It's interesting though - what is Apple's vested interest in only having native support for certain search engines? I now no longer use their browser because of this - I would think that is _some_ kind of loss for them. Maybe not, since I'm on macOS anyway.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-01/google-s-...
Apple has clearly defined that the customer for the "default search engine selection" option is Google and not the users. There is obviously some mediation by regulators in Europe and elsewhere (hence Google's major competitors being included on the list), but the customer is Google. I think that from that fact flows two further inferences: A) the customer might not want to write down everything, or even communicate in any non-deniable way, all of their preferences (due to those regulators), but can presume that Apple understands their preferences B) The customer is happy to the tune of 20 billion dollars with the current set-up.
Something that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me in this theory is that, despite it being hard to add a new engine (which is not great), it is easy to switch away from Google on iOS. And the big search engines are in their pre-populated list. So it seems Google and Apple have engaged in a conspiracy to keep people from switching… just to the niche engines? That doesn’t make a ton of sense, right? Google is probably not more scared of Kagi than Bing.
My first guess is that Apple lived through the era of confused non-technical people adding a bunch of scam search engines and didn’t want a repeat of that.
Google certainly should be more scared of Kagi than Bing. Bing is a known quantity that's not going to suddenly shoot ahead of them. A smaller, newer competitor might. Just like how it wasn't Lycos or Jeeves that dethroned Yahoo, it was the two guys in a garage.
(My impression is that the feature is hidden behind a setting because it's half-baked and not yet ready to replace opensearchdescription xml, add-ons, and bookmark keywords as the official way to add search engines.)
For those with tech knowledge who want to try to change things, I recommend checking out https://www.techcongress.io/, https://horizonpublicservice.org/ (they both have a cohort they're recruiting for right now) and USDS.
That said, keyword searches are awesome and I use them for a whole lot of things, including effectively custom search engines. I have keyword searches against, e.g., internal confluence docs so I only have to enter "con <thing I'm searching for>" and firefox will load the confluence search page, or "people <name>" to bring up our internal phonebook with a search for the employee. I don't think I've ever needed to add my own entirely custom search engine to the browser.
The regular way is to visit the homepage for the search engine you want to add and click the URL bar. This will show the usual search drop-down with the "This time, search with:" row at the bottom. If you're on the homepage for a search engine which hasn't been added to Firefox, there will be an additional button on that row allowing you to add the site as a search engine, which will make it accessible from the regular settings page like every other search engine.
It doesn't.
No doubt it is revenue-related, but it's also a privacy problem.
Can you describe how? What information is that query parameter providing to an attacker that is not being provided in 50 other ways?
Wouldn't this be the fault of Apple as it is Apple that controls the list?
It's just about what the default is.
(Not to mention google deleting chats against court orders)
Rule number 1 of commiting a crime, is don’t create evidence and then sign it yourself and send it to lawyers
I never knew what the hell Apple was doing with the extremely limited set of search engines with the only means to change it being to choose one of the others Apple has included on a static list which cannot be modified by the user.
Google paid Apple to be the default.
There is no reporting whatsoever that there is any other payment to be in the list of alternatives. There is no evidence that Microsoft pays Apple to include Bing in the list of alternatives.
So nothing whatsoever like that was revealed in the case.
I don't know why there was no reporting of this, but it is what Gabriel Wineberg testified to under oath. See the trial transcripts, 2023-09-21, 1:36pm[0].
> Q. And since this agreement was signed in 2014, DuckDuckGo has been one of the built in options that a user can select as their search engine in Safari, right?
> A. Yes.
> Q. DuckDuckGo agreed, through this service integration agreement, to pay Apple a share of the revenue that DuckDuckGo receives from certain search traffic originating from Safari, right?
> A. Yes.
You see how that is DDG paying for being in the list of alternatives, right? And that it was revealed in this case?
[0] https://thecapitolforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023....
Do you know if Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ecosia also pay for placement? Since those are the other options Safari provides?
You're right, I shouldn't have said it was false -- I thought I'd followed this subject very closely, and this is definitely not common knowledge at all. I stand corrected, thanks.
Anyway, I've provided said tedious details in a sibling comment.
I use Kagi's extensions to maintain Kagi as default search across many devices and browsers. It's been seamless across Firefox/Waterfox/etc instances.
IIRC, Kiwi and Brave were fairly agreeable (I avoid Chrome, Edge). Opera was a pain because Opera is a pain about everything.
I appreciate the effort you+team have put into this.
Github releases with .xpi's to install have been removed[0] which is odd but hopefully they keep up with their Firefox extension submissions if this is the route they're going down.
As for Chrome, I only use it for automated/manual testing since that's what everyone uses.
[0] https://github.com/kagisearch/browser_extensions/releases
You can just git clone the new chrome extension and 'load unpacked' if that's of any use. It's extremely simple.
It may be great or not, but it’s largely unknown outside of a tech bubble, and therefore is unlikely to be mentioned.
There should be absolutely no surprise there.
At least Google seems to feel that way. Might just be the Silicon Valley bubble
If anything, OpenAI has only served to further exacerbate and accelerate the inevitable decline of Google Search.
ChatGPT isn’t marketed as a search engine, but it’s essentially how it’s used. SearchGPT is a recognition of that.
And yeah OpenAI is making Google search worse _and_ providing a solution at the same time.
Sounds like a run at Google to me.
2. That sounds perfectly reasonable. Google doesn't want people to bundle other things for users who want to install just a different default search (and not "your hotbar" like the Netscape days).
3. I'm not sure what you're talking about, is Chrome on Linux default search configured differently than Chrome on Windows?
True. But guess who’s paying Apple good money in order to remain the default search engine. Who knows what else might be part of this deal?
Oh, and when they agreed to suppress wages through an anti-poaching agreement, was that explicit in the contract?
I suspect it's the other way around. They don't want random extensions to mess with your search engine because they get kickbacks from yahoo or whatever. Though if the extension is named for a search engine I don't think it should apply.
I guess this is so that unrelated extension X can't also change the default search while it's at it, like in the good old IE days, so it kind of sort of makes sense. though if the extension is named after a search engine it should probably get a pass, and the context menu thing obviously is also related to search.
On Chrome at least this is possible, even if it’s additional steps (I have not used the extension though there.)
FYI, there is a workaround [1]. It's trash that Apple makes us do this. But you can.
Granted, it nudged me to switch to Orion as my main desktop browser.
[1] https://help.kagi.com/kagi/getting-started/setting-default.h...
I'll give it another try later this year.
Very good. My only gripes are with the 1Password extension.
Why does software suck these days.
When I was a kid, I dreamt of being a solo programmer that had a few successful desktop programs. Think mIRC, WinAmp, WinRar. Despite the audience for that being >100x larger than it was in the 90s, I'd bet the number of solo shops doing that successfully isn't a whole lot larger than it was then.
There aren't many shenanigans that MS didn't pioneer in the 90s.
Not in the EU market.
They recently decoupled that part (search, but I don't know if they did it for edge too) and made bing in the start menu a store app that can be uninstalled if you don't want it to be available on your system anymore.
And are providing APIs for others to use:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/apps/develop/searc...
The only reason why you can't use google there is because.. Google doesn't care. Just like how they never released apps for the Windows Phone store, they have no intention of touching the one on Windows.
Microsoft has been hit so many times by the EU that they really care to respect our regulations now. Not just the "letter of the law" but the "spirit of the law" too.
The same should (or has already happened, I don't know.. because I actually use Edge and didn't care to look deeper into it) happen for Edge:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/5/23859537/microsoft-windows...
Of note, among the things that have changed recently in Windows 11, you can disable the news page from msn on Widgets, and Teams is no longer a part of Windows.
About time too, nothing more undemocratic than unregulated monopolies.
What would we say if there were only 2 car makers, 2 grocery chains, 2 companies building houses?
We'd argue endlessly because of pedantry over 'monopoly', whilst the oligopolists sell us down the river.
There are two major building materials suppliers (Carters and Fletchers). There's one manufacturer of drywall (Gib) that is easier to get council plan approval for than any other cheaper manufacturers of drywall because they provide some material strength documents that saves the councils some engineering review time and effort.
We technically have 4 major banks, but 3 of them are just offshoots of big Australian banks and siphon the insane profits offshore.
The government keeps making investigation commissions into breaking these up, but doesn't do anything. The companies just point fingers back and forth at each other blaming "the competition" for price gouging. Meanwhile the recommendation from the politicians is we cut back on avocado toast, lattes, and our Netflix subscription.
Banks are not much better. There are a couple of small players additionally to the 3 big ones, but competition is limited to very few products. If you are interested in something else, choices are very poor.
Not an option for the wide public.
There is also a GNU/Linux option here. Sent from my Librem 5.
> I use Linux, but that's not for the broad masses currently
Unless "broad massses" require some unique MS Office or Photoshop functionality, they can easily switch to Linux. My relatives did and are happy.
How well is that holding up nowadays, as a phone?
I'm really happy to be able to run desktop apps (also on a big screen!) and have full control over my phone.
Apple says they're not doing CSAM scanning anymore, but there's no way to verify they're being truthful. And given everything known about corporate America, it would be foolish to believe them.
[1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
https://sneak.berlin/20231005/apple-operating-system-surveil...
They’re not the forever-open platform you’re purporting them to be.
Look at the increasing push for device attestation via SafetyNet or whatever it is called now.
That’s why even Adam Smith himself said that it only works in well-defined markets! It’s the job of governments to define these, and phones are so essential to our lives that they should be thought of as roads, instead of as an average private company.
Imagine saying that about everything else in your life. Don't want to buy a Ford car? You can buy a Toyota. There are no other car brands in the entire world. IHG, Hyatt, Choice Hotels, Best Western, Wyndham, Radisson, they don't exit.
Don't want to stay at the Hilton? You're in luck, you can go to the Mariott, that's it.
Don't want to buy a t-shirt at Target? Well, Walmart sells t-shirts, and nobody else sells any t-shirts.
This would be astoundingly ridiculous anywhere else but technoloy. Even credit card processing networks have four options (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express).
As an example of how this works in other industries, US antitrust regulators automatically decline any merger/acquisition US airlines that would put their marketshare above 20%. And that's after deregulation!
IMO any market that has less than ~3-5 viable purchase options for customers needs to have extensive government intervention to keep the market fair and innovative.
I have never seen the search contract so I don't think I am breaking any kind of NDA but I have been close enough to engineering and browser planning and product management to know that Google dictates (negotiates?) in great detail every aspect of search in the browser. This is not a simple "you can use Google Search" deal, instead Google is basically the product manager and ux designer for the browser and they spell out in the contract how search works, how the navigation works, what the UX looks like, what is allowed and not allowed in terms of competing search engines. On mobile it goes further than that and they also dictate how the browser integrates with Android features related to search and voice search.
Mozilla can't surive without Google cash and I fully believe they negotiated hard for a good fair deal that puts users and choice first but I am also sure that Google got the better hand and that is why Search in Firefox has been largely "product managed" / micro-managed by Google.
Apple probably had much more freedom becsuse of their size and power and I don't really understand why it is not possible to add a custom search engine. There is no advantage for Apple to not allow this. Other than .. Google probably force a good deal in their advantage? Apple taking more money by allowing less choice, or even being forced to accept a new deal?
Not having a search deal is simply not an option. Mozilla would die. Apple would have to explain billions of revenue loss to shareholders. Both are impossible.
Mozilla changed its default search engine to Yahoo during Marissa Mayer times and Mozilla didn't die -- it probably made more money by doing so. Mozilla could switch its default to Bing if Microsoft paid more.
Paying for default placement is a simple commercial transaction that only becomes problematic when you're already a monopoly and can spend 10% of your billions in revenue to stay on top and keep smaller contenders out. Is there anything in what the judge has said that would suggest that they view the simple act of having a paid default as being anti-competitive in and of itself?
So, yeah. The current friction (on it and other browsers) feels pretty intentional to me.
And Firefox would be better off for it.
I think you're giving Apple too much credit. They are too myopic and too focused on optimizing their current financials, especially under Tim Cook. To build a new search engine would mean 1) tossing away the $20B Google offers, and 2) spend potentially billions to build or acquire something viable.
Would be unacceptable to the Apple institutional shareholders. Akin to what Meta tried to do with their Reality Labs.
On iOS my Safari browser is always in private mode. I never use non-private tabs. Kagi integration via the Safari extension works most of the time - but was broken for several months (required re-logging into Kagi when opening a new private tab after a delay). It looks like you fixed it just a couple of weeks ago, so I appreciate that.
I am raising this just so you are aware of this use case - always staying in private mode.
(The fact that iOS doesn't allow setting the default search provider in Safari to anything other than half a dozen of pre-selected partners is abysmal.)
I guess, all that we get from Google, we deserve it.
Reading the early history of Microsoft I once came across a quote from someone that the company intentionally made the possibility of booting different operating systems on the PC difficult by design. What I found interesting is that this was before Linux became popular. They were already contemplating the possibility of booting other operating systems.
Google's argument at trial was something like, "Everyone agrees Google search is the best and that's why they use it exclusively." (Hence it should be set as a "default".) Could we imagine Microsoft arguing, "Everyone agrees Windows is the best and that's why they will never want to boot another operating system."
Maybe some relics of this sort of subtle subterfuge live on today. For example, it was historically difficult if not impossible to dual boot Windows along with non-Microsoft OS without allowing Windows to be first in the boot order, e.g., Windows partition must be the first partition. Even in the UEFI era, I see hints that this issue may still persist:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/u9siuc/how_...
Regardless of whether I have the details exactly right (I used to edit MBRs by hand to set the first active partition and have forgotten much of that knowledge now), the point is that the software/"tech" company tactic of preserving or adding deliberate hassles, i.e., "friction", is an old one. Surely it must work to have persisted for so long.
What a specious argument. Just because it is the best now[1], doesn't mean it is the best possible, and blocking competition can prevent something that is better from gaining traction.
[1]:which is itself debatable, and I question if any search engine can unilaterally be the best since different engines may be better in different situations
Hence the logical question is: why is Google collectively paying billions of dollars to Apple and Mozilla if they are so sure they have the best search engine in the industry? I think they know that they do not have the best search engine possible and they just want to control the whole distribution channel both vertically and horizontally. Imo, long story short; Google is house of cards built of Google Search, Google Chrome and Android and if you take one card out the whole structure would collapse. They came to realize by observing Microsoft that if you control distribution channels, you control the end product and I think their weakest link is Chrome. So anyone who can create better internet browser than Google's Chrome can disrupt Google's dominion over the Web.
I must say I really hated that change, hopefully you will consider making a new extension?
As a for-profit company you cannot fall back on the comfort of blaming outside factors for your problems. You have the best search engine in the world already, so don't make it so difficult for people to become your (paying) users.
1. On iOS the list of allowed search engines is simply baked into OS, we have a fiddly extension that hooks outbound calls to /search and redirects them but I wish we didn't need to.
2. On Chrome, we use an extension to change the default search engine and enable search auto-complete etc, but Google has a policy that such an extension can do one thing and one thing only, and recently removed our extension on account of that [1]. We rebuilt it to meet their needs but had a lot of back-and-forth because we included 'search by image' on a context menu item and the first reviewer felt that was a bridge too far. You'll note that Chrome provides such a context menu item for Google Image search out of the box.
3. On Chrome for Linux, the default search engine API is not available, so Linux users have to configure it manually through a series of silly steps [2]. This is at least in keeping with most Linux experiences.
There are other issues, but I say all this to highlight how surprisingly difficult it is to change this setting in a practical, consumer friendly way. It is most certainly this difficult by design, that's a lot of revenue to protect.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41028924
2: https://github.com/kagisearch/chrome_extension_basic?tab=rea...