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fhohj · Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:30 pm

While it is pretty horrible of Mozilla to force you to push a button twice to change your search website back to Google, there is an easy solution.

Just use Chrome. Google has no need to look for profits. They can do whatever they want.

Then you don't have to worry about it.

It's getting pretty cool to **** on Firefox lately. It's OK in that nothing can go wrong. That's the good thing. Otherwise it would actually be pretty detrimental. But it's ok cause it's good.

SoM · Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:49 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
I honestly don't see why a browser needs an affiliation with a search engine.

From a purely functional perspective the two are utterly unrelated.

here you go

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma3s80ynoJ1qg7p8h.gif

localhostrulez · Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:03 pm

I really don't see what the big deal is here - they're getting paid by Yahoo to use that engine instead of Google paying them to use their engine. Same agreement, different company. It's an easy to change setting, and there are plenty of other engines built in. Come to think of it, Microsoft doesn't even include any different engines in IE by default (just Bing, although I tend to change that before building images).

Philldoe · Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:16 am

It could be worse, Opera removed my Main search engine completely and you cant even add it back to the browser.

Welch · Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:26 am

The Egg wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
You guys believe you're some sort of superior species, and I believe anybody can change the default search provider. Face it guys, we're not that special.

You're absolutely right; we're not special, and everyone is capable of doing those things. Now if you could please kindly explain that to my parents, family members, friends, and co-workers so they stop bothering me.

+1

@Egg, your comment in your previous post is probably a much more accurate representation of how I feel.... I feel like my view of Mozilla is somewhat cheapened by the move. Again not ground shattering but still it's tarnished the shine they once had to me. I mean I am posting this using FF. What I loved about the search bar, the fact that my search phrase STAYS PUT is what other users who posted here hate. I love that because I can use it as a notepad of sorts as I'm searching around between tabs until I land the page I want, or to reference an error code that I'm searching... works out well.

While creating an image with FF and Google as the default search is great if your doing all of your IT for one org, its not always possible for me who is doing it for about 20 different places each with 10-20 computers.

MarkG509 · Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:34 am

nerdrage wrote:
It takes four clicks to change the default search provider.

Actually, zero clicks for anyone who's been upgrading all along (though each one lately has been more like a down-grade) and has https://startpage.com or duckduckgo already installed as their search provider.

It's the newbies they're turning off, though I would think they ought to try to make them happy, not cringe.

Welch · Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:43 am

MarkG509 wrote:
nerdrage wrote:
It takes four clicks to change the default search provider.
Actually, zero clicks for anyone who's been upgrading all along (though each one lately has been more like a down-grade) and has https://startpage.com or duckduckgo already installed as their search provider.

It's the newbies they're turning off, though I would think they ought to try to make them happy, not cringe.

Actually mine still managed to switch to Yahoo from a direct in browser upgrade, oddly enough.

I do have to say, that perhaps I did overract about the change, its not the end of the world. Its just the little small things that get at me with tech companies lately. I realize they have to try ahead of the times if they want to keep from going under, but TechReport being and example tried something "unconventional" to a degree with their funding efforts and I think offered something a bit off the beaten path enough to fund up-keep costs. I think Mozilla could have gone many other routes, but perhaps the Yahoo deal was the path of least resistance and to them wasn't that big of a deal or compromise, time will tell.

Perhaps this is an example of what happens when Google ends up competing with people that were previously their partners. Now that Mozilla is making a big push for their own OS, cell phones.. it makes more sense to be in line with Google next search engine competitor. Yahoo is also branching out into new territory and I think attempting to re-invent themselves. A great example is picking up the rights to the show "Community" that I loved burning through recently. So they may be looking for an eventual merger with someone like Mozilla, or an acquisition rather to have a browser, search engine, mobile OS and content delivery to compete with google play, ect. It will be interesting.

MarkG509 · Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:40 am

Welch wrote:
I do have to say, that perhaps I did overract about the change

Honestly, I think they should not default to a search provider, but should have provided a list of (popular) choices, along with blurbs for each explaining/discussing the costs/benefits. Mozilla giving up Google's $$Millions is a pretty bold move that I applaud, but Yahoo! is no better. I dumped all of Yahoo! the day they announced the change to their privacy policy where they would not only build a profile on me, but also track/profile anyone with whom I communicate.

As an aside, I have been trying to de-Google-ify my life for years. Then I bought an Android phone, justified in my mind because I wanted (a) to run Firefox+NoScript+Ghostery+(several other add-ons) on mobile, and (b) I wanted to write my own (side-loaded) apps without paying anyone anything (Apple wants $100/yr and MSFT's (still) a mess). After about a month with Android, it's become clear that my last prostate exam was less invasive than Google tries to be. I feel sorry for those who are clueless (and this is all not just about ads).

So, for me, of all the mobile or desktop browsers, Firefox still wins (by a mile). Though I have downloaded the source and set up a build environment just in case I decide to create my own fork.

Thu Dec 11, 2014 6:24 am

Welch wrote:

MarkG509 wrote:

nerdrage wrote:
It takes four clicks to change the default search provider.
Actually, zero clicks for anyone who's been upgrading all along (though each one lately has been more like a down-grade) and has https://startpage.com or duckduckgo already installed as their search provider. It's the newbies they're turning off, though I would think they ought to try to make them happy, not cringe.
Actually mine still managed to switch to Yahoo from a direct in browser upgrade, oddly enough.

Welch and nerdrage have it right.

FireGryphon · Thu Dec 11, 2014 6:48 am

My search engine got changed to Yahoo from a regular upgrade, but the change is pretty transparent to me. Yahoo looks like Google, and I still get decent search results, just like with Google. So far I'm very happy with Yahoo. What's the big deal? In all honesty, it's kind of nice to not have to do an Internet search without being logged in to Google and having my searches saved and sold to the highest bidder. That aspect of Google always made me a little uneasy, and even though I still used Google, I'm not averse to changing that.

border18 · Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:41 pm

for me take few click to change current search engine . in matter of fact I use search engine when I need it

this could be annoying to other users but it not bother me at all .

The Egg · Wed Jan 14, 2015 6:48 pm

After updating Firefox to version 35 yesterday, it appears that my search engine has once again been reset to Yahoo without asking for my permission. That's just straight up asinine. This is how it's gonna be every 6 weeks now?

Wed Jan 14, 2015 6:52 pm

The Egg wrote:
After updating Firefox to version 35 yesterday, it appears that my search engine has once again been reset to Yahoo without asking for my permission. That's just straight up asinine. This is how it's gonna be every 6 weeks now?

Just did it to me as well. I deleted all of the other search engines, so we'll see what happens on the next upgrade.

EDIT: Type about:config into the address bar. Enter "search" as a search term. Mozilla has split US-based searches from all others, so non-US-based browsers won't have their defaults changed while US-based browsers will. I made a few edits to the US preferred search order; we'll see if they take through the next update.

bthylafh · Wed Jan 14, 2015 7:28 pm

Hmph. I've just started including Chrome in our install images. I'll give 'em three months to quit this changing the preferences nonsense and then we'll see if I keep including Firefox in next quarter's images.

edit: yep, it did it to me too. I checked to make sure that I'd set Startpage as my search engine & unchecked all the others, had it download the upgrade, and then afterwards Yahoo was my search engine again. :evil:

travbrad · Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:28 pm

Welch wrote:
I feel like my view of Mozilla is somewhat cheapened by the move.

You do realize virtually all of their money was coming from Google for the last decade, right? They have a new sugar daddy now, but that's the only thing that has changed.

sweatshopking · Wed Jan 14, 2015 9:47 pm

Even more annoying is the fact that you can only select from a few different choices of search on Opera. You can no longer EVEN PICK which you want if it's not one of a few THEY choose. driving me crazy

As for yahoo, it's POWERED by bing, not Bing. searching for images, videos, etc. is WAY harder with yahoo, and the page is ugly as sin. it's terrible.

I use bing as my main search engine, but since opera has been screwing me I tried to use yahoo, but had to stop because yahoo search is so terrible. I love bing, but yahoo is trash.

ozzuneoj · Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:18 pm

I don't care so much about the default search provider, its that horrid new search box that gets me.

I'm so glad that there is a way to revert back to the old one:
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-new ... a-firefox/

Seriously, I can't believe that this awful search box even made it to release, let alone made it through several updates.

The worst thing is when I want to paste something into the search box and it pops up the right click context menu behind the new massive search pane that drops down.

For a couple of reasons I find myself considering switching to Chrome, despite having used Firefox exclusively for almost 10 years.

My oddball HTPC\living room gaming system has strange issues with Firefox and flash videos causing the entire system to hard lock. Everything works fine in Chrome and IE, memtest and Prime95 are super stable (its a dual Xeon server board with ECC memory...), games work great, but a fresh install of Firefox with flash player causes hard locks (infinite repeating sound, requires holding the power button in to shut down) when playing videos. So, I recently discovered Xmarks, which is used for syncing bookmarks, history, passwords and other things across browsers, and I've been using Chrome on this system with no loss in functionality. I'll be honest, Chrome starts up much faster, pages that are sluggish in Firefox on my laptop (basically anything with large detailed maps) run much more smoothly in Chrome...

I'm really tempted to make the switch, and it has everything to do with which browser works better, with little consideration of who is more or less evil.

Philldoe · Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:30 pm

I switched from Opera to Firefox a few days ago. During my upgreadefrom v34.0.5 to v35 my search engine was not changed to Yahoo, it stayed with Bing. This may be due to the fact that I am using Firefox Sync though.

fhohj · Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:08 am

just upgraded to see if it would do it to me. it didn't.

VincentHanna · Thu Jan 15, 2015 1:25 am

nerdrage wrote:
Forced down your throat? It takes four clicks to change the default search provider.

First world problems much?

it takes four? c'mon, admit it. You forgot to click ok, didn't you?

l33t-g4m3r · Thu Jan 15, 2015 2:55 am

Yahoo as search is not an issue. That's easy to fix. What I find annoying is that FF is now putting ads directly into it's browser. I use pale moon now, but that doesn't help with mobile. I still won't use anything else though. FF is easier to fix than other browsers, and I trust the alternatives even less. Don't forget there's also the duckduckgo extension, which might help keep your search if there's update issues. In fact, there's probably an extension available for every single complaint that anyone could have. That's how extensions work.

fhohj wrote:
Just use Chrome. Google has no need to look for profits. They can do whatever they want.

AHAHAHAHHAHA. ROFLMAO FOR 2 HOURS. Google = Ads & spyware. They're not any better than yahoo in that regard.

bthylafh · Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:59 am

sweatshopking wrote:
driving me crazy

It's a short trip.

LoneWolf15 · Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:07 am

Flatland_Spider wrote:
SoM wrote:
i got a notice of new version of FF, didn't update yet, but i did change the FF search bar to duckduck

The update doesn't change any customizations, if duckduckgo is your default search engine it will stay that way. Yahoo being the default is only applicable to new installations.

That's how it's supposed to be, but I've found multiple upgrades to Firefox changing the default search engine back to Yahoo.
No biggie to me, it's a minor annoyance compared to Firefox's plugin container in conjunction with Adobe Flash tending to gobble RAM like a fat man at a Chinese buffet, and then keel over and die.

Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:15 am

LoneWolf15 wrote:
it's a minor annoyance compared to Firefox's plugin container in conjunction with Adobe Flash tending to gobble RAM like a fat man at a Chinese buffet, and then keel over and die.

Maybe someday in the next decade FF will actually become multi-threaded.

Welch · Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:49 pm

I'm over the Yahoo thing with Firefox, but I thought I'd share that I just did an update from 30 to 35 (had Google set to default) and it changed it to Yahoo. This was in an browser update by going under the menu to "About" and allow it to download, restarted Firefox and Yahoo was the search. So either its inconsistent or something triggers it being allowed to change your default search.

Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:57 pm

OK, about to run an experiment here, as FF wants me to update to 35.0.1. The following search settings have been modified by me directly in about:config.

browser.search.defaultenginename        user set   string      Google
browser.search.defaultenginename.US     user set   string      data:text/plain,browser.search.defaultenginename.US=Google
browser.search.isUS                     user set   string      false
browser.search.order.1                  user set   string      Google
browser.search.order.2                  user set   string      Google
browser.search.order.US.1               user set   string      data:text/plain,browser.search.order.US.1=Google
browser.search.order.US.2               user set   string      data:text/plain,browser.search.order.US.2=Google

I will update and report.

EDIT: After update, all settings above remained the same and Google remained the default search engine. I think the key part here is "browser.search.isUS", as it was "true" at my 34/35 upgrade and Google was switched to Yahoo. My guess is they don't want to piss off the EU so the Yahoo default is limited to installs identified as US-based. Next time I get an upgrade prompt I'll reset all above to default except for browser.search.isUS and see what happens.

EDIT 2: Ala Willy Wonka, reverse that. Browser.search.isUS will go to default and we'll see what else gets changed.

derFunkenstein · Mon Jan 26, 2015 6:08 pm

I take back everything I said in this thread - that's terrible. No way anywhere in the world should a mere update of the browser change the default search provider. Someone should be punched in the nuts for that decision. If it was just on new installs, no big deal, but every 6 weeks Firefox is going to hijack your searches.

Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:02 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
I take back everything I said in this thread - that's terrible. No way anywhere in the world should a mere update of the browser change the default search provider. Someone should be punched in the nuts for that decision. If it was just on new installs, no big deal, but every 6 weeks Firefox is going to hijack your searches.

I would love to find an online copy of the contract between Google and Yahoo. The gritty details would make for interesting reading.

Welch · Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:06 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
I take back everything I said in this thread - that's terrible. No way anywhere in the world should a mere update of the browser change the default search provider. Someone should be punched in the nuts for that decision. If it was just on new installs, no big deal, but every 6 weeks Firefox is going to hijack your searches.

Sounds like it... ouch.

It looks as though Mozilla is mindful of the EU ruling that smoted Microsoft a couple of times for their forced browser and search a few years ago. No such ruling here in the states so they feel they can make a serious push to convert people to their new search partner. That is downright shady Mozilla. From a non-profit that is supposed to be making the web a better place you sure do seem to be willing to bend the rules a bit.

Thanks for this amazing find Captain. Id love to see TechReport do a follow up with the Firefox team to find out what gives. Making a deal with a new partner is whatever, force changing my search engine because of my locale allows you to get away with it??? That is just borderline malware level stuff.

Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:39 pm

Welch wrote:
Thanks for this amazing find Captain. Id love to see TechReport do a follow up with the Firefox team to find out what gives. Making a deal with a new partner is whatever, force changing my search engine because of my locale allows you to get away with it??? That is just borderline malware level stuff.

I'd wait until 35.0.2 or whatever and changing the US locale field to "true" before claiming success.

Wait a minute. I've got my work lappy on Mozilla Sync and I did not get the update prompt while at work today. I should be able to test the US locale bit when I get in tomorrow AM. This is what I'll use:

browser.search.defaultenginename        user set   string      Google
browser.search.defaultenginename.US     default    string      data:text/plain,browser.search.defaultenginename.US=Yahoo       (was Google)
browser.search.isUS                     default    string      true     (was false)
browser.search.order.1                  user set   string      Google
browser.search.order.2                  user set   string      Google
browser.search.order.US.1               default    string      data:text/plain,browser.search.order.US.1=Yahoo      (was Google)
browser.search.order.US.2               user set   string      data:text/plain,browser.search.order.US.2=Google

If the chaos in the office leaves me alone for a bit I should have results by 8:00AM EST. If this switches default to Yahoo I'll replace Yahoo in defaultenginename.US in another account on the lappy (what, you haven't used publicly available tools to grab root on your work lappy?) with Bing and see if Bing becomes default. if it does, it means that "browser.search.isUS" is the culprit.

EDIT: Here's the other bit. Changing defaults and search orders within Firefox does not change any field with "US" in it. This is why (to be tested) the Yahoo switch keeps happening. When I first changed things from within Firefox the non-"US" fields registered the change yet the "US" fields remained at defaults. To change "US" fields, one must use about:config.

EDIT2: Should I confirm all of this, I should write an add-on to do it all at once. Too bad my programming skills ended with BASIC back around 1981 or so.

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