Firefox: Mozilla is preparing to take a massive gamble

[Lightwreather]

Summary

Microsoft Bing could become the default search engine in Firefox

 

Quotes

Quote

Mozilla is running a study to assess whether users of its web browser Firefox are likely to tolerate a new default search engine.

Currently, search queries punched into the Firefox address bar are delivered to Google by default. However, Mozilla has temporarily switched the default search engine to Microsoft Bing for a small pool of users.

The company says this “experiment” affects 1% of desktop users and will continue for a number of months, likely wrapping up in January.

Mozilla has since provided the following statement, which offers only a vague explanation of the rationale:
“As a part of optimizing the Firefox experience we regularly run studies. We are currently running a study that may cause some users to notice that their default search engine has changed. To revert back to their search engine of choice, users can follow these steps.”

 

My thoughts

Well, this is interesting. Firefox might be planning to switch to Bing. ofc, nothing is set in stone, and considering 1/3rd of Mozilla's income comes from Google, I doubt they'll switch to bing. And if they're switching for Privacy reasons, I'm more inclined to think that'll switch to something more along the lines of DDG or Startpage rather than Bing.But we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Sources

Techradar

[tikker]

Not sure if this is good or bad news... I was sort of expecting them to make DuckDuckGo the default. Also, wasn't that the default at some point in the past already?

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, tikker said:

Not sure if this is good or bad news... I was sort of expecting them to make DuckDuckGo the default. Also, wasn't that the default at some point in the past already?

Depends who you are.

 

I actually get better and more consistent results from bing these days compared to google, i've never had any real success with duck duck go, the results are so over the place, that i generally just go back to bing or google shortly after trying to switch to DDG

[SorryBella]

39 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

Mozilla is running a study to assess whether users of its web browser Firefox are likely to tolerate a new default search engine.

Honestly a huge chunk (including me) will just hop back to Google. As much as i love the privacy addition of DDG and other search engines, their accuracy is laughable without the data Google soak up from adsense system.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Eh privacy is something most ppl shouldnt care much about anyways, unless you want some peace of mind the only privacy an average joe needs is a vpn to atleast conceal ip address

 

Personally i half care about privacy, ditched google for duckduckgo, any new accounts i create are linked to my tutanota instead of gmail, and once im not too lazy ill cover up my front camera on the phone that im typing this on

 

If i actually wanted to go full privacy id have taken more drastic measures by now like completely ditching google, using tor or atleast a vpn (tor being superior in privacy) etc. But i dont care too much

[Taf the Ghost]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

Not sure if this is good or bad news... I was sort of expecting them to make DuckDuckGo the default. Also, wasn't that the default at some point in the past already?

Majority of Mozilla's money would be from traffic driven to Google Search. Only way they're switching is if MS is cutting a big check. That's why they wouldn't send it to DDG.

 

As for DDG or other options, I've found Google Search to be pretty bad for a while. Mass-scale SEO really ruined a great thing.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

Depends who you are.

 

I actually get better and more consistent results from bing these days compared to google, i've never had any real success with duck duck go, the results are so over the place, that i generally just go back to bing or google shortly after trying to switch to DDG

Yeah DDG doesn't give the best of results for me either. Google still works best for me generally.

[Forbidden Wafer]

49 minutes ago, tikker said:

Yeah DDG doesn't give the best of results for me either. Google still works best for me generally.

For me is the exact opposite. Can't find anything I want with Google, so pretty much gave up on it (which is super weird, since I'm certified Power Searcher by them, and could find everything I wanted until 2016).

 

Bing outside the US is a joke.

 

Have been using DDG.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Eh privacy is something most ppl shouldnt care much about anyways,

/ON
One more thing to change after OS install yay! /s

[mr moose]

DDG is not going to be the default.  As much as we might like DDG's current position of not "watching", the fact is it's an inferior search engine and can't pay the same as google to have it as default.

 

I get it's an unpopular proposition to consider MS as being more private than google, but the fact is when MS were making good money from their products they cared less about your private life.   Google has only ever been interested in your private life.  

 

EDIT: I note someone thinks this is funny, but when you consider apple make more money selling iphones than MS make with their office software, server software market and cloud businesses all combined, and the fact they keep failing to get back into the phone market and their surface line of devices aren't exactly at the top of everyone's wishlist,  it really does show why they have changed tack with things like edge and data collection.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

18 minutes ago, mr moose said:

DDG is not going to be the default.  As much as we might like DDG's current position of not "watching", the fact is it's an inferior search engine and can't pay the same as google to have it as default.

 

I get it's an unpopular proposition to consider MS as being more private than google, but the fact is when MS were making good money from their products they cared less about your private life.   Google has only ever been interested in your private life.  

Personally its been a decent search engine for me atleast, though yea there are some irrelevant results here or there, but then again there are also other privacy focused search engines like startpage,  searX, qwant, etc. So bad result from one then you can just hop search engine

 

I swapped to duckduckgo for peace of mind

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Personally its been a decent search engine for me atleast, though yea there are some irrelevant results here or there, but then again there are also other privacy focused search engines like startpage,  searX, qwant, etc. So bad result from one then you can just hop search engine

 

I swapped to duckduckgo for peace of mind

I currently use duckduckgo for the most part too,  but as soon as I have a technical search (in any field) DDG just doesn't get me anywhere near the results.  And people don't want to keep swapping search engines, they are lazy and careless for the most part. 

[Quackers101]

when you are using multiple services from google that sometimes does the same or holds the same power, its easy to accept or want it like a part of your own ecosystem.

 

but I assume this action means that since they didn't go DuckGoGo, that their company is suffering and might have to switch away from firefox.

[Salv8 (sam)]

the community really isn't happy with Mozilla as of recent, the proton ui has pissed off basically everyone, many websites refuse to test their pages on firefox so shit breaks often, and Mozilla barely listens to the community.

 

i like firefox, it doesn't track me and i can get addons that aren't fucking neutered by google because ads and tracking, it allows me to have a custom ui layout (right now i have one that mostly undoes the proton ui and tries to revert everything back to good old photon) and i can sleep knowing that the gecko engine has one more user in the ever increasing chromium engine space, pissing off google to no end.

 

i do hope that in the future some government rules that chromium has to much market share and that something like edge has to now use gecko, while firefox won't see any new users, existing users might have a better web experience thanks to this ruling. it would also put a big dent in googles web monopoly which is a good thing.

[Lightwreather]

7 hours ago, Caroline said:

Firefox died in 2014, why dance over its dead body? dude...

 

Huh,
I'm curious why think it's dead?

Prety sure it's my daily driver rn

[Video Beagle]

12 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

 

i like firefox, it doesn't track me and i can get addons that aren't fucking neutered by google because ads and tracking, it allows me to have a custom ui layout (right now i have one that mostly undoes the proton ui and tries to revert everything back to good old photon)

I use Waterfox on one machine because there's still not a better solution for tabs that ol' Tabs+..

 

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 9/21/2021 at 2:04 PM, J-from-Nucleon said:

Summary

Microsoft Bing could become the default search engine in Firefox

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Well, this is interesting. Firefox might be planning to switch to Bing. ofc, nothing is set in stone, and considering 1/3rd of Mozilla's income comes from Google, I doubt they'll switch to bing. And if they're switching for Privacy reasons, I'm more inclined to think that'll switch to something more along the lines of DDG or Startpage rather than Bing.But we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Sources

Techradar

YUCK

 

They should give an option to choose search engine at setup

[Murasaki]

In gambling theres a chance of winning, this move is just nothing but taking the L. Money or not this is not how you increase your userbase but decimate it to a void. I know this sounds a bit angry but I've always thought bing should get sent to the shadow realm with the Microsoft's other failed endeavours but instead it has to get added as default to my browser.

[Stahlmann]

14 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

i do hope that in the future some government rules that chromium has to much market share and that something like edge has to now use gecko, while firefox won't see any new users, existing users might have a better web experience thanks to this ruling. it would also put a big dent in googles web monopoly which is a good thing.

Why should the government do anything about it? It's just like with Steam: If there is a monopoly that is solely existent because the competitors can't bring up something decent to compete, then it's not illegal. Chromium has such a huge market share simply because it's providing the best browsers. Ever since Edge switched to chromium it has been my daily driver.

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

They should give an option to choose search engine at setup

But then they wouldn't get the sweet exclusivity money from either one.

[StDragon]

On 9/21/2021 at 4:39 AM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Eh privacy is something most ppl shouldnt care much about anyways

You're brown-nosing for that good citizen Social Credit rating, aren't you?

[Spindel]

Lots of people shitting on DDG in here

 

I’ve been using it full time for 6 or 7 years now and except for a short period in the beginning I’ve never had any problems with not getting curated search results. 
 

Best thing is that the same search term returns the same results on two different computers unlike Google.

[williamcll]

5 hours ago, StDragon said:

You're brown-nosing for that good citizen Social Credit rating, aren't you?

Funny because most Chinese browsers are built on chromium and I suggest to mainanders to use firefox instead becase QQ browser and 360 are awfully bloated.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

19 hours ago, StDragon said:

You're brown-nosing for that good citizen Social Credit rating, aren't you?

I was like what do you mean when i first read your reply, but then scrolling down to the reply below now i see what you mean .-.

 

Im in indo not china, and i still think that the only protection the average person needs is a vpn so other ppl dont dox you or something like that, only reason to persue more privacy is for peace of mind, pretty much what i did but obv dont go overboard

[DrEagleTalon]

On 9/21/2021 at 5:46 PM, Salv8 (sam) said:

the community really isn't happy with Mozilla as of recent, the proton ui has pissed off basically everyone, many websites refuse to test their pages on firefox so shit breaks often, and Mozilla barely listens to the community.

Could you elaborate more on this? Maybe a link. I looked into it but most results I get are big news skimming over stuff and I would like a more in depth look at this as I really enjoy Mozilla Products as I use Firefox and Thunderbird Exclusively across Mac OS, Windows and Linux. Thanks!