Mozilla has teamed up with Microsoft to integrate Bing into a new version of Firefox browser. Reportedly, this is coming just a few weeks before Mozilla’s search deal with Google is due to expire.
“Last year, we worked with Mozilla to add Bing as a search option that ships with Firefox. Since that time, you have told us to make it even easier to use Bing in Firefox,” said Microsoft’s Tor Steiner. “So today we’re teaming with Mozilla to release Firefox with Bing, a version of the popular Web browser that includes default search settings for Bing. Now Firefox users who are Bing enthusiasts can use Firefox with Bing to use the Web the way they want without having to take extra steps to navigate or customize their settings to Bing.”
“Firefox with Bing offers the latest version of Firefox with Bing set as your home page and the default setting in the search box and AwesomeBar (where you can also type in queries as well as Web addresses),” he adds. “If you already have the latest version of Firefox, then you just need to download the Bing Search for Firefox Add-on to set the same preferences.
Notably, Firefox is now competing with Google’s Chrome browser while Google competes with Bing as a search engine. It is estimated that Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion to try and raise up Bing since 2009, and despite being the default search engine for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Windows phones and BlackBerry devices, it is estimated to only control less than 4 percent of the global search market; Google dominates with around 82 percent of the market, Yahoo about 7 percent, and China’s Baidu around 5 percent.
Source: AdWeek
