Google and Mozilla have struck a deal to extend their search agreement for another three years. Under the terms of the new agreement, Google will pay Mozilla $300 million per year to be Mozilla Firefox's default search browser. Sources said the total amount of $1 billion was the minimum revenue guarantee for delivering search queries garnered from consumers using Firefox. Google’s main rival in the bid was Microsoft’s Bing search service.

According to internet monitoring firm StatCounter, Google's Chrome has overtaken Firefox and become the world's second-most popular web browser. Statcounter recently reported that Chrome's market share rose to 25.69% in November, while Firefox's share was 25.23%. Google's Chrome browser has showed considerable growth during past two years. Chrome's use has increased by 10% in the past year alone.

Chrome and Firefox users can now include their latest Google+ status updates in their email signatures using the G+ email application. Email recipients can then view most recent updates and add the status update to their own circles directly from the message.