During Yahoo’s annual shareholders meeting, Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer, announced a partnership with Oracle in an effort to get more people to use the Yahoo search engine as their default. Starting this month, any user who downloads or updates Oracle’s Java software will be prompted to set Yahoo as their default search engine on their browser.
According to the Oracle site, The Java software is estimated to be installed in 89% of desktop computer in the U.S. and a large number of other devices around the world. At the moment Yahoo only commands 12.7% of the search market. The new update would in theory make Yahoo more competitive against the likes of Google and Microsoft’s Bing.
When users update or install the Java software, one of the first screens that will show will include a checkbox option asking if the user would like to set Yahoo as the homepage and default search engine on Chrome and Internet Explorer, plus get Yahoo as the new tab page on Chrome. Users would have to make the effort to uncheck the option before continuing with the software installation. This tactic may lead to many people to setting Yahoo as their default search engine without even realizing it.
This deal should not come as a surprise considering past efforts of Marissa Mayer pushing for Yahoo’s search engine to more competitive in the search market. Last year, Mayer reached a deal with Mozilla Firebox making Yahoo their default search engine and have previously pursued Apple and their Safari browser too.