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ADGrimes
Making moves
Status: New idea

Microsoft has Bing, Brave has Brave Search, Google Chrome has Google Search. It would be cool to have a Firefox search engine. I understand this could have an impact financially, but I still thought it would be worth raising as it would be nice to have Firefox branded search.

16 Comments
MintMain21
Familiar face

I don't know, there are plenty of Private Search engines like Duck Duck Go, Starpage, and Ecosia, and at least one of those is in Firefox by default.

I would love to see Firefox/Mozilla do more to promote these engines, including making one the absolute default instead of Google, but the fact they exist can keep Mozilla focused on the browser itself.

dvdurst
New member

I would be in favor of setting DuckDuckGo to the default search engine. I have used exclusively for the past 5 years or so without any complaints. It's already one of the pre-configured search options.

nix
Strollin' around

This is an idea that might actually work for generating more revenue for Mozilla. They could simply package Bing's results through API calls and use Microsoft's Ad network for keywords like Duckduckgo does. They could offer an ad-free experience for a small price, like Brave Search does.

maxso216
Strollin' around

I suggest firefox desktop can have a quick setting wizard after new installation and user can chooses their search engines, theme, privacy setting, etc. Firefox fennec has already had that kind of thing, thought it can not let users choose their search engine.

Froxcey
Strollin' around

Sorry, Mozilla don't sell your personal data, so they rely on Google paying them to and set it as the default search engine to keep Firefox alive. It's just the problem of being ethical. It's absolutely necessary and will not change unless there's someone else to sponsor them. Just go into settings and change it, it's not a lot of work and you will need to do it anyways. Also, maybe cool is not the way to justify why we need another new search engine, Duck Duck Go works pretty well as of now.

fuseteam
Making moves

yeah a partnership with duckduckgo sounds like the way to go here 🤔

Anonymous
Not applicable

This sounds like a good idea.

I think i would use a search engine by a trustworthy company which respects user choise and privacy.

And mozilla could earn a penny with some unintrusive ads at the side of the search results.

Sounds like a win-win.  +1

freejulian
New member

1) previously one could change the search engine in FF with one click - there was a button with the SE symbol in the URL - this has now disappeared, making it much harder to change the SE

2) Google is preset as default search engine upon installation and many not so technically skilled users will keep google as they do not know where to look in the settings

I find it highly problematic that a murky and dangerous company (cult?) like Google funds one of the biggest open souce projects, are these the results?

Suggestions:

--> 1) reintroduce the SE button in the URL
--> 2) offer a quick setting wizard upon first start to let users choose their default SE as suggested by @maxso216 

KERR
Making moves

Not sure how well this would work, BUT there are some things Firefox could do:

- emphasize history instead of search results when typing in the address bar

- Provide search tips (we learned these in school, lost art?) eg how to use quotes or exclude certain words from results

- Controversial: I watched The Social Network which said that every web search uses X amount of processing power/is bad for the environment: therefore if FF instructed people to go to facebook.com instead of searching for facebook via google, it would be slightly better for the planet

- "Advertise" that other search engines exist (too many people are helpless without "the google"!). There are privacy focused ones, and search engines that plant trees. The search engine sector is actually growing and most search engines are "good enough" for many people

- Make it easy/obvious to search youtube/wikipedia/ebay etc from the address bar. Cut out the middleman (google). Also emphasize that you don't need to load the google.com homepage to start searching (don't laugh, your mum does it!) - you can just "rant" into the address bar

Thoromem
Making moves

I'd much rather prefer Mozilla to focus on their other products and don't do Firefox search. There's really no reason to.