Mozilla has announced it is moving away from its partnership with Google that allowed for them to be the default search engine when searching within Firefox. The reason for the breakup seems to be Google’s use of “super cookies” which are used to track user activity even after ad-blocking software like Ghostery is installed.
This move away from Google comes as Mozilla seeks to become more environmentally friendly, by cutting out companies that aren’t making efforts toward cleaner energy usage. It also questions whether other browsers will follow suit and put pressure on these larger internet services.
It’s understandable why Firefox wants to stay competitive, but it seems unlikely that this is the beginning of dominos falling for these popular websites. Firstly, there was no mention of any search engine in particular so it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be trying to replace Google entirely.
Additionally, many people already use their own custom search engines within the browser such as DuckDuckGo, which is yet another reason Mozilla may not want to put Google at the top of their list. Additionally, Firefox does business with both Bing and Yahoo so it seems unlikely they’d completely do away with searching in general.
Ultimately it’s hard to say what this means for future browser partnerships and how sites like Wikipedia might change their search engines in the coming months. We’ll just have to wait and see if other organizations follow suit or if this sparks an interest in more environmentally friendly technologies such as cryptocurrency.
