Mozilla breathe easy as Google sign 3-year Firefox search deal

Google has signed a 3 year deal with Mozilla that will see the latter’s Firefox browser continue to benefit from a lucrative search deal.

Google will continue to be the default search provider for Firefox, leading to valuable revenues for the open-sourced browser.

It’s been a tense time at Mozilla over the past couple of weeks, with their previous search partnership contract, upon which they rely for a major chunk of their revenue, having run out in November. Since the last deal was signed in 2008, Google’s own Chrome browser has been going toe-to-toe with Firefox, and some wondered if Google would make a tactical move to not renew the deal in order to hinder Firefox’s progress.

It appears that recent charges of anti-competitiveness may have forced Google’s hand.

Mozilla, in an attempt to not fall into a similar trap in the future, have now arranged similar deals with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Via: blog.mozilla.com