It is not the first case and certainly not the last. Multiple companies have gone to work to restrict content coming from Russian platforms due to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. The case that has generated the most repercussion is on the side of the Putin government, who has blocked access to Instagram from the country, leaving more than 80 million users unable to access this social network. Firefox has been the last to respond to the situation, restricting content from russian search providers.
Via a new Firefox update they have removed the option of being able to count on Yandex or Mail.ru as search services when you install this browser on your computer. Mozilla has announced it through a new Firefox 98.0.1 patch note.
Firefox Multiple Picture-in-Picture
Yandex and Mail.ru removed from Firefox default options
In the patch notes, which only applies this change, we can read the following:
Yandex and Mail.ru have been removed as optional search providers in Firefox’s search dropdown menu.
If you have previously installed a customized version of Firefox with Yandex or Mail.ru, offered from partner distribution channels, this version removes those customizations, including add-ons and default bookmarks. If applicable, your browser will revert to the default settings offered by Mozilla. All other versions of Firefox are not affected by the change.
Mozilla already mentioned that there would be changes to search providers when it released Firefox 98, though did not specify exactly the reasons.
According to Statcounter, Yandex is the second most used search engine in the country, with a 45.66% market index, compared to 51.84% for Google during the month of February. This is a major change, but it doesn’t mean that providers have been blocked in Firefox, as you can still access your searches and insert these search engines manually through the browser settings.