

Ubuntu switches back to Google as default search engine - mapleoin
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2010-April/030589.html

======
wheels
Totally called this one:

 _I don't think it's an accident that this announcement comes far away enough
from the next release for there to be time for Google to make them a better
offer. Even if that doesn't happen in the next release, this may be
Canonical's way of showing their hand._

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079909>

~~~
aditya
Interestingly, there was now "Why?" section to this new note. I'm surprised
that Ubuntu has enough of an installed base for Google to have made a counter-
offer.

Also, isn't Bing powering Yahoo's search these days anyway?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Based on the amount of people downloading updates, Canonical recently guessed
that there are about 12 million Ubuntu users worldwide.

~~~
aditya
Right - and there's about 350 million Firefox users in all, so that 12 million
is <5%, which is what made me wonder.

Via: <http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/01/21/firefox-3-6-release/>

------
00joe
A couple of years ago Ubuntu went to Google asking for a revenue sharing deal,
Google refused, even though they had done it many times before. Search was
going to be Ubuntu's primary income in the netbook space. At the time Google
probably thought they owned search. Its amazing what a little competition will
do.

I would love to see Firefox and Safari change their default search to Bing (I
would still use Google). Who knows, Google might start getting serious about
things like privacy.

~~~
tvon
Google does a good job with marketing against Apple with "Open", it would do
wonders for MS to market against Google with "Privacy".

~~~
nl
Why does anyone think Microsoft protects your privacy any better than Google
does?

FFS, Google was the ONLY search engine which went to court to protect your
searches from collection under COPA:
<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-146420.html>

Microsoft, Yahoo etc just handed their logs over.

Gmail's still the only webmail provider which uses SSL by default.

There are numerous similar cases.

Microsoft can't use "Privacy" to market against Google because they do less to
protect your privacy that Google do.

(They could argue "we are less competent than Google are at doing things with
the information we also collect, so you are less likely to get freaked out
when our services appear to read your mind". However, I'm unconvinced that
lack-of-competence is a winning marketing strategy. But hey.. it seems to be
working for Sarah Palin, so what do I know...)

~~~
lwhi
I think this is a game of 'what if'.

If providing tools to manage privacy gave MS an advantage, I could imagine
there's at least a possibility they might supply them.

------
zephyrfalcon
I was wondering why they chose to switch to Yahoo in the first place. The
answer is at [[https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2010-Januar...](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
desktop/2010-January/002396.html)]:

"I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing
deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers
and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu
Platform."

~~~
rbanffy
It seems, in the end, Google offered a sweeter deal.

------
roadtrip
<http://duckduckgo.com> would have been a much better choice!

~~~
il
This looks like a sock puppet account astroturfing for duckduckgo. I wouldn't
expect them to resort to tactics like that.

~~~
samdk
There are technologies awesome enough for people to want to evangelize for
them.

DuckDuckGo is one of them--it doesn't need sock puppets.

~~~
tuxychandru
But it does seem a bit odd that the only participation in HN by this user has
been posting comments praising DuckDuckGo!

------
stanleydrew
Now they just need to replace Firefox with Chrome as the default browser.

------
kno
Let’s recap why they first changed from Google to Yahoo!: "factors such as
user experience, user preferences", really? Since when did Yahoo had better
user anything than Google?????

------
bluesmoon
The page seems to give no real reason. I wonder what happened to transparency
in open source.

~~~
evancaine
Nothing. It's right there in the code base.

This was a business decision by Canonical. I too would have liked to have seen
an explanation as to why the change was made but at the end of the day, it's
the code and not the organisation that's open source.

------
yanw
It was ridiculous to ship Ubuntu with a default search engine that basically
is or will be powered by windows when the superior alternative is powered by
Linux, but I suppose the bluff worked.

