14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla rolled out Firefox 40 yesterday, finally bringing full Windows 10 support in its browser and offering an alternative to Microsoft Edge for those who installed the new operating system.
But in addition to serving as an Edge rival on Windows 10, Firefox 40 also brings another change that might really come in handy to those who don't like using Bing as the default search engine.
Basically, the new search feature available in Windows 10 uses Bing by default, and there's no option to change that right now. But if you install Firefox 40, use it as the default browser and you set up Google as the preferred search engine, Windows 10 automatically starts using Google instead of Bing, so all results displayed in the search box will be provided by the company owned by Alphabet.
“Firefox also helps you preserve your choice when using the search field on the Windows 10 taskbar to search the Web,” the Mozilla development team explains.
“When using this search field, Windows 10 launches your default browser but only shows search results in Microsoft Bing. When you have Firefox set as your default browser on Windows 10, all your Web searches from the taskbar search field will show results in the default search engine you choose in Firefox.”
Support materials
Mozilla is one of the companies that criticized Microsoft for making it too difficult for users to change the default browser in Windows 10, so getting rid of Edge requires additional steps and might be harder than you think for beginners.
As a result, Mozilla is also offering what it calls “support materials” that should help everyone figure out how to choose Firefox as the default browser in Windows 10, once again trying to get around Microsoft's new system of changing default apps.
If you want to see what's new in this browser, just download Firefox for Windows, Firefox for Linux, or Firefox for Mac and you are good to go.
