This is big, because Mozilla and Google have had a historically strong relationship. Google has been the default search engine on Mozilla’s Firefox for many years now, and the browser has enjoyed exposure via Google’s push to attract converters from Internet Explorer—at least right until something called Chrome came around. In fact, the majority of Mozilla’s income for last year (around 97%) came from payments from Google and other big websites to be included into Firefox’s search engines by default.

In any case, what do you think of Schmidt’s “admission”? Personally, you can never fault a CEO for being honest, especially when he’s professed a willingness to follow the laws of the countries he operates in—like the Patriot Act in the US.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Courtesy of StatCounter

No doubt, Microsoft’s marketing push has helped. I’m sure Bing has benefited from the relative success of Windows 7 to grab the attention of the more tech-minded, while more casual users probably try Bing out of curiosity.

It remains to be seen if Bing will maintain its momentum. Google after all retains its stranglehold on search at 87.66%. Yet it’s actually lost almost two percent market share over the June 1 – June 4 period (Yahoo lost “only” 0.14%, ending up at 5.17%). If StatCounter is an accurate tracker of US online search habits (the figures cited here only cover that country), and if Bing can manage to sustain its growth over the next few months, Microsoft will definitely have a winner here.

Yahoo, on the other hand, ends up losing face again. A search pioneer drops to third to a relative newcomer.

Post from: The Gadget Blog