Almost two years ago, in September 2021, Mozilla announced that it was testing Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine in its Firefox browser. It was part of the SUMO study announcement (SSupport MOzilla). Now, a new publication indicates that Microsoft is also considering a deal with Mozilla in an effort to replace Google as Firefox's default search with its own Bing.
The report comes via The Information which he supports, citing sources close to the matter, that senior Microsoft executives want a deal with Mozilla this year, as the contract with Google is up for renewal by the end of the year.
We can assume that Microsoft probably wants to gain more users than Google's market share. The last details of Statcounter show that Bing's share was mostly static. The latest figures have Bing at 2,79% which is well behind Google's 92,63%. Meanwhile, Statista reports that the Bing search engine it fell from October last year, when it had peaked at 9,92%. The last March market share percentage for Bing was 8,23. However, there are some positives here as Bing has slightly increased its share compared to last month.
Perhaps Microsoft is hoping to capitalize on AI chatbots. So does New Bing. The search engine reached 100 million active users as recently as March. As it does from time to time, Microsoft is trying to push some users with unorthodox ways in Edge via a recent Patch Tuesday update where it was opening the Default Apps page when users were using Google Chrome.
