Microsoft has scored a victory in embedding its Bing search engine into Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.
The software giant has been working hard behind-the-scenes to make its growing search engine more accessible to those using its rival browser.
Microsoft’s Tor Steiner wrote in a blog post that fans have been asking for better integration of the two for a while.
“Today we’re teaming with Mozilla to release Firefox with Bing, a version of the popular Web browser that includes default search settings for Bing. Now Firefox users who are Bing enthusiasts can use Firefox with Bing to use the Web the way they want without having to take extra steps to navigate or customize their settings to Bing,” Steiner said.
The integration is similar to the way Firefox is currently set up with Google – users can toggle Bing to be their default search engine, and there’s a special landing page for Bing that users can set as their home page.
Bing has been a success story for Microsoft, in an environment where the company has been unable to keep things fresh in many other technology sectors – like Web browsing and smartphone software.
Because of its hyper personalized search results and the ability to stream content – music, movies, and even games – right from the search results page, Bing has slowly increased its market share and forced Google to stay on top of its game.
Of course it still has a long way before anyone would ever consider it a serious threat to Google as the market leader, but it does show that Microsoft can still innovate.
