Startpage becomes built-in Firefox search option in Europe
Mozilla added Startpage as a built-in search engine option in Firefox 154 for Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland, replacing the prior extension-only workaround, per PPC Land. Firefox users already ran more than a billion Startpage searches a year before the integration, Startpage president Stewart Marlborough said. The same day, Mozilla began powering AI-generated answers in Firefox features like Smart Window through a new partnership with Exa.ai, though Startpage itself contains no AI, per Mozilla.
Why it matters: Firefox default slots rarely open to a non-Google, non-Bing challenger, and pairing that shift with Firefox's first AI-answers integration shows browser chrome becoming a second venue for AI search discovery.
Via PPC Land ↗
Posted to the wire August 18, 2026.