It's confusing, but if you add a "Site search" and then set it to your default, it becomes a "Search engine".
Ah got it, thank you.
Firefox, for what - 20 years now?
You can make any search field on any web site your default search engine.
they do allow you to switch - maybe it refers to google paying to be the default search engine?
seems like these days most of the payment is 36% of ads in Google searches, but maybe there is also some money sent specifically for it to be the default.
They get paid a share of ad revenue their users generate if they make Google the default in all of their web search entry points. These are not separate. The deal is 1) "make Google the default" and then 2) "there's a revenue share". No 1 then no 2.