14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox 98 will launch with a new default search engine for some users, parent company Mozilla announced, pretty much because the existing partnerships with certain providers were not renewed.
In other words, some users who will install the new version of the browser may notice that the default search engine would be different.
On the other hand, they will still be allowed to enable whatever search engine they want, though the whole thing needs to be performed manually.
Mozilla already supports the majority of search engines out there, so in theory, even if your preferred option would no longer be enabled by default, it will continue to be available in Firefox 98.
“This change is happening because Mozilla was unable to secure formal permission to continue including certain search engines in Firefox. We provided an opportunity to previously-included search engines to sign an agreement and the engines that did not complete the agreement will be removed from Firefox,” Mozilla explains.
“After upgrading to Firefox 98, a notification will appear at the top of the browser, alerting you that your default search engine has changed. It will also tell you what your new default search engine is and redirect you to an article with instructions on how to change to another search engine if you wish to do so,” it continues.
Firefox 98 coming in March
Oddly enough, Mozilla doesn’t specifically say what regions would be affected, as it only stays that the change will happen to users living in countries “who are using affected search engine with Mozilla.”
In other words, it’ll be up to you to figure out if the default search engine has changed and then manually install the provider you want.
Firefox 98 is projected to ship next month, so we’ll only a few weeks away from this default search engine change.