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Mozilla Experiment: Set Default Search Engine to Bing for 1% of Firefox Users (ghacks.net) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the Bing-goes-the-internet dept.
"Mozilla is running an experiment on 1% of the Firefox desktop population currently, which sets the default search engine to Bing in the web browser," reports Ghacks: [I]n most regions, it is Google Search. Mozilla and Google extended the search deal in 2020 for another three years. Google is paying Mozilla "between $400 and $450 million per year" so that its search engine is the default in Firefox in most regions. Google has been Firefox's default search engine since 2017, when Mozilla ended its search deal with Yahoo early.

Firefox users may change the default search engine to one of the other engines that are included by default, or an engine that is not included but can be added...

The study started on September 6 and it will run until early 2022, likely January 2022. About 1% of Firefox desktop users may notice that the default search engine is changed when the installation of Firefox is picked for the experiment.

Tip: load about:studies in the Firefox address bar to list the studies that the browser us currently taking part in and has completed already. Firefox users who don't want to participate in studies can disable the preference "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" on about:preferences#privacy.
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Mozilla Experiment: Set Default Search Engine to Bing for 1% of Firefox Users More

Mozilla Experiment: Set Default Search Engine to Bing for 1% of Firefox Users

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  • For a long time, I'm had Bing set as the default search engine on my phone (I have Google set on my normal desktop browser, but I often use DuckDuckGo).

    Even with the light searching I do on mobile, I still end up using Google for maybe 10% of the time...

    The one section of image search, where for whatever reason Bing seems to produce superior results and I use it on the desktop as well.

    So basically, I don't think those people switched to Bing as default will be very happy about it after a few weeks.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Mozilla and Google extended the search deal in 2020 for another three years. Google is paying Mozilla "between $400 and $450 million per year

      Mozilla has had this type of deal with Google for more than a decade. Mozilla has been paid billions of dollars and they literally do nothing except make Google the default search in Firefox.

      With that amount of free money pouring in, its no wonder that Firefox sucks balls. There's no incentive to make a good product when you've got billions of dollars guaranteed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      The one section of image search, where for whatever reason Bing seems to produce superior results and I use it on the desktop as well.

      Yeah, Bing does seem to be much better for finding porn. After all, the internet is for porn. [youtu.be]

      • Yeah, Bing does seem to be much better for finding porn

        Ha Ha, I really should have specified "non porn" images. I don't know if any normal search engines even work well for porn?

        • I don't know if any normal search engines even work well for porn?

          Yep, Bing is very good for that.

          (so I'm told)

    • The one section of image search, where for whatever reason Bing seems to produce superior results and I use it on the desktop as well.

      Yep. Bing is definitely better for porn.

    • Tip: load about:studies in the Firefox address bar to list the studies

      You have not been an unwitting guinea pig in any studies.

      Which shows you how reliable toe results from this sort of thing will be: Anyone who has the faintest inkling of this stuff will have disabled it. Which is why Mozilla can keep claiming that "60% of our users support $this_weeks_random_change", because it's 60% of the tiny fraction of the user base who haven't figured out how to disable the spying functionality.

  • Bing will literally pay you to use it and yet it remains so time consuming to get usable results that it still isn't worth it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      Yeah, I use it but the results are obviously orientated towards making money for Microsoft and for a large minority of searches I end up going to Google which I'm trying to avoid because Goggle are shitty in numerous ways.

  • I have one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @04:48PM (#61808715)

    Here's a good Mozilla Experiment: make a browser with extensive add-on support, customizability, features for power users, and which doesn't push political BS through a bloated foundation or make changes unless there's a great reason for it--and especially not to the UI!

    Oh, they ran that experiment already? It was called Firefox? They should do that again.

    • Re:I have one (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Aubz ( 7986666 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @05:03PM (#61808755)
      Got it in one. Firefox had the secret sauce then threw it out and now wonder why their user base has left. They have the lets "upgrade" the product and thereby break it disease, tragic.
    • You know, browsers have this really cool feature called "bookmarks". Maybe you've heard of it?

      So I've got these bookmarks for Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and a couple of others. When I want to search for something I just pick which one I want to use, instead of relying on some half-ass retarded built in search function that's based on whatever $$$$ deal the browser has with certain search engines.

    • especially not to the UI!

      Accept no imitations, demand the original [seamonkey-project.org], same UI for over 25 years

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      No it was called Pale Moon and Waterfox.

      The fact that neither of them are very popular and both are struggling to get developers on board. Not just to develop the core browser, but to develop all those add ons you desperately want to exist.

      That experiment seems to have confirmed it's a bad idea.

    • You just didn't notice. And I was an add-on developer for years. I stopped updating my add-on but to be honest I fully understood why they were making the changes. They were basically putting a whole bunch of security stuff into the add-on apis to prevent the worst sort of abuses that kept happening. So by "extensive add-on support" if you mean full on root access to your entire computer from any add-on no matter what you have that in the old version of Firefox and it didn't seem like a good idea.

      As for

      • Full root access to your computer via a program running as a user? That's not root access.

        The purpose of an add-on repository is that malicious addons can be found and removed.

        You run the same risk downloading any software. Just get trustworthy addons and you're fine.

      • Yes, even MS and Google don't care about power users. What those 2 wants is the msinstream users which represent the vast majority of users to monetize them.

        That's why Mozilla should care about the power users, because that's the only market where they have a chance.

        They can't compete against those ywo juggernauts for the mainstream users, it's game over there. Even if firefox was better than chrome and edge, it's not significantly better, and edge is unfairly pushed through windows, office, skype while chr

  • So I don't care what the Firefox default is. On all the browsers I run, I manually set the search engine to DuckDuckGo. (Safari Mac OS, iOS, Firefox Mac OS. Don't use Chrome or Edge...)

  • âoeYou call it Bing. We called it Bung. We knew all about the goodness of maizeâ"cornâ"before America was America.A recent study found that Bung Oil lowers cholesterol* more than extra virgin olive oil.â Put some corn in your shit today! Use Bung!

  • Are they deliberately trying to alienate everybody?

  • You are all fucking lab rats, this is why you are opted in for the experiments by default.

    But other to lab rats, the last remaining FUCKED PISSED HEAVILY AGGREVATED EXPERIMENTED AND TELEMETERED firefox users we can still fight back through about:config .. .. and when it really comes to the LibreFox moment we all need to jump.

    Who ever is changing to Chrome/ium has lost his/her dignity.

    • Re:This is what Mozilla-devs think: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @05:13PM (#61808781)

      All the power users turn off telemetry. Firefox sees nobody uses these features and they get removed. People who turn off telemetry complain about missing features.

      • Re:This is what Mozilla-devs think: (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @06:53PM (#61808977) Homepage Journal

        I did point that out to a Mozilla developer and their response was that such people have indicated that they don't want their views to be considered.

        The argument was that the telemetry is anonymous and doesn't contain any personal data so the only reason to turn it off it because you don't want your opinion to count. That seems like some faulty logic.

        Mozilla set up a website where you can give feedback, but there is little indication that it has any effect.

        http://input.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]

        • Re:This is what Mozilla-devs think: (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @07:14PM (#61809057)

          "I'm shock, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

          "Your winnings, sir."

          Firefox's claims about their anonymity of their telemetry does not seem based on reality. "Anonymized" seems to mean "they label it with a number rather than a name". Labeling with a number is also how IP addresses work, and given the hardware data being sent, identifying a specific user could be done with a quite high degree of confidence. Such data harvesting is not unique, but it's never as anonymous as claimed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            There's a complete list of Firefox telemetry items here: https://probes.telemetry.mozil... [mozilla.org]

            I had to add an exception to uBlock Origin because it blocked that domain by default.

            Note that many of the items were only recorded between two specific versions and are no longer collected by the current version. Note also that many items were only collected in the preview versions, not in the release versions (there is a tick box to filter only release versions at the top).

            I'm curious why you think that their claims

            • I'm afraid that you are mistaken. Take a look at "about:telemetry#environment-data-tab" in a Firefox browser, and look at "environment data". It particularly includes information about hard drives, drivers, and anti-virus information which what they _report_ collecting today in the local browser settings. What is actually collected is outside of our typical view, though a man-in-the-middle proxy sniffing the packets might reveal it. Or not reveal the information, if the data is not sent when a proxy is dete

        • Re:This is what Mozilla-devs think: (Score:4, Interesting)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @03:28PM (#61811173)

          Funny anecdote: Every quarter there is a meeting of the local council to determine what to do with redecorating funds in the park. No one ever goes. Nothing ever happens other than directing the funds to the defaults which is weed control and path cleaning which is being pointlessly overdone. The neighborhood I live in is has 3 retirement homes surrounding the park.

          Recently the kids in our building were complaining about the state of the skate park, so I suggested they get their friends together and go to the council meeting and vote to direct the funds to replace them. They turned up with a small army of people to an otherwise empty room and overwhelmingly voted to have the skate park replaced.

          Fast forward 4 months. We have a brand new skate park and all the old people in the neighbourhood are bitching and moaning about what a waste of money it was. I didn't attend it but apparently the following council meeting was packed with the whiners and the councilors effectively told these people who never took interest before to go fuck themselves ... politely of course.

          That seems like some faulty logic.

          Not really. You know what they are collecting the data for and you know that the product is being developed based on this data.
          You don't get to complain in the slightest when you actively decide to not take part in the decision making process.

      • I think it's more likely limited resources. Microsoft can leverage its office Monopoly to program in obscure features used by practically nobody in an effort to get lock-in. It's called the 80/20 rule, where it 80% of your users only use 20% of your features but it's a different 20% for everybody. Firefox does not have that kind of money. It seems like it because the numbers of cash there talking about sound like a lot but modern browsers are practically operating systems. A lot of Firefox is resources are

      • Re:This is what Mozilla-devs think: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @10:32PM (#61809357)

        All the power users turn off telemetry. Firefox sees nobody uses these features and they get removed. People who turn off telemetry complain about missing features.

        Mozilla doesn't care what's used or what people want. The everything blends together proton tab disaster and whatever the fuck Firefox for Android is supposed to be is living proof.

        Lost track of the number of times I looked up how to fix something on a Firefox wiki only to realize the the instructions are no longer applicable because Mozilla removed the setting. They simply don't give a fuck.

      • 1.) .. I don't complain about missing features
        - it's about opted into everything by default

        2.) .. is the realization, that Mozilla-devs are basically are just unable to choose a sane design path themselves .. without "telemetry".

        Once you hit that point as a developer, you should give up your job, unable to self reflect on your design choices.

        3.) .. there is enough feedback on the changes out there (issue trackers, comments, discussions, ..) - those who choose to listen can reflect - Mozilla-devs just seem

      • All the power users turn off telemetry.

        I don't.

      • Ohh Auchie!!!

        If that was true, how do you explain the persistence of Pocket?

    • Who ever is changing to Chrome/ium has lost his/her dignity.

      Or maybe we just have few fucks to give about the hill you choose to die on.

  • People here keep saying that google gives me shitty results because I keep clicking on shitty results.

    Well here is a simple test for you. Search for these two terms

    itunes flac

    Tell me how far down the list of results you had to go before you find one with BOTH terms.

  • I use DuckDuckGo on everything including FF.

  • keepin it simple (Score:4, Informative)

    by hb253 ( 764272 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @05:25PM (#61808809)
    I refuse to search from the url bar and always go to the sesrch engine website, be it Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo. I suopose I prefer a simpler, more basic approach.

  • Study like these will be useful (Score:3)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Saturday September 18, 2021 @05:27PM (#61808813)
    For whoever writes Mozilla's post mortem in a few years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      They comedy is all about timing.

      The only thing that would have been funnier, is if they ran this story FIRST, and then ran the story asking my users are abandoning Firefox.

    • Any day now. I mean it's not as if I've been hearing the Firefox is going to go away here on slashdot for 10 years now. Look if nothing else Google and Microsoft are not going to allow Firefox to go away because doing so would bring the antitrust regulators sniffing around.
  • If Google is paying that much you know they're making much more. That's a lot of money.

  • Why would open source browser change default to Microsoft's search engine without permission? What the fuck is wrong with Mozilla these days?

    It's almost as if they are begging someone to destroy them...

  • Ask users who left what would bring them back.

    Telemetry from the happy remaining users only offers affirmation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chrish ( 4714 )

      I'd have to say two things:

      * Mozilla's apparent inability to listen to their remaining users. Presumably they're listening to telemetry somehow, but they don't listen to bug reports or complaints in forums.

      * Poor UI decisions. The floating tabs thing is terrible UI; surely there was nobody clamoring for this, or a study indicating that it was somehow better... someone loud at Mozilla liked it and bulldozed it in.

      I've been experimenting with Brave for a few weeks. It somehow doesn't feel right, but at least

  • Just how in the Seven Hells does Mozilla think they can just change my settings and me be OK with it?

    Are they going to ask the users first or just pull a Folgers?

    "We've secretly changed the default search engine in this user's browser. Let's see if they notice."

    Coffee is one thing, my search engine choice is another.

    All I can really say is I am thankful the part of Mozilla that manages Seamonkey hasn't pulled this kind of BS yet. When that changes so will the browser/composer/email suite I use.

  • They want to get rid of the Google dependency that is literally killing them right now. (Like having the clown from It be your legal guardian, kiddo. ;)
    So while a better search engine would be better, this is still a good thing.
    It's not like Startpage or DDG are gonna pay Mozilla millions any time soon.

  • I see (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday September 19, 2021 @06:40AM (#61809913)

    That might be why they are bleeding users like crazy.

    • That's like saying a guy who had his arms and limbs cut off and was bleeding like crazy and then got stung by a mosquito before he died, died of the mosquito bite. Mozilla has been bleeding users for a decade. This likely has zero impact on this trend.

  • A few days ago, my default search changed to Bing. Looking at the results, it took about 15 seconds before I changed the default back and ran a more fruitful search. At least now I know what happened. But changing an existing default is not right.

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