Microsoft Firefox with Bing Goes Live

Mozilla has slowly been warming up to Bing, first through the addition of a search option, and now with a custom flavor of Firefox featuring Microsoft’s search / decision engine center-stage.

It’s an important step for Bing, especially considering that a few years ago, Mozilla’s open source browser was a Google search bastion.

In all fairness, Firefox still favors Google through its default search settings, but maybe Firefox with Bing is a sign that things can change.

Microsoft announced FirefoxwithBing.com, a website set up to introduce the Bing-ified flavor of Firefox to the world.

“We’re teaming with Mozilla to release Firefox with Bing, a version of the popular Web browser that includes default search settings for Bing,” revealed Tor Steiner, manager of strategic partnerships at Microsoft.

“Now Firefox users who are Bing enthusiasts can use Firefox with Bing to use the Web the way they want without having to take extra steps to navigate or customize their settings to Bing.”

However, just because the software giant operates FirefoxwithBing.com, it doesn’t mean that the Redmond company is also distributing Firefox with Bing. This is not the case as a message on the site reveals, noting that users are redirected to Mozilla in order to download Firefox with Bing.

Microsoft is also ready to offer customers an alternative to Firefox with Bing, pointing them to the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) enhanced with Bing download page.

Firefox with Bing is basically the end result of the standard Firefox 7.0.1 had it been customized by a Bing fan.

“Firefox with Bing offers the latest version of Firefox with Bing set as your home page and the default setting in the search box and AwesomeBar (where you can also type in queries as well as Web addresses),” Steiner added.

“If you already have the latest version of Firefox, then you just need to download the Bing Search for Firefox Add-on to set the same preferences.”

Firefox with Bing is available for download here.