Google is the undisputed DON of the Cyber World today. And Firefox is the preferred browser of millions of “informed” netizens today. The market-share of Firefox is constantly been increasing mostly at the expense of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

And it is a fact in a past few years, both Google and Firefox have well complemented each other and supported the growth of each other. Google has been the Search Engine in the default Tools Bar of Firefox for years. And Google has promoted Firefox through its referral program over the years. The importance of Google to Firefox can be understood by the fact that majority of the Firefox’s USD $75 million revenue were garnered from paid results through Google in 2007.

But the situation has completely changed since the launch of Google’s own web browser Goolge Chrome.

First blow to the ties was Google stopping the promotion of Firefox through the Google Referral program. Although it was not directly aimed at Firefox, but still it struck a major blow to the ties.

The second strike was also from Google side, when it replaced Firefox by its own Google Chrome from the Google Pack, which is a free suite of useful tools for downloads and includes utilities like Picasa, Adobe Reader, Spyware Doctor, Norton Scan and many others.

And now it is Firefox’s turn.

Harvey Anderson, VP and General Counsel of Mozilla Corporation has announced on his blog that Firefox has replaced Google as the default search engine from their web browser by Yandex. But this is limited only to their Russian version.

Yandex (Russian: Я́ндекс) is a Russian search engine and the largest Russian Web portal. Yandex was launched in 1997. Its name can be explained as “Yet Another iNDEXer” (yandex) or “Языково́й (language) Index”.

Is it the beginning of the end pf their partnerships?

What do you think?