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Microsoft stops Google being used for Cortana searches
- bad_user 11y agoBut wait, I thought Microsoft changed.
- sanatgersappa 11y agoyeah, they did. They used to allow it before.
- stinos 11y agoYes and no I guess. People seem to forget Microsoft consists of 'departments' A/B/C/.../Z. So while A might still be all about proprietary software and B wants to embrace, there's also C open-sourcing tons of interesting stuff on github and sometimes even accepting PRs. C didn't exist a couple of years ago I think. So projecting sentences onto a single Microsoft entity is usually a false generalization. Same goes for a lot of other companies who are active in more than one field.
- teddyh 11y agoLabels, names and symbols matter. To paraphrase: — Hey, Mike. — Yeah? — Have you looked at our name badges lately? — Yes… No, why? — They say “Microsoft”. — Yeah, so? — Do you… do you think we might be… the monopolists? (With apologies to Mitchell & Webb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv2XGQBcvxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv2XGQBcvxQ)
- slevin063 11y agoGoogle does the same thing with Android. Although they don't use a browser, we have no way to change the search tool in "ok google" feature. If some one wants to replace Cortana with some other product and if Windows doesn't allow, that is a problem. Using bing will eventually improve Cortana and Microsoft should be able to do that.
- Cyph0n 11y agoNo, no, Google is infallible. Besides, Microsoft is betraying us after they open sourced several of their most popular libraries and toolkits. They just can't have it both ways. /sarcasm
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ivanca 11y agoI don't believe that's a good analogy unless Cortana is renamed "Bing", because then the user expectation of saying "OK Bing" has a more clear intent about using Bing search engine only.
- cptskippy 11y agoI don't think most users will know or care.
- cptskippy 11y agoAlthough they don't use a browser That's debatable. Android WebView is a system component powered by Chrome - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
- pjmlp 11y agoOnly on Android 4.4 onwards. http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html Which leaves out 26.2% of Android users: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
- heavymark 11y agoIt's unfortunate, that with all the big steps Microsoft has taken forward, they quickly back to their old ways at any chance they can get.
- nashashmi 11y agoI don't blame a company for taking out unpredictability. It is what conservative programmers do.
- gldalmaso 11y agoGreat way to tie three products into their lowest common denominator. User who love Cortana but dislike Bing and Edge, gone. User who love Cortana and Bing but dislike Edge, gone. User who love Cortana and Edge but dislike Bing, gone.
- nashashmi 11y agoThe death of Cortana.
- ultramancool 11y agoThis sounds like a job for Frida. Should be able to replace this pretty easily. http://www.frida.re/ http://www.frida.re/
- mhurron 11y agoSo Cortana is only good for porn searches now?
- curt15 11y agoComplaining that Cortana uses Bing is like complaining that Google Now uses Google. What prevents Google from writing a drop-in replacement for Cortana on Windows like how MS can promote Cortana on Android as an alternative to Google Now?
- tehbeard 11y agoHonest question, does such an API to replace Cortana in Windows 10 exist? Or is it like Internet Explorer, too deeply embedded in the OS to be able to remove?
- kuschku 11y agoSuch an API sadly doesn’t exist on Android either. I’d love to have a Google-free Android with still all the features.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoHow would this even be possible unless company X replaced Google in which case company X knows all your secrets the same as Google does? There's a reason Google can remind you that your flight is in 3 hours; they parse your emails for that information. Another company would have to do that same thing.
- kuschku 11y agoI’m not talking about another company – I’m talking about me, myself. One of my goals is to not share any data with a company I can’t trust – so I write my own tools for all these purposes, my own apps, and self-host these things. I already have a several GB large archive of my mail as I self-host it, why shouldn’t I be able to write software to parse it and remind me? Why do I always have to use services of a company when I buy a device, instead of being able to hack together my own? When you bought IBM PCs, they didn’t force you to use Windows with Notepad either – instead, people could write Linux, GNU, and Emacs for their own usage. This is what I expect from an open system, like Android.
- espadrine 11y agoHere is a response from a Microsoft employee: > […] Edge itself integrates with Cortana and offers various options that other browsers may or may not. Those integrations and options are likely to grow over time. Basically you can think of the search as a single end-to-end transaction in terms of the feature design, meaning that handoff to an undetermined browser or search engine doesn't produce the desired experience for the feature. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/cortana-web-searches-in-windows-10-will-now-only-be-able-to-open-edge-and-bing/?comments=1&post=31094779 http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/cortan...
- ivanca 11y agoNobody believes that, Google would have helped for free in any integration needed, maybe using a "cortana" chrome extension. And even if that's false, is still pretty easy to set up the implementation to be generated HTML that works on any modern browser. The know nobody wants to use Bing, this is just another shady move Microsoft.
- Spearchucker 11y agoWhat, you mean like when Google blocked Microsoft's YouTube app for Windows Phone? http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks-window-phone-youtube-app http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks-wind...
- afsina 11y agoBecause MS violated Google's TOS.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoPeople conveniently forget that part.
- sremani 11y ago
- nxzero 11y ago>> Anything else would be a "compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable", he said. Wow, massive bs.
- goffley3 11y agoEasy solution, turn off Cortana. Problem solved.
- plandis 11y agoIt seems customer hostile to me. What benefit does the customer get? Now they can use only the arguable worse search of Bing?
- FussyZeus 11y agoI can understand as a programmer Bing being used for the more interesting functions, such as tracking packages or finding business hours and that sort of thing (the tasks that never leave the Cortana window) but come on Microsoft, beyond that we both know all you're going is opening a Bing search in the browser and that's NOT complicated at all. I'm fine with Bing integration for most Cortana functions, but let us choose our own damn browser and our own damn search engine.
- Hondor 11y agoI'm rooting for Bing simply because Google search has no real competitors in the west. I'm sure Bing's accuracy and bot coverage/speed will improve with time, while Google might be kind of at the peak. Hopefully in the future search is more of a commodity so businesses aren't at the mercy of a single company's algorithms.
- gottam 11y agoI'm rooting for a competitor that isn't bing. If Microsoft gets any significant market share it could mean yet another monopoly under their belt. They can't even compete directly without having to lock out their competitors.
- ksk 11y agoI wonder what would have happened if Google didn't buy Maps, Android, YouTube, DoubleClick, AdMob, Waze, On2, Nest.....
- kempe 11y agoI usually get better hits when I use google. Wonder what the end result of their change will bring. Perhaps less cortana interest?
- dewiz 11y agoThe right answer from Google should be to build a Start menu replacement for Windows. People would love it and that could take out Cortana
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoThey effectively did. Windows 8 mode for Chrome would actually put their Chrome apps button where users expected to find the start button, and the X at the top right would close the current Chrome window, but not the whole Chrome application. I had a lot of people asking me what happened to their computer because they couldn't find their way out of it. It was basically malware.
- dewiz 11y agoI'm not familiar with that button, or maybe I've seen it and that was just an app launcher. What I was thinking it's something like a full blown start menu replacement, like the apps popping up when Win8 was launched because people wanted the start menu back. I can see how even Win10 menu could be improved and Google could use the opportunity to step in and brand that side of Windows and collect data about Win users.
- WayneBro 11y agoHey Microsoft - when can we have a simple and reliable voice input like Android and iOS? http://superuser.com/questions/1020549/how-do-i-enable-the-microphone-on-the-surface-pro-4-touch-keyboard http://superuser.com/questions/1020549/how-do-i-enable-the-m...
- montibbalt 11y agoI would guess pretty soon since it's part of the W10 Mobile keyboard
- ComteDeLaFere 11y ago"Many Cortana users have previously preferred to carry out searches with Google rather than Bing." Citation? The author of the article writes this directly after referencing a Microsoft blog post that doesn't contain that statement.
- amelius 11y agoTime to have a "search-engine ballot screen" in all apps that use search? In the same vein as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- oldgun 11y agoNot a new thing that everybody wants to create their own little walled garden. It's beautiful inside, but it also strips users of their freedom. Not sure if it's best for us end users when we are mandated to give up our freedom in the name of 'security' and 'user experience'.
- niutech 11y agoOf course it is very bad to take away our freedom. No for walled gardens!
- partiallypro 11y agoAmazing that this thread holds Google and Microsoft to different standards. Google Now uses Google's search engine, no opt-out. Cortana now uses Bing's search engine, no opt-out. You can easily have your browser search hijacked by an extension in the browser (on desktops this is easy, on phone OS's not so easy.) So you use Cortana, then you get the search result and suddenly you are on a shady search provider, you get a virus and you blame it on Microsoft. Sure, I think Microsoft should offer a solution to this that isn't so hamfisted; or is hamfisted but has an opt-out for power users (maybe that requires elevated permissions), but let's not pretend that search hijacking isn't commonplace. Most Windows users are not HackerNews readers or power users.
- dkural 11y agoI guess people care less when Google uses google.com because, it's actually a good search engine =)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tracker1 11y agoWell.. there are solutions.. in Windows 10, disable cortana, and/or replace Windows Explorer... In Android, disable google now and/or replace the launcher. I don't really hold either of them in the wrong on this issue... It really is about delivering a better integrated experience. Although, I do prefer Google's services over MS's bing and cortana.
- nikkwong 11y agoSounds like internet explorer 6 all over again.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoNot a particular surprising move. Microsoft's CPC for Bing has be going up quarter over quarter and Google's has been going down. Presumably at some point they meet in the middle. But as Bing's have gotten high enough to pay the freight sending more traffic there is all upside for Microsoft. The reasoning is a bit flimsy though, if you consider Cortana as simply a "hands free typing device" its kind of like restricting your special snowflake keyboard to only your apps. But with Amazon owning the cloud computing dollars, Facebook consuming a bigger and bigger serving of the Internet Advertising pie, Netflix and Amazon being the place where video streaming makes money, I would expect Google has to feel a bit backed into a corner, and its competitors feeling a bit like they have a way to weaken it further. It feels like another "big shift" in terms of players in the market space.