Mozilla ends default search partnerships with Google; partners Yahoo in the US

USA: Moving from the earlier practice of having a single global default search provider, Mozilla announced a change in the search partnerships strategy for Firefox. It has gone for expanded search partnerships by country to provide a more local flavour and choice on the Web.

Google will however continue to be a pre-installed search option,  though Mozilla stated it is not renewing the agreement with Google for global default placement. Google will also continue to power the Safe Browsing and Geolocation features of Firefox

Firefox will now have more choice in search provider than any other browser, with 61 search providers pre-installed in Firefox across 88 different language versions.

In an official blog post, Chris Beard, Mozilla CEO said "We will now focus on expanding our work with motivated partners to explore innovative new search interfaces, content experiences, and privacy enhancements across desktop and mobile."

Yahoo Inc. and Mozilla Corporation announced a strategic five-year partnership that makes Yahoo the default search experience for Firefox in the United States on mobile and desktop. Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter and Wikipedia will continue to be built-in as alternate search options.

As part of this partnership, Yahoo will introduce an enhanced search experience for U.S. Firefox users which is scheduled to launch in December 2014. It features a clean, modern and immersive design that reflects input from the Mozilla team. The agreement also provides a framework for exploring future product integrations and distribution opportunities to other markets.

Outsides the US, Yandex Search will become the default search experience for Firefox in Russia along with Google, DuckDuckGo, OZON.ru, Price.ru, Mail.ru, and Wikipedia. Similarly, Baidu will continue to be the default search experience for Firefox in China along with Google, Bing, Youdao, Taobao and other local options.