A number of other features have been added to the app

Dec 2, 2014 10:00 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has announced that a new point update has been made for its browser, which is now at version 34.0.5. The devs have made quite a few changes, but the main features seem to be the new default Yahoo search engine, which has replaced Google.

It was just a matter of time until Yahoo replaced Google as the default search engine in Firefox and it looks like Mozilla has been quick to make the change.

The announcement regarding this modification was made just a couple of weeks ago and users have been expecting to see Yahoo as default in Firefox 35.x, but Mozilla released a new point update for Firefox 34.x, and along some other new features and fixes, the new Yahoo search function reigns supreme.

The latest Firefox update is pretty interesting, in and of itself, and the devs could have made turned this into a much more important version, but for now we're still stuck with the 34.x branch. It's not all that unusual, but it's a good idea to upgrade your browser as soon as possible.

Yahoo is default, but not for everyone

Getting a new default search option might seem like a big deal, but it's actually not. This option can be changed with just one click because Google is still provided.

The reverse side of the coin is that many users won't do this simple step and they will continue, unknowingly, with Yahoo, although it's not nearly as good as the previous solution. The silver lining is that only the users in North America will see a change, the rest of the world, with a few exceptions, will continue with Google.

The branch has received a number of interesting new features, like a better search bar, also only for users in the United States, the Wikipedia search function is finally using HTTPS for a much better connection, a new real-time communication client called Firefox Hello has been added, and the SSLv3 protocol has been disabled.

It will take a while for the new version to get into the repositories and some of them will get it sooner than others. Unless you are in US, you shouldn't see any major differences. If your searches in the address bar are redirected through Yahoo, just click in the search bar on the small drop-down menu and change it to Google.

You can download Firefox 34.0.5 from Softpedia for the Linux platform. This is the binary file, so you can't install it, you can just run it. The Windows and Mac OS X versions can be downloaded from Softpedia as well.

Firefox 34 (9 Images)

Mozilla Firefox 34.0.5
Mozilla Firefox 34.0.5 preferences menuMozilla Firefox 34.0.5 version number
+6more