again) offered an improvement economically over the last deal partnership. Mozilla chose not to go with Google again.
mythmon_ 12y ago
Mozilla's deal with Google ran it's course. Instead of inking a new deal with Google, Mozilla decided to go with another option.
ngokevin 12y ago
There was a strong option in place from Google, but Mozilla decided not to go with them as a global default in order to promote choice.
- anExcitedBeast 12y ago
  I don't think I follow this argument. Can you explain it further? It feels like Yahoo probably just offered more money.
  - gcp 12y ago
    Google currently has the overwhelming share of the search market, which means a large advertising income. If other players get a bigger chunk of the pie, that means more competition.

victor27 12y ago

Curious - do people here view the Yahoo! Search Experience to be better or worse than Google Search?

mythmon_ 12y ago
This is kind of a moot point. If you read the article carefully, you'll notice that Yahoo will be bringing "a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S"
- cpeterso 12y ago
  > "a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S" I wonder if or how Yahoo's "re-imagined" search experience will be affected for non-Firefox users. UPDATE: Yahoo's press release says their "clean, modern, and immersive search experience that will launch first to Firefox’s U.S. users in December and then to all Yahoo users in early 2015." http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313
  - jfoster 12y ago
    Interesting that Firefox users get it first. If they're clever (I think they are), that's a tactic to help Mozilla with user acquisition. (assuming the reimagined search experience is something that they can make people want to try)
- jonknee 12y ago
  That's just corporate non-sense. It will be Bing's results with a different stylesheet and different set of ads.
  - zobzu 12y ago
    Actually it makes sense IMO. Current yahoo "stylesheet" and ads are freaking terrible. If they bring a clean UI with few or no ads this makes it way more useable.

huhtenberg 12y ago

Here's the option to suppress the change - http://i.imgur.com/HwHqQU9.png http://i.imgur.com/HwHqQU9.png

chuckharmston 12y ago
It's worth noting that Google isn't disappearing from Firefox; you will still be able to manage your search engines as you have before.
- Ntrails 12y ago
  But not in the "new tab" page I assume?
  - mbrubeck 12y ago
    The "new tab" page in recent versions of Firefox uses whichever search engine you select in the search toolbar. So it's easy to switch it to Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or others.
aluhut 12y ago
I was already unchecked in mine.
sp332 12y ago
Clicking the search drop-down and picking the engine you want takes even less time.
mbrubeck 12y ago
I'm not sure that will affect this. I believe that's for updates to user-installed search engines, which are distributed and updated separately from the browser. Default search engines are part of the browser code itself, so they update when the application does. Note that Google will still be included as an option, so all you need to do is click on the search box icon to choose it. (I'm an occasional Firefox contributor and I once worked on the search engine and add-on manager code a little bit, but I'm not an expert so take this with a grain of salt.)

andrewl-hn 12y ago

Note that is affects only U.S.-based users of Firefox. Good move for both parties, and I hope they can struck deals with regional search engines in other locations as well. Diversification is good for everybody.

y0ghur7_xxx 12y ago
I too think that diversity helps: google has a monopoly in search, and a push for yahoo in search queries may even help them make the search engine better, and maybe they will become a much needed google competitor.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Does Yahoo still operate a search engine? I thought they used Bing.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  Mozilla and Google have been "frenemies" for a while. Now that Firefox is no longer supporting Google's search monopoly, I wonder how Google's search traffic (and stock price) will look in six months. I think Mozilla's decision is good for increasing search competition.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    It will be same. Unless Yahoo have a real winning product (which given their track record, I doubt) people will just switch to google.

rdl 12y ago

This makes me less likely to use Mozilla, but I was already a Chrome or Safari user (despite supporting the Mozilla mission). Seems like a bad decision for Mozilla.

cpeterso 12y ago
Yahoo will just replace Google as the default search engine for Firefox users in the US. Like Yahoo and Bing in today's Firefox, Google will still be an option.
mythmon_ 12y ago
Why does this make you less likely to use Firefox? The default search engine is just that: the default. You can change it to something else, and always have been able to. If you care enough to know what search engine you use, you should be able to change it.
- dingaling 12y ago
  > You can change it to something else, and always have been able to. You can't change the default search engine in Firefox for Android, at least through the UI. And mobile is a high-frequency user of search, which makes that decision even more interesting.
  - gcp 12y ago
    Of course you can. Well at least in Nightly you can, it's possible this was reworked recently (and today's announcement would explain why).
  - enigmango 12y ago
    Menu > Settings > Customize > Search. Tapping any of the search providers brings up an option to set it as the default. Are you using an older version? (Tested on v33.1)
callahad 12y ago
Why would this be a bad decision, or make you less likely to use Firefox? Mozilla exists in large part due to the abuses that come with monopolistic control over the Internet. Google is dangerously close to that line. Choosing a different partner seems like the most mission-aligned option for Mozilla.

andreastt 12y ago

The correct link is https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an.... Seems the link was changed.

Osmose 12y ago
They're separate posts, I hadn't seen that one until you shared it. I think it's a better article than this one, and would be happy if a mod changed the link and title. :D
- andreastt 12y ago
  Oh, my mistake entirely.
  - Osmose 12y ago
    The original link is now redirecting to the better link anyway, so I've changed the title to match the new article.

tn13 12y ago

It is hard to figure out what a "strategic partnership" really means at the moment but .. - I hope this strategic partnership does not mean 0 organic search results above the fold. That is what Yahoo is doing at the moment. - I hope FF does not come up with any Yahoo spyware/Toolbars etc. Search is a weird thing on internet.

ngokevin 12y ago
I don't believe that will be the case. I personally believe Yahoo can step up and deliver an improved search experience.

mnemonik 12y ago

Related blog post: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an... More details, Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China, etc.

nnethercote 12y ago

Some more details: * This is a new, more flexible partnership strategy. * Continuing the existing relationship with Google was an option, but Mozilla chose to end the Google relationship. * All the options Mozilla considered had strong, improved economic terms (but the concrete numbers are not public). Because all the options had improved economics, that allowed Mozilla to really consider the strategic outlook. * The Yahoo agreement in the US is for five years. * Yahoo will be rolling out a new, improved search tool soon. * Mozilla has agreements with Yandex and Baidu for Russia and China. * Google will remain an included option in Firefox and Mozilla will continue to support its use.

chuckharmston 12y ago
Some details of the new Yahoo experience are available on their corporate Tumblr: http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313
mbrubeck 12y ago
Note: nnethercote is a Mozilla employee (as am I). These details are straight from the horse's mouth (dino's mouth?).
- olssy 12y ago
  As long as the horse is in the house, has Mozilla ever given any thought to creating its own search service?
  - mbrubeck 12y ago
    I don't know of any actual projects to that end, but certainly people have thought about it. I know from personal conversations that Asa Dotzler in particular has given it some very detailed thought, though I don't know if or where he's written up any of those ideas...
  - wodenokoto 12y ago
    I believe I have seen the notion pop up once or twice on planet.mozilla and it has been why its not a mozilla project.

jlebar 12y ago

I'm getting 500 errors. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oALd2oTUZ2AJ:https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/yahoo-and-mozilla-form-strategic-partnership/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oALd2oT...

Osmose 12y ago

FYI blog.mozilla.org is down, IT people are working on it.

DevX101 12y ago

This is why Google built Chrome. Google's strategy has been to remove the layers between the user's intent to search and Google's own server. Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the tubes). Each of these channels is an opportunity for disruption by some competitor search engine and Google wants to make sure they don't get blindsided. Or one of the gateways could demand a massive tribute for Google to pass through (cable companies are pushing for this via the war against net neutrality). If Google didn't have Chrome and Firefox was the leading browser, they'd be in big trouble with this news. Lucky for them they thought about this a long time ago and built a browser which now accounts for 50% of market share. Yahoo NEEDS this deal. For Google, it's a nice to have.

pillowpants2 12y ago
When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the tubes). You forgot Google Glass (control the eyes).
- threeseed 12y ago
  From all indications Google Glass is being shifted towards being an enterprise product e.g. helping people pack shelves. So in this case it doesn't really apply.
  - eitally 12y ago
    As an enterprise dev mgr who has been thinking about prototyping an app to do exactly this (well, actually the opposite -- to guide warehouse staff in the kitting process for manufacturing), I'm curious: where have you seen indications of Glass evolving toward the enterprise? I haven't seen it anywhere, but Google has tons of AR competition in the industrial space already, many of which are FAR more capable than Glass, which is 1) fragile, 2) feature-limited, 3) low res crappy display, 4) not at all intended to work autonomously.

throwawaymoz 12y ago

(throwaway account) While I believe the party line is probably true ("Mozilla decided not to go with Google"), it's also disingenuous. Mozilla chose not to go with Google because Google wasn't willing to pay what they were before. They straight up told Mozilla this 3 years ago when they signed the billion dollar contract; Mozilla had 3 years to become profitable. That's why they switched focus to FirefoxOS; they thought that by now they'd be profitable via selling phones and the app store. (At the time, Bing was bidding against Google, however Mozilla went with the smaller check from Google because they knew using Bing would seem like selling out.) For the record, Google made billions off being Firefox's default search engine. They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years, but that was only a small fraction of how much Google profited from Firefox searches. Not sure if it's still true, but three years ago they made more from Firefox than they did from Chrome. So, yes, Mozilla could have gone with Google still. It's not like Google said "nope, you can't use us as the default!". However, they went with Yahoo! because Google wasn't willing to pay what Mozilla needed. The whole "Mozilla picked Yahoo! to enable choice" has been tweeted by every Mozillian I know (and said multiple times in this thread), but it's a meaningless statement. If they really meant that, you'd be prompted when you opened Firefox the first time to pick a search engine.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> For the record, Google made billions off being Firefox's default search engine. They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years, but that was only a small fraction of how much Google profited from Firefox searches. Not sure if it's still true, but three years ago they made more from Firefox than they did from Chrome. Google doesn't really make money from Firefox or Chrome (the browser), per se (except insofar as Chrome increases the value of things that Google does sell that include it, like Chromebooks, Nexus devices, etc.), it makes money from searches, whether default or not. 3 years ago, sure, more searches -- to Google or any other search provider -- came from Firefox than Chrome because Firefox had more usage share than Chrome. That's rather dramatically reversed since then.
- throwawaymoz 12y ago
  Don't forget that Chrome users are more tech savvy on average than Firefox users, meaning they click ads less.

_pius 12y ago

Note that Mozilla is making Yahoo reinstate support for Do-Not-Track, which it had dropped earlier this year. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150981/yahoo-drops-do-not-track-policy-in-favor-of-personalized-experience.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150981/yahoo-drops-do-not-tr...

mythmon_ 12y ago
Yahoo will only respect DNT for Firefox users. This is because DNT was essentially ruined after Microsoft turned DNT on by default in IE. Since it didn't represent an explicit user choice, it carried much less weight. It is an explicit choice in Firefox.
- thezilch 12y ago
  And how will they target only Firefox users? Should we expect IE to start masquerading as <insert Mozilla browser> again?
  - yuhong 12y ago
    What is funny is that they are: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-edge-our-next-step-in-interoperability.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-...
- Ntrails 12y ago
  What if, and this is crazy I know, you needed an explicit action to track me instead of relying on users not knowing such a thing exists to avoid.
  - nnethercote 12y ago
    You're going to love Firefox's new Tracking Protection feature, which is currently under development: http://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-the-effects-of-firefoxs-tracking-protection/ http://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-t... It allows you to block things coming from known tracking domains, giving better privacy and faster page loads on many sites.

ihuman 12y ago

Haven't they done something like this before? I remember Yahoo promoting a Yahoo-branded Firefox. It's default search and homepage were Yahoo, and every titlebar had "Firefox and Yahoo" at the end instead of just "Firefox."

Yoric 12y ago
Yeah, there was an experimental Firefox + Yahoo distro, for download on Yahoo's servers. There was also a Firefox + Bing distro, iirc.

kibwen 12y ago

It's always seemed as though Google's and Mozilla's relationship would weaken over the years, though honestly I expected Bing rather than Yahoo to be the one to step up and fill Google's shoes. Also surprising is that apparently Mozilla was the one to initiate the switch. As a Firefox user, all in all I'm rather pleased. I've just tried a few of my typical searches on Yahoo and though the expected links aren't the top results (seeing links for Rust-the-game instead of Rust-the-language...), they're on the first page. Let's see if that improves with time as I use it more. And I'm happy to support some more diversity in this space.

bjz_ 12y ago
As a long time Mozilla lover, I have been quite concerned about their dependence on Google for quite some time now. I'm really thankful that they have had the courage to cut ties. Must have been a scary decision.
nnethercote 12y ago
The new Yahoo search that's coming soon is meant to be much better. So I suggest you reserve your judgment until then :)
- modeless 12y ago
  Is it still based on Bing?
  - praneshp 12y ago
    Nope.
riffraff 12y ago
isn't yahoo search powered by bing anyway?
- tempestn 12y ago
  It uses the Bing index, but there are at least some differences in how it retrieves and prioritizes results. (If you run the same search on yahoo and bing, even with fresh cookies, you won't normally get identical results.) Yahoo may do some spidering of their own as well, although not to my knowledge. I know at least the above is true though. Also as an aside the Yahoo BOSS API is significantly more powerful than the comparable Azure Bing web search API. Unfortunately, they also just doubled the access price this month.

digitalnalogika 12y ago

What will be the default engine in countries not listed in post? It is not exactly clear, apart from saying that Google will be pre-installed (but not default?).

sroerick 12y ago

Mozilla is making some major moves these days. They've ditched Google as their main revenue source, partnering with Tor and Yahoo. Yahoo is angling to be a digital magazine, which I like as a business model much more than Google's. Firefox is making a strong case for itself as the privacy centric browser. I still remember when Firefox started gaining market share. Even non-tech-savvy people were getting firefox, because IE was so bad for security, and so hard to maintain. Excited to see what the next few months brings.

joosters 12y ago
I thought that Google was still far and away their main revenue source?
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  It has been for the last three years, but Mozilla decided to go with Yahoo/Yandex/Baidu rather than renew the deal with Google. So Yahoo (and others) will replace Google as the main revenue source.
  - joosters 12y ago
    Have they disclosed the new financial terms of the agreement though? I'd be interested to see how the numbers have changed.
    - mythmon_ 12y ago
      The only public numbers are from the the previous Google search deal (the one from 3 years ago). It will be a long time until the details of this new deal are public. In the mean time I (as a Mozilla employee) can say that all of the options Mozilla had for the new search deal were better economically than the now-ending Google deal. This was really nice, because Mozilla got to make a choice that wasn't about money, but was about strategy and what we want in the web instead.
    - gcp 12y ago

jimmaswell 12y ago

Is this why Firefox mobile started using Yahoo as the default and I can't change it? I tried changing it and it just kept using Yahoo.

gcp 12y ago
Yes and no. Changeable search engines were obviously a prerequisite for this kind of deal, and Yahoo was one of the first ones to offer the needed APIs (and IIRC, over HTTPS which was required by Mozilla). Changing search engines can be done via Customize->Search->Installed search engines. Click the one you want and you'll get a popup offering to remove it or make it the default.
zobzu 12y ago
I use mobile firefox as well and it switched to yahoo as well. i could change it back without any issue. i think they changed defaults - but if you had put your own engine yourself it didnt.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ngokevin 12y ago
FWIW, Bing has looked similar to Google for a very long time.

math0ne 12y ago

For me at least then moving away from google is a huge selling point. I think if they marketed themselves as a googless web experience it could be really good for them.

drewda 12y ago

"Google will also continue to power the Safe Browsing and Geolocation features of Firefox." It's disappointing to hear that Firefox isn't yet using Mozilla's location services project [1]. Background: These are the services that will, say, take the SSID of your current WiFI access point and map that to a latitude/longitude. My understanding is that almost all commercial users subscribe to Skyhook Wireless's database[2], other than Google, which has built its own WiFi AP maps using its StreetView trucks. I think Mozilla's "open" service, contributed by individual users, is a welcome alternative, since it means you no longer have to send your location to a large corporation on every look-up. [1] https://location.services.mozilla.com/ https://location.services.mozilla.com/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless

gsnedders 12y ago
It's almost certainly down to the fact the Mozilla project just doesn't have the coverage yet.

panabee 12y ago

google has been apple's greatest competitor for a while. apple has > $160B in cash. mobile bing is comparable to mobile google. the strategic value of weakening google seems to far outweigh the financial value of defaulting to google search (assuming google is willing to outbid microsoft). so why hasn't apple defaulted to bing yet, and when will it?

kevincox 12y ago

I'm really curious about the financial angle of this. I'm wondering how much was gained/lost based on the decision they made versus making a deal with Google for a similar system as in the past.

opinali 12y ago

Yahoo! is OK, but... Yandex and Baidu are not exactly recommended company for an organization that pretends to hold the Open Web's moral higher ground. They practice large-scale censorship, they are instruments of repressive regimes. How does that make any sense?

mbrubeck 12y ago
Note that Mozilla has had revenue arrangements with Yandex and Baidu previously. And Google doesn't exactly have clean hands in China itself.
- hackuser 12y ago
  > Note that Mozilla has had revenue arrangements with Yandex and Baidu previously. And Google doesn't exactly have clean hands in China itself. What did Google do in China? I remember them pulling out of China, declining to participate further in censorship there, and being attacked (hacked) by the Chinese government. What am I forgetting?
  - mbrubeck 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#China has a short summary. You're correct that since 2010 they've refused to assist with government censorship; I had been thinking of what came before that. I think you have a good point that today, Google is the better actor in China.
- opinali 12y ago
  As you mention with the Wikipedia ref, there was controversy with Google's early attempts to work in China. What happens here is that Google tried to do a "best-effort" service for Chinese users, with the assumption that partial service would be much better than no service (and certainly WAY better than what Chinese users get from their own web companies like Baidu, that not only enforce censorship but also report "bad users" to the government, actively help to spy on dissidents etc.--something Google never considered doing). The search UI would notify users that some results were excluded due to government-enforced restriction, which was at least transparent--and not unlike what Google has to do today in the EU with the "right to be forgotten" censorship. But this wasn't good enough for the PRC, their firewall would impose harsh punishment to users who tried to browse forbidden things; I don't remember details now but it was like: you try to search for certain words, you'd be cut off the internet and not only your IP but other people too. So in a later attempt, Google search tried to warn users in advance, with a customized Google Instant so the user could avoid submitting a "bad" query that could result in blocking. This idea didn't work because the firewall was quickly updated to crack down on it, and I think that was the last attempt, then Google desisted to fight this battle because any progress would clearly require too much compromising, more than could be justified by an attempt to provide a pragmatic, partial service. [Disclaimer: Googler, but not especially intimate with the events above; none of this is internal info either, it's all widely reported stuff.]

mrschwabe 12y ago

This seems like a positive step forward for Mozilla (away from Google) but there's no denying how much more awesome this announcement would have been if the new default search provider was DuckDuckGo :)

cwyers 12y ago

I can't get at the post, so maybe they answer this, but... in this thread, I'm seeing that it's Yahoo! in the U.S., Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China. That seems to leave... a lot of the globe unspoken for. What's the default search for those places?

fpgeek 12y ago
I can get at the post and I also couldn't see anything about the default outside of US/Russia/China. What makes this particularly interesting is the rest of the globe includes some of Firefox's strongest markets. My gut suggests this is obscure because Google will remain the default there, but that's just a guess. EDIT: My gut seems to be wrong. The Yahoo post on this ( http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313 ) mentions "the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets". I think that means Yahoo will end up being the default outside Russia and China, though the rollout may take some time.

tn13 12y ago

Honestly I dont see how this is a "choice". In fact this sounds exactly opposite of the choice. In this particular case Firefox has made the choice on our behalf that we are better off using Yahoo's crappy search results instead of market leader Google. If you are making a browser which is focused on giving freedom to users you are supposed to : 1. Either let the users chose the search engine as an on-boarding step. 2. Offer industry best/leader as default. In this particular case Firefox has made a suboptimal choice on our behalf in the name of "choice". How exactly is this different from : 1. Comcast taking more money from Netflix to give them better bandwidth ? Now my grandmother will end up seeing 0 organic search results above the fold and will have to learn to either change the search settings or simply use that icon with Red Green and Yellow around a blue dot (Chrome).

userbinator 12y ago
Mozilla are known for their doublespeak (best example to-date being https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...), but this is one of their more honest pieces - they are giving users a choice of search engines; nonetheless, I can see why the title rubs you the wrong way, and I'd also prefer the original one which was "Yahoo and Mozilla form Strategic Partnership".
bzbarsky 12y ago
> Now my grandmother will end up seeing 0 organic search > results above the fold Part of the deal is that Yahoo improves the presentation of search results so that this doesn't happen.

mcintyre1994 12y ago

To be blunt, where's the innovation in Yahoo! Search? They're using Bing data and the result page images in the article look like a clone of Google's.

spikels 12y ago

Yikes I never realized Mozilla was so dependent on Google % of Revenue from Google Search Royalties: 2013 Not released yet (usually 11 months! after end of year) 2012 88% (90% of 304,539/311,005) 2011 84% (85% of 161,904/163,474) 2010 83% (84% of 121,109/123,206) 2009 84% (86% of 101,537/104,305) 2008 98% (91% of 83,600/77,737) 2007 80% (88% of 68,238,803/75,125,640) 2006 78% (85% of 61,561,496/66,840,850) 2005 91% (95% of 50,516,268/52,906,602) Sources: 2012 - https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Financials_2012.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi... 2011 - http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundation%20and%20Subsidiaries%202011%20Audited%20Financial%20Statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio... 2010 - http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundation%20and%20Subsidiaries%202010%20Audited%20Financial%20Statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio... 2009 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2009-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2009-audit... 2008 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2008-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2008-audit... 2007 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audit... 2006 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2006-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2006-audit... 2005 - http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2005-audited-financial-statement.pdf http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2005-audit...

glomph 12y ago
Where else did you imagine their money coming from?
- spikels 12y ago
  It's a non-profit serving the public interest so I had assumed donations from individuals and foundations would be a bigger source of revenue. It looks like they have collected less than $2.2 million in the 8 years covered by the financials. This is nothing for a organization that spent $150 million last year. I hope they got a generous deal from Yahoo - who has a ton of Alibaba cash burning a hole in their pocket - but the fundamentals of a shrinking desktop advertising market and share don't look good.

patcon 12y ago

Anyone interested in search engine alternatives should look into yacy! Its distributed and runs locally. You can share your node with others of you really want to help :)

agumonkey 12y ago

It would be nice to have search engine keybindings too. Stupid example Ctrl+K Ctrl+<Initial> to pick an engine (hopefully not too many starts with the same letter). Even better, hell revolutionary : multiple search at once. /s/m

Yoric 12y ago
I do * Ctrl + L to use DDG (my default search engine); * Ctrl + L "go" to use Google; * Ctrl + L "tlf" to search in my dictionary; * etc. To set this up, lookup the documentation of "keywords" in Firefox.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Pardon my french, but Dude, where did you learn about that ? I'm not the finest follower but I care about this kind of features and scroll through changelogs and missed this entirely. This is beautiful. damn, the abstracted bookmark url is at least from 2006 http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html #dumbfounded

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]