MOSCOW, November 20 (Sputnik) – Mozilla has decided to switch the default search in its Firefox browser from Google to Yahoo in the US, Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia, according to an AP report on Thursday.
Google's current contract with Mozilla expires at the end of this month with the new engines to take over in December.
Mozilla CEO Chris Beard said the new deal offers "strong, improved economic terms" while allowing Mozilla "to innovate and advance our mission in ways that best serve our users and the Web," AP quotes him as writing in a blog post.
The tensions between Google and Mozilla have been running high since Google introduced its own Chrome browser in 2008. Google accounted for 90 percent, or about $274 million, of Mozilla's royalty revenue in 2012. The company however hasn't released its annual report for last year.
Yahoo has welcomed its agreement with Firefox and has called it the “most significant partnership since forging the Microsoft deal in 2009.”
"We believe deeply in search — it's an area of investment and opportunity for us," AP quotes Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, as writing in her Wednesday blog post.
Mayer added that Yahoo plans to unveil a clean and modern search engine on Firefox next month and then roll out the new model on its own website early next year.
