Why can't the new Default search be optional?
Dear Mozilla,
Thank you for your browser, it's been overall a good experience, with some technical issues here and there. The latest of which seems unnecessarily invasive, this forcing the default search to Yahoo is unexceptionable, and rather frustrating. Yahoo just doesn't work very well, in fact it sucks compared to Google, the results are far less relevant and incredibly inaccurate forcing it's own agenda on me at every turn. So far I've had to change the default search on 5 computers back to Google, this isn't the end of the world, it only takes a couple seconds. It's knowing that this is now your new standard when releasing updated releases, thus forcing me to change my default search provider back to Google every time a new version is released. For example, when Mozilla 35 comes out I'll have to change it back to Google, again, and again for 36 and so on. This doesn't seem like a good move, and honestly I'll switch to Chrome if that's the way it's going to be. Heck even Microsoft give a browser option in their newest OS so why can't you have a simple page in the update installer that ASKS what we would like our default search to be. I realize this won't adhere to the deal that has been made with Yahoo, but this is the decision that will have to be made. Lose customers who don't appreciate forced changes for someone else's benefit (I'm looking at whoever took money from Yahoo for this), or add in the OPTION that should have been given with Mozilla 34 from the get go.
Thank You
Alex
All Replies (5)
hi Alex, your custom set search engine should not change when you update from 34 to 35 to 36 and so on. if you're seeing something like this, it may be a bug. can you elaborate on how you are performing those updates?
Philipp you missed the point entirely, or your not aware of things happening in your own company. "Mozilla releases Firefox 34, marking switch to Yahoo as default search engine" This is my problem, and I read somewhere else that it's going to keep happening as future update are released. Also this "When you update to the new version, Firefox will ask if you want to switch to Yahoo for your default search engine, however you can click ‘later’ to keep it as Google." I never received said prompt, if said prompt even exist. You seem to be sure the next release won't do the same thing, release 35, but I question the authenticity of said knowledge. As for how I updated, well with the prompt that ask if I wanted to update, it opened up on most of my systems on the same day, unaware of the changes it was making without my approval. This also happened on several other system I use on a regular basis, the update was not performed by myself so I can't say for sure what went down. But after it updated Yahoo was the new default search provider. Because obviously "Mozilla strikes Firefox search deal with Yahoo, ending long partnership with Google" had nothing to do with any of this...
You cane revert to the old Search Bar quite easily.
Open up about:config (typed in the Location Bar) Right-click and toggle this preference to false
browser.search.showOneOffButtons
Then restart Firefox.
I don't have a problem with the new search bar, just the new search provider. And how it doesn't ask at any point in the update installation if I would like to keep Google as my search provider. It's like I'm talking to a god damn wall or something... Did you even read what I wrote?
mozilla will not overwrite your custom set search engine preference - what happened in 34 (because of the US search deal with yahoo of course) is that one preset option was changed against another. no user was asked if google should be the default in the beginning either. if you make a choice different from the default search engine this was respected - and will be as well in future versions of course.
it is also worth noting that people replying here are not part of a company, like you're insinuating but normal users like you volunteering their time to help, so please take that into account...
your main point seems to be that you dislike how the switch between google and yahoo was handled - a forum for technical support might be the wrong venue to expand on that subject. we can't change the past of course, so this kind of feedback would better fit at https://input.mozilla.org/feedback which will be monitored by mozilla's staff.