After the escalating feud between Google and Amazon. This time we are seeing another war  involving Mozilla and Yahoo.

Reports claim that Mozilla has officially dropped Yahoo as the official search engine provider for its browser Firefox. This means that Mozilla Firefox users will not be able to use Yahoo as the default engine.

Firefox users noticed the changes just last month in the browser’s Default Search Engine. The move has caused a looming legal battle between the two tech companies.

Now, Mozilla and Yahoo sued each other because of the deal back in 2014 which made Yahoo as the default search engine for Firefox. According to tech analysts, the 2014 deal was actually favourable to Mozilla.

The deal has actually provided Mozilla an option to back out the deal. If Mozilla had opted not to pursue the deal, the company will be receiving a huge amount of money amounting to $375 million annually until 2019.

However,  such annual payment is only possible if Yahoo was acquired by a third party company and Mozilla has a new unsuitable partner.

Recently, Mozilla has launched a major update to its browser called the FireFox Quantum. Firefox’s major update came as Mozilla terminated the deal  with Yahoo just last month.

Meanwhile, Firefox users have actually lauded the new major update, earning a wave of positive reviews.  Mozilla issued a statement on Tuesday, explaining the company’s decision in a blog post.

“We recently exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo based on a number of factors including doing what’s best for our brand,” Mozilla said.

A number of factors include quality web search, and users’ context experience. In the end, Mozilla argued that staying with Yahoo may have a negative impact in the long run.

Responding to Mozilla’s move, Yahoo has sued Mozilla for breach of contract.

“Yahoo has suffered and will continue to suffer competitive injury to its business and reputation, among other harm,” Yahoo said in a  statement.

via TechNewsGadget