Switching between search engines in Firefox is now easier as its search interface has been recently redesigned by Mozilla.
Previously, searching using a different engine required changing some settings in Firefox or to simply type in the preferred search engine's website and search from there. With the new design update, Firefox users can now see different search engine settings whenever they start typing in the search box. Links of different search engines are now embedded in the search pop-up box, with the option of adding or replacing the linked search sites.
For instance, if a Firefox user wants to search for tweets about Mozilla, the user would not need to type in Twitter.com to search there; instead the user can just click on the Twitter link when he or she types in the search box.
The new search interface of Firefox features several sites by default, including Amazon, Bing, eBay, DuckDuckGo, Twitter and Wikipedia. The list can also be customized freely by the user.
The interface overhaul follows Mozilla's announcement last week that it will be replacing Google with Yahoo as Firefox's default search engine.
"Firefox is all about choice, and with the new UI, searching is now more flexible and powerful than ever," said Firefox user experience team member Philipp Sackl on a blog post on Tuesday.
According to the blog post, the new search features will be implemented soon after trying it in Firefox's beta channels.
Firefox's default search engine has been Google since 2004. However, Mozilla will be switching to Yahoo as the open-source browser's default search engine starting next year.
Globally, users of Mozilla Firefox use search engines more than 100 billion times annually, which makes the search engine feature a significant feature of the browser.