The support section on the Mozilla website has issued a warning that some users will experience a change in the default search engine in the upcoming Firefox 98 release, scheduled for March 8. It is stated that this change will affect users from all countries, but which specific search engines will be removed has not been disclosed (in the code, the list is not defined; search engine handlers are loaded as addons based on country, language, and other parameters). Access to the discussion of the upcoming change is currently only open to Mozilla employees.
The reason given for the enforced change of the default search engine is the inability to continue supplying handlers for certain search engines due to the lack of formal permission. It is noted that previously proposed search engines for Firefox were given the opportunity to sign a cooperation agreement, and those systems that did not meet the terms will be removed. If desired, users will be able to restore their preferred search engine, but they will need to install a related separately distributed search plugin or addon.
Apparently, this change is linked to agreements regarding payments for directing search traffic, which generate the majority of Mozilla's revenues. For example, in 2020, the share of Mozilla's revenue from partnerships with search engines constituted 89%. In the English version of Firefox, Google is offered as the default search engine; in the Russian and Turkish versions, it is Yandex; and in the Chinese versions, it is Baidu. The deal with Google for directing search traffic, which brings in approximately $400 million annually, was extended in 2020 until August 2023.
In 2017, Mozilla had already discontinued Yahoo as the default search engine due to contract violations while maintaining all due payments for the duration of the agreement. From autumn 2021 until the end of January 2022, an experiment was conducted in which 1% of Firefox users were switched to using Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine. It's possible that this time, one of the search partners no longer met Mozilla's requirements for search quality and privacy compliance, and Bing is being considered as a replacement option.
Source: opennet.ru
