However, the first signs were noticed about a month ago (in Russian):Īs usual with Mozilla, there were bugs. There is a specific (and vague) help article about the switch: The UI that alerts the user about the removed search engine was introduced two weeks ago (and had it text changed to be more vague). The relevant code-related bugs have zero explanations. The changelog for 98 has a vague note about search engines. The changelog for 98.0.1 is currently absent. Why couldn't Mozilla switch Yandex search users to regular Yandex links the same way if they reportedly had “troubles” with their agreement, which supposedly would be the best for the users, and best for Mozilla, apparently? Imagine their wet faces when they beg on their knees for more after successful extension of Google's sponsorship agreement onto 4 big countries, and you'll know why.

Note the smoking gun: regular Google links were used in configuration file on 11 March, and then were switched to firefox-tagged (sponsored) ones on 13 March (“part 2”). Some old promotions from and ok.ru were blocked, too, but these have been dead as a doornail and irrelevant. Copying it here:īasically, Firefox 98.0.1 is a point release only concerned with removing Yandex search for users in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey, and switching them all to Google by default. My submission was flagged because of the phrase “golden shower”, huh. When Yandex had to switch to “defend the user share” mode, it stopped announcing interesting things (it used to please the public with nice stuff here and cool stuff there, and implemented some of that long before Google), and double downed on all that dumb crap (having the browser you fully control, having three ads to install it on a single page, pushing it into everything, and so on).

It might be less noticeable in the West, where Google hasn't really been challenged, but it was different in Russia. (Sorry, Google engineers doing incredible high-tech stuff, you're at most playing the role of exotic animals in the zoo attracting people who then proceed to sad low-tech data swindling.) I believe Google knows better than anyone that market dominance is achieved not by “code quality”, or “features”, or “ease of use”, etc., but by attacking the clueless user with ads and press releases, and bundling the browser with crap like Ultimate Super Image Converter 2011, and paying generously for other sources of traffic.

Mozilla firefox search engine