Firefox Community Forum

when I right-click a highlighted word in Firefox browser - to 'Search Google for...', it takes me to Yahoo.com instead, although Google is defined as 'Default Search Engine'. Why? How to fix it to Google search?

Hey all!

I was just wondering why when you were platforming as one of the only browsers that didn't use AI, a CEO change-over was enough to completely backtrack on the values of the company to instead push for a use of AI. As a concerned adult I'm no longer able to verify accurate information in my searches because the first things to come up are AI inventions of information, not the actual websites that people put time and effort into running to ensure we get as close to human information as possible.

I am wondering why your AI is wrong MOST of the time when I use it. It either finds the wrong thing, or doesn't search the enough/right pages and comes up with an out of date answer or just the wrong answer. The AI you have is useless.

I hopped onto firefox the same way many others did- looking for a browser that didn't have the ties to privacy issues or baggage of bloatware, and especially since all of the other browsers are changing things to focus on AI. And now that firefox is joining that chain I wonder why I even bother trying to get attached.

Like, on the one hand I can somewhat see where the CEO is coming from, everyone's getting a cool new toy and you want in on that, that's understandable. But with something as half-baked, destructive, and actively contentious as AI, I wonder the true value of playing with things like that.

In fact, have you SEEN what's going on with AI? Microsoft's shoved Copilot into every aspect of windows 11, their PCs, their browser, their marketing, and what did they get? Regret! They regretted that decision as consumers aren't happy with that decision!

Even OpenAI, the granddaddy of all LLM stuff around, they're not even going to be profitable until 2030. Yes, that's 4 years away. No, I sincerely HOPE they don't last that long.

Why Mozilla is picking this decision? FOMO, I presume, but like. It doesn't have to be this way, it's allowed to be a small bastion where people can actually pick what I want out of it. I dislike the fact Perplexity got added to my search functions, but I'm happy that I could turn it off.

For the love of god Montresor, don't lock us in here.

It's so invasive, and I'm sick of having to dig through pages to get accurate information when I used to be able to find it at the top of a search result. Poor performance all around. Are they really adding more BUILT-IN AI features to the browser? Does anyone know of good alternative browsers that don't have this issue? I want to be able to switch over quickly in case Firefox updates with features that would impede my experience.

To allay concerns about a Microsoft warning about a Firefox installation, why when following Mozilla advice isn't the result persistent? By this is meant that Bing is used instead of Firefox (Google) in the search, Is this how China steals so much intellectual property?

The link noted is as follows: https://www.bing.com/search?PC=A1AM&PTAG=20231227&q=Smart+and+Final+Market%2C+Chatsworth&FORM=A1AMMC

My apologies - I don't know a lot of the correct terminology for much of these things! Parts of the web address in the address bar, such as www and https disappear, but re-appear if I want to change the address by typing an addition or correction in the current address. Is there a way to make sure that the entire address shows all the time? Thanks!

The very first time I opened Firefox and tried to do a search I got a hijacker:

https://search-owl.com/?path=firefox/newtab&u=895622cd6e29c107&subid=11118&channel=18

Why?

I did a scan with both Malwarebytes and with TotalAV, no detections.

I stopped using Chrome and Brave because I had another hijacker (Yohoo!). I used Malwarebytes to quarantine and delete that because my paid subscription to TotalAV didn't find it. Now I'm stuck with an all new different hijacker upon installation of Firefox.