“Mozilla is running an experiment on 1% of the Firefox desktop population currently, which sets the default search engine to Bing in the web browser,” reports Ghacks:
[I]n most regions, it is Google Search. Mozilla and Google extended the search deal in 2020 for another three years. Google is paying Mozilla “between $400 and $450 million per year” so that its search engine is the default in Firefox in most regions. Google has been Firefox’s default search engine since 2017, when Mozilla ended its search deal with Yahoo early.
Firefox users may change the default search engine to one of the other engines that are included by default, or an engine that is not included but can be added…
The study started on September 6 and it will run until early 2022, likely January 2022. About 1% of Firefox desktop users may notice that the default search engine is changed when the installation of Firefox is picked for the experiment.
Tip: load about:studies in the Firefox address bar to list the studies that the browser us currently taking part in and has completed already. Firefox users who don’t want to participate in studies can disable the preference “Allow Firefox to install and run studies” on about:preferences#privacy.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.