There have been a number of changes coming in to Firefox these days, especially since the arrival of Firefox Quantum. However, one of the most notable changes is that Mozilla has ended their partnership with Yahoo and have re-instated Google as their default search engine.
Google used to be the default search engine for the browser till as late as 2014. However, in 2014, Mozilla Firefox and Yahoo struck a deal as per which Yahoo became the default search engine of the browser. Users still had the option to change it via settings, but many users don’t really bother to do that. You may remember this story from last month where we talked about how Google pays about 3 to 4 Billion dollars every year to remain the default search engine in Apple phones.
What is quite interesting about this deal between Yahoo and Firefox is that it was supposed to be a five year contract initially. However, ever since Yahoo signed that contract, things haven’t really been going well for them – and it has come to such a point that the Yahoo brand itself is in threats of disappearing now as Oath becomes the bigger name here. Reportedly, Yahoo still owes Mozilla $375 Million every year, even after the contract’s termination. As of now it is not clear what Google is paying Mozilla to be kept as the default search engine. Stay tuned with us for more details on the story.
