14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox browser, and this time, the company hasn’t included any new features but decided to stick with a change concerning search engines.
Firefox 98.0.1, which is now available for download on all supported platforms, removes two optional search engine providers from the browser. Both are Russian, so the decision comes following the invasion of Ukraine started by the Russian military nearly three weeks ago.
Mozilla therefore joins the group of companies that have implemented measures against Russian companies, with Yandex and Mail.ru therefore no longer being offered as optional search engine providers in Firefox browser.
Mozilla explains that the browser would return to the default settings for users who previously enabled the removed Russian search engines from the app.
“Yandex and Mail.ru have been removed as optional search providers in the drop-down search menu in Firefox,” the company explains in the release notes of Firefox 98.0.1.
“If you previously installed a customized version of Firefox with Yandex or Mail.ru, offered through partner distribution channels, this release removes those customizations, including add-ons and default bookmarks. Where applicable, your browser will revert back to default settings, as offered by Mozilla. All other releases of Firefox remain unaffected by the change.”
No other changes
Other than that, Firefox 98.0.1 doesn’t bring any other change, as Mozilla has specifically released this update to remove the Russian search engines.
Firefox 98 shipped on March 8 with a new optimized download flow that allows users to automatically download files without being prompted every time the process starts.
“In this release, you’ll also see that Firefox no longer asks what to do for each file by default. You won’t be prompted to choose a helper application or save to disk before downloading a file unless you have changed your download action setting for that type of file. And now, every time you start a download, Firefox will automatically bring up the Downloads panel by default. This means you’ll experience minimal interruptions and easily find your downloaded files. Plus, to avoid having to close it several times, the panel won't show if there are multiple downloads in progress,” Mozilla explained.