Firefox introduces sponsored search suggestions feature in US

Mozilla introduces Firefox Suggest in browser versions 92 and 93. This search feature will show sponsored and suggested results in the search bar of US Firefox users. It is not yet known when and whether the feature will also come to the rest of the world.

With Firefox Suggest, US users of Firefox version 92 and version 93 have recently started seeing sponsored search results at the bottom of their search bar. In addition, Suggest also shows results from browser history, bookmarks, open tabs or suggestions from “trustworthy” partner companies such as Wikipedia in the search bar. All this should help Mozilla to receive the right search results faster.

Users can activate the additional contextual suggestions option so that Firefox can show more relevant sponsored suggestions based on a user’s city location. This option is currently still opt-in for a limited number of users. Mozilla states that it forwards the collected data from contextual suggestions to its own vetted partner companies.

According to Mozilla, those companies adhere to the privacy standards of Firefox and the data would be shared via their own proxy service. In addition, no personal characteristics of the user would be present. “The data does not contain any information that identifies you,” the company said. “In addition, it is only shared if you view or click on a suggestion.” One of the partner companies that will provide advertising is adMarketplace.

In the settings menu, Firefox Suggest can be further customized and the contextualized search results can be turned off. You can also choose to exclude sponsored contextualized results from the search bar, but not from the general Fire Suggest search results.

For now, Mozilla is introducing Firefox Suggest only to US users of Firefox versions 92 and 93. The company first experimented with the functionality in August. It is not yet clear whether and when it will come to other countries.