
Firefox Features Google as Default Search Provider in the U.S. - dallamaneni
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/firefox-features-google-as-default-search-provider-in-the-u-s-canada-hong-kong-and-taiwan/
======
mrarjonny
DuckDuckGo, Start Page, or Qwant might have been a little more in the spirit
of Mozilla and privacy. Then again it takes about half a second to change the
default search to your own preference.

Google is probably the most approachable for the vast majority of users. It is
a sensible move in that regard.

~~~
neuland
Your right on a privacy front from an absolute perspective. But, it's almost
certain that Google paid for this change. A stronger Mozilla (financially
speaking) is good for privacy and free software.

Also, normal users expect Google. So, having it in the default provides a more
familiar experience for them to possibly switch to Firefox.

~~~
amelius
Still, Firefox could automatically switch to e.g. Duckduckgo whenever the user
is in incognito mode.

~~~
Yoric
I love the idea. Would you mind mind filing a bug on
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/)?

~~~
SkyMarshal
One more idea - any chance you guys are making a Firefox Focus for the
desktop? It's great on mobile, would love a desktop version too!

~~~
deftturtle
It's just a content blocker + private browsing. Can get same functionality on
desktop with private browsing and some ad blocker

~~~
SkyMarshal
Plus tab functionality removed, hence the name "focus".

------
jonnycomputer
I feel like the quality of deep search is diminishing; either there is less
free content on the web, or search has been optimized for something else; I
just get the same results over and over, not matter what combination of search
terms I used on a topic.

~~~
Psilidae
I agree. It's incredibly difficult to find anything that isn't a basic, low-
value result when you're looking for advanced, detailed content.

Maybe I'm looking up practices on how to write efficient SQL queries. All of
the results I find are just slideshare presentations and basic blog posts on
how to add an index to your select statement.

It feels impossible to find depth nowadays, when everything that search
engines deem relevant are the big, heavy-SEO websites with the lowest tier of
query-relevant information. Sure, the results may be good for people who want
just-the-basics about what they're searching, but anything more than that
feels hidden away.

~~~
putonyourshoes
Hi, I work on Google search. I'd be interested in any specific examples of
queries that you think give worse results today than in the past.

~~~
dleslie
"Interstate 76 custom maps"

I'm sure it's confusing to your algorithms on many levels. Is it a map of the
highway that I want? Oh, there's this game, let's add that too. What about
some news about the highway?

I just want some new roads to frag on... I get one result with what I'm
looking for.

------
dec0dedab0de
I really just wish they would go back to letting the search bar change on the
fly and remain that way until you change it back. With the little icon letting
you know which service it is currently set to.

Does anyone know why that functionality was removed? If I'm searching for
anything other than my default chances are I'm going to be searching at least
3 different things before getting it right, but then I can't just change the
text and press enter.

While I'm ranting, when did google stop paying attention to the actual words
you type and starting showing what they think you meant? I mean I know it's
been gradual, but at some point over the last few years I've noticed having to
use quotes for almost everything, and it still doesn't return exact results. I
assume that has something to do with how they normalize the ngrams and how I'm
not the target audience anymore, but it's still annoying.

~~~
11backslashes
I use DDG as default, and have all my other engines set with keywords.
Searching wikipedia (mapped to 'wk') for instance is as easy as:

ctrl+l

wk <search_key_word>

~~~
joeyblow
[https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

------
lloydde
Mozilla missed the opportunity to regain some of their authentic voice with
this announcement.

“This is part of our ongoing search strategy, announced in 2014 to evaluate
and select the best search experience in each region as opposed to having a
single global default.” is revisionist. I worked on a competing browser,
Flock, in 2005 and Mozilla already had a strong and wonderful commitment to
use the (local) best search engine for Firefox in a region. When they switched
to “Yahoo!” without additional transparency about the economic factor it made
it easier for me to use Chrome without feeling moral regret. With the
exception of this blog post / announcement I’m really excited overall to see
Mozilla back in the game.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
There was never any real commitment to the "best" search engine in a region.
Mozilla has been paid by Google to be the default search since 2004.

~~~
icebraining
I'd say they're using the best for the financial viability of Mozilla. Which
in turn is for the best of their users.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I don't disagree. But that doesn't change the fact that the parent post's idea
that they "choose the best search engine" is completely false. Mozilla has
been paid for search settings consistently since 2004.

~~~
lloydde
The feedback in the responses leads me to believe my ear may have been too
close to the loudspeaker, but here is a quote attributed to Mozilla Marketing
leader Asa Dotzler in 2009: “Firefox users have their choice of several built-
in and popular search services including Google’s number 1 competitor and the
second most popular, Yahoo!. Google is the default for most Firefox locales
because it’s the best search service available for the largest number of
Firefox users (and was years before there was any revenue associated with
default status).” [https://searchengineland.com/will-bing-finally-be-
admitted-i...](https://searchengineland.com/will-bing-finally-be-admitted-
into-the-firefox-club-31679)

I also think I remember Firefox’s default search engine in Japan regularly
being used as an example of doing right by users.

------
Fej
I wonder if at this point Google _wants_ to keep Mozilla in the game. Their
market share is low enough and it keeps antitrust regulators at bay. It looks
bad if there are only two major browsers, one of which owned by a company
which already got slapped for this very kind of monopolistic behavior.

Sorta like Intel and AMD.

~~~
frik
With Firefox 57, the UI changed to look almost identical to Chrome. The tabs
are now boxy, not round anymore. The hamburger menu changed from the useful
big box with big icons to a long menu that looks 99% like Chrome incl the
unusual page zoom buttons in the menu. Now we may know why, Google is paying
them again, after Yahoo deal is no more.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Eh...if the Google search money keeps Mozilla going, why not? It's no worse
than having Yahoo as the default search provider previously. I switch my
default to DuckDuckGo anyway.

------
ethhics
So Mozilla backed out of their 5-year contract with Yahoo then [1]. Do they
have a new agreement with Google that I'm not seeing anywhere?

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-
an...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-
innovation-on-the-web/)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
My guess is the other way around: Yahoo backed out of their contract with
Mozilla. The biggest difference for either of these companies this year is
that Verizon now owns Yahoo, and probably doesn't want to pay for search
market share. If the deal's a yearly cost or something similar, the bill's
coming up in December.

~~~
Redoubts
They have to keep paying though

[https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-
deal-...](https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-mozilla-
yahoo-payment)

~~~
kyrra
We don't know the exact details of the contract. And even if it was written as
such, both parties could agree to a change in the contract that could allow
either side to get out on certain conditions.

------
ams6110
Makes sense I guess. Nobody wants Yahoo search as a default.

~~~
ovao
And, to be fair, most users probably want Google to be their default.

Considering how heavily Mozilla’s been recently touting Firefox as the
privacy-oriented alternative to Chrome (in Facebook ads, and probably
elsewhere), to me it makes Mozilla appear flippant.

~~~
TheGrassyKnoll
Well, there's 'flippant' and then there's financial reality.

------
bad_user
On mobile Firefox makes it really easy to select a different provider.

I now use it on iOS too, even if it's just a shell for iOS's Safari view — the
UI is nicer and you can enable tracking protection to be always on.

------
ronjouch
Shortened title is misleading:

Firefox Features Google as Default Search Provider... _" in the U.S., Canada,
Hong Kong and Taiwan"_

EDIT title updated (within HN title length constraints, I guess), thanks
admins :)

~~~
porfirium
It's already the default in Europe from what I've seen.

~~~
bzbarsky
Depends on where and which countries you consider "Europe".

~~~
porfirium
When I say Europe I mean "Western Europe minus the islands to the north"

------
thisacctforreal
What's with requiring an Add-on to set a search engine URL?

I can't remove the "&t=ffab" query tag from the DuckDuckGo search. Presumably
ffab is Firefox Address Bar.

------
karmapolic
default search should be google search and default maps should be google maps.
yelp on the contrary forces you to use apple maps on iphone and that kind of
sucks.

------
sidcool
Looks like Google is gaining its foothold back

~~~
quickben
I've been out of reading news about it are they still shuffling cash to
Mozilla?

~~~
MaxBarraclough
I suspect so. Not very impressed that Mozilla failed to mention the money
question, when it's obviously going to be a matter of concern for anyone who
thinks the Mozillian way.

Could be an interesting tension if so. Mozilla were involved in a recent event
promoting awareness of data/privacy concerns. They weren't shy about
mentioning Google by name as a big bad.

[https://theglassroom.org/](https://theglassroom.org/)

~~~
boomboomsubban
Mozilla has always disclosed financial matters in their financial reports,
bringing it up in a release announcement would send a strange message.

------
Feniks
You can't even remove all the search engines. I tried.

------
Bhilai
Mozilla's punch line "Built for People, not for profit" stands at odds with
this since we know Google monetizes the heck out your search history.

Another interesting thing to note is Apple dropped Bing for Siri and Firefox
stayed with Google. Sounds like Microsoft is not even trying.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Was their punchline also at odds when they used Yahoo/Bing or was that
different?

~~~
yuhong
Also keep in mind that Firefox has used Google since 2004 I think.

~~~
dralley
Dude, no. The current deal with Yahoo has been in place for like 2 and a half
years, at least.

~~~
yuhong
Yes, but that is not the point.

------
ocdtrekkie
There will likely be some people errantly suggesting this is due to search
quality. It is not. Yahoo previously outbid Google approximately three years
ago for that default search offering, and it's likely their arrangement has
come to an end. One of Mozilla's strongest sources of funding comes from
selling the default search engine spot to the highest bidder.

EDIT: As an interesting note: Yahoo's deal was for five years, not three. I am
guessing Verizon decided it didn't want to pay for Mozilla anymore, and cut it
off early?

~~~
pythonaut_16
Which is a great choice IMO. Open source software needs funding, and I'm
always a fan of projects finding ways to be self supporting rather than
relying solely on donations.

Changing default search is trivial enough for anyone who cares to, and if they
did go with Duck Duck Go or similar as the default, I think you'd likely find
many/most users changing the default search to Google anyway.

------
nimbius
just another reason to avoid it. mandatory telemetry, mandatory pulseaudio in
linux, pocket, that weird failed video chat thing, and the DRM add-on that
literally no one asked for.

~~~
Santosh83
You have options to decline sending any potentially personal data back, and
then telemetry would include only basic, anonymised usage info to help them
improve Firefox. Pocket is now part of Mozilla and you can still just remove
the button from the toolbar and ignore it completely. I assume that video chat
thing was only ever proof-of-concept, at least I don't see it anywhere
anymore. As for EME, well, most people want their Netflix/Hulu fix. If Mozilla
declined to support EME then they'll quickly become _obsolete_.

~~~
brador
> telemetry would include only basic, anonymised usage info to help them
> improve Firefox.

This is unacceptable. Why can't I turn it off completely?

~~~
fedups
I believe Santosh83 means even if you leave it on, it will be anonymized
performance data

~~~
brador
You can't anonymize data in transit since it requires a sender IP which makes
the sent performance data susceptible to interception and analysis by
intermediaries.

~~~
floatboth
It's boring data, encrypted in transit (HTTPS). About the only thing
intermediaries can learn is that someone used Firefox at the time of the
request.

------
indubitable
Things like this illustrate why it's a bit disingenuous to praise the
nonprofit status of Mozilla as some huge distinguishing factor. Not only do
the executives pay themselves more than generous salaries (1m for chair, 874k
for director, 908k for treasurer) but nonprofit doesn't mean free from
commercial concerns. They still need to make money to pay those salaries and
support their projects. It seems wiser to judge the ethos of a company based
on their actions and decisions instead of their corporate tax status.

[1] - [https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2014_Mozilla_Found...](https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2014_Mozilla_Foundation_Fed_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf)

~~~
nonsequitarian
While it's true that Mozilla pays its people well (necessary, to compete for
high end tech talent) and we (I work for Mozilla) are in no way free from
commercial concerns, I think you're missing a big piece of why being a
nonprofit _is_ a distinguishing factor: Mozilla doesn't have the insane
pressure for growth that most startups and all publicly traded companies have
to reckon with. Any company that has gone public, wants to go public, or wants
to get acquired has a never ending pressure for user and/or revenue growth at
all costs. Mozilla doesn't have that pressure for growth. Of course we need to
maintain enough market share to stay relevant, and we'd love to have more and
more and more users, but ultimately as long as we can make enough money to pay
for our operations then we're golden. This gives us a lot more freedom of
choice when making decisions about what and how to make money.

~~~
moz23
> This gives us a lot more freedom of choice when making decisions about what
> and how to make money.

I'd argue the opposite. Mozilla seem too scared to try anything substantial
because they're scared of losing the money they do get (because they aren't
actively going after other sources and not trying to grow into new revenue
sources). Think of e.g. tracking protection - Apple are the ones actually
making moves there, not Mozilla. I wonder why...

~~~
ramblenode
Mozilla created their own high performance programming language in order to
build a faster web engine from scratch (all of which has been largely
successful). They developed and shipped a mobile OS well into the reign of
Android and iOS. You could argue about the placement of their priorities, but
they have definitely thrown their weight behind ambitious projects.

~~~
moz23
Ambitious in a technical sense - yes. But not ambitious in a "protect the
users" sense (see e.g. tracking protection/ad blocking), and also not
ambitious in a business sense (i.e. try to do something beyond sell
users/traffic to the highest bidding search engine).

(Perhaps they could have made money by selling devices with the OS, but that
didn't seem to be the aim there, as far as devices being only sold by
partners.)

This is very much the stereotypical engineer approach: trying to engineer your
way into revenue. Yes you need strong technology to keep users, but there's a
lot more to business than the tech stack and quality.

