Mozilla removes Russian search engines from Firefox

Mozilla has removed the Russian search engines Yandex and Mail.ru from Firefox. Until version 98, Firefox could include those search engines and offer them as an option in the search bar, but with version 98.0.1 the option disappears.

If users had one of the two Russian search engines set as the default, Firefox will direct users to Google instead, Mozilla says. That is only possible with modified versions that Yandex, Mail.ru and Ok.ru themselves offered. By default, the search engines are not found in Firefox.

It is unknown why Mozilla is taking this step. With version 98, Mozilla said the default search engine may have changed for some users. It doesn’t appear to be related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the change is said to have been spotted as early as December 2021. In the release notes of version 98, Mozilla said it was due to the lack of contract with some search engines.

Users who attach to Yandex or Mail.ru can still manually add the search engine to Firefox and set it that way. Mozilla has not commented extensively on the disappearance of the search engines.