Mozilla has decided to include Microsoft’s Bing in the Firefox search box.
Bing launched last year as part of Microsoft’s attempts to give Google some competition – which included a search deal with Yahoo – and has won a 3.25% share of the global search market.
However, Google continues to dominate with an 83% slice of the search pie, according to Net Applications.
The Mozilla move will see Bing listed as an option in the search box at the top right of Firefox. “We’re very excited to be included in the search engine choices in the upcoming version of Firefox,” said Bing general manager Jon Tinter in a Microsoft blog post. “Having Bing in the ‘out of the box’ list makes it easier than ever for the Firefox community to experience the benefits of Bing.”
Google remains the most popular general search and it will remain as the default search option
Despite such enthusiasm, Bing will be the third-listed search tool, behind Google and Yahoo (which is now powered by Microsoft’s search engine).
“Google remains the most popular general search and it will remain as the default search option, unless you change it,” said Jay Sullivan, vice president of products, in a post on the Mozilla blog.
“We will also continue to include Yahoo as the second option for general search,” he said. “Yahoo has a loyal following and continues to provide a differentiated user experience, even as it integrates the Bing engine for its algorithmic search results.”
The change should arrive in the upcoming Firefox 4 build for Macs and Windows PCs in English-speaking areas.
Microsoft has yet to answer a question regarding whether it paid to be included in the list. Mozilla’s said it couldn’t say if the software giant had paid up to be included, but did note in its FAQ page: “The arrangement includes revenue-sharing based on traffic sent from Firefox to Bing’s search service.”
Other search changes
There will be no change to Firefox’s choice of shopping search tools, with eBay and Amazon keeping their spots, but the reference search section will lose Answers.com and Creative Commons.
While Mozilla praised both services, it said “we have heard from our users that Wikipedia is more useful as an included reference search engine”.
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