The browser wars continue to heat up. Firefox is exploring a new way of hooking people on its browser faster, instantly setting it as your default web browser upon installation.
The experiment uses an attribution campaign to set Firefox, which remains a contender for one of the best web browsers, as the default web browser without requiring the extra step of changing your default browser in Windows. When you download the browser, Firefox will become your default web browser when using the set_default_browser campaign.
Mozilla mentions this in a bug note titled “Support setting Firefox as default based on installer attribution campaign.” It mentions, “This patch adds a startup idle task that sets the browser as default if an attribution campaign ID of ‘set_default_browser’ is present on the first run. This patch supports an upcoming experiment where users will have the option to ‘download as default’ via the stub installer marketing page.”
Windows Reports comments on the installation process and says that Firefox automatically selects options such as pinning Firefox to the taskbar, setting Firefox as the default browser, and importing from the previous browser. If you select the option to set Firefox as the default browser, it will automatically open up the Windows setting and prompt you to change it.
In essence, it’s just a way of bypassing the need to get lost in Windows settings after installing. Users may not know how to change their default web browser — or they may just forget to do it entirely. The change seems innocuous, but it’s a rather bold move in the increasingly contentious space as Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and others all jockey for a prominent position on your PC. Microsoft, in particular, has made lots of attempts to steer people away from other browsers, using its control of Windows as a tool in its arsenal. Mozilla has been critical of this in the past.
“More can be done to respect [the] default browser choice on Windows. People should have the ability to simply and easily set defaults, and all operating systems should offer official developer support for default status,” said a Mozilla spokesperson a while back.
