Lucid changes to Firefox default search provider

[Bryan Quigley]

Hi all,
Glad this Canonical is getting a search revenue stream, I just have a few
concerns that I haven't seen discussed.

Does Yahoo have an equivalent of I'm Feeling Lucky for the Firefox
awesomebar or is google still going to be providing that?  If you switch
that functionality to just being a regular search box, that would be very
annoying.

Is the actual design of the start page going to be designed in the open?
I'd like to see Canonical make money from the page and it be more useful for
all users... Currently the Ubuntu Start page is less useful than the default
google.com (easy access to other kinds of searches - image, map).  I have
several ideas for making it better, and I'm guessing others do as well.

Thanks,
Bryan

On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 1:33 AM, Rick Spencer <rick.spencer at canonical.com>wrote:

> All -
>
> I am writing to apprise you of two small but important changes coming to
> Firefox in Lucid.  I have asked the desktop team to start preparing
> these changes to make them available in Lucid as soon as reasonably
> possible. Probably on the order of weeks.
>
> Change #1
> In Lucid, the default home page will respect the search provider
> settings that you have set in the "Chrome". (The "Chrome" is Mozilla's
> term for the little search box to the upper right, reachable by
> control-K, for instance). For Lucid, this will definitely work for
> switching between Google and Yahoo!, we don't yet know what other
> providers will be in scope for Lucid. If a user has Google set as their
> search provider,they will have exactly the experience they do today. If
> they switch to Yahoo!, the default home page will switch to using a
> Yahoo! search. If they switch back to Google, the default home page will
> switch back to using the Google search, exactly like today. Searching
> from Chrome will continue to work exactly as it does today.
>
> Change #2
> Change #2 is changing the default search provider in Firefox to Yahoo!
> Note that this won't in any way effect the ability of a user to choose
> and use the search provider of their choice. It's literally 2 easily
> discoverable clicks to change this setting, a simple matter of switching
> to that search provider in the chrome by clicking on the icon and
> choosing the desired provider. Note also that Yahoo! does not share any
> personally identifiable or usage information.
>
> Why?
> I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue
> sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide
> developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and
> the Ubuntu Platform. This change will help provide these resources as
> well as continuing to respect our user's default search across Firefox.
>
> Cheers, Rick
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-desktop mailing list
> ubuntu-desktop at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
>
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