Google Search Share Stung By Firefox Switch

Google’s share of US search traffic has declined by more than two percent, falling from 77.5 percent in November to 75.3 percent in December.

The statistics from market research firm Statcounter, which exclude traffic from mobile devices, suggest Google has been affected by the recent loss of a search deal with Firefox which has switched to using Yahoo as the de facto search engine for its browser.

Google Search loses out to Yahoo

As a result, Yahoo’s market share for search traffic has jumped up to 10 percent, a two percent rise from November’s 8 percent.

Further reports that claim Apple may drop Google on its Safari browser also spell trouble for Google Search and its market share. Safari is the default browser on iPhones and iPads, and Statcounter estimated that 54 percent of all US mobile traffic was from Safari in December, but just 41 percent of mobile traffic was from Google Browsers such as Chrome.

Google also faces heated competition in the cloud world. A recent survey of 112 CIOs conducted by Piper Jaffray found that Google’s cloud platform was among the least desirable public cloud platform out there.

Chrome and Firefox

Amazon Web Services was the most popular choice, with 35 percent of CIOs preferring the service. Microsoft Azure was in second place with 21 percent, and Rackspace garnered 16 percent.

However, Google Cloud was preferred by just 7 percent of the CIOs quizzed, down from 12 percent the previous year.

How much do you know about search engines? Take our search engine quiz here!

Ben Sullivan

Ben covers web and technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft and their impact on the cloud computing industry, whilst also writing about data centre players and their increasing importance in Europe. He also covers future technologies such as drones, aerospace, science, and the effect of technology on the environment.

View Comments

  • Great news! Google products are spyware into every facet of our life. They in turn use their ubiquitous cookies to track what each individual does and then monopolizes our search habits and sells it to the highest bidder to make Sergei Brin and his cohorts billionaires at our expense. Who said Google owns the monopoly on search data? Why is there not parallel universes like yyy:/ or aaa:/ where other internet entrepreneurs can create a parallel competition to www: Google? Firefox allows users to "turn off" tracking cookies from Data Snatchers like Google. Surfers should have the right to block spam pop ups like anning paper junk mail in our mail boxes. It istoo much power in one hand - In Europe Google must remove damaging information about individuals or companies at the affected persons request.But not in America. When did Google become the gate keeper to what goes on the net or what gets taken off? Google should not be the ones to force us to see certain sites at the very top of the search engine just because someone has paid them money for it. I should be able to turn my "TV" off or switch channels if I am NOT INTERESTED in who they are posturing in front of me on the internet.

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