• by July 14, 2005

In line with the efforts of leading Web properties to accommodate Mozilla's open source tools, Yahoo! on Wednesday updated its desktop search to provide support for Thunderbird, the Mozilla open-source mail client. Thunderbird users on Windows can now use Yahoo!'s desktop search to search and find e-mail and e-mail attachments at Desktop.Yahoo.com.

Both Yahoo! and Google have taken pains to accommodate Mozilla's growing legions, which in May exceeded 50 million, according to OneStat.com. The traffic measurement firm reported that Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has a not insignificant 8.69 percent of the global browser market. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the market with 86.36 percent as of May, OneStat.com found.

In June, Yahoo! updated its Instant Messenger software to be fully compatible with Firefox. And earlier this month, Google released a search toolbar application for Mozilla's Firefox browser just as Yahoo! did in February.

Yahoo! also announced on Wednesday a simplified user interface and tab system for its desktop search. The changes are based on user feedback, according to a Yahoo! spokeswoman.

Currently users can employ Yahoo!'s desktop search agent to search their hard drives, including e-mails, attachments, documents, music, images and videos, as well as their Yahoo! Address Book and Yahoo! Messenger archives.