13 ms·

Microsoft has no shame: Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search with a fake AI answer

252 points by dlb007 3y ago

sweetrobot2k 3y ago
Microhard
quyleanh 3y ago
An other clickbait title from theverge?
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Eh, it's a legit beef.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  What's clickbait about it? It seems quite clear to me, and vitriol doesn't make clickbait.
  - wilg 3y ago
    > Microsoft has no shame entirely clickbait, ambiguous, over the top, all fluff > Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search comically, suspiciously aggressive > with a fake AI answer ah, the purpose of the article A non-clickbait, but not very punchy alternative is: "Microsoft's Bing Presents Pre-scripted Response as AI Chatbot in 'Chrome' Search Query"
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > comically, suspiciously aggressive All of those words are necessary except 'spit'! Come on! And if you got rid of 'spit' you'd need a different verb. You could remove "Microsoft has no shame", but I don't think that changes whether the article title in total is clickbait or not. Clickbait would be "Microsoft has no shame" all by itself.
      - wilg 3y ago
        I think your definition of clickbait is too narrow. For me, it includes the headline trying to gin up a controversy. But I don't really want to argue about it.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      Clickbait would be something that's misleading. Hence the "bait" (and switch) allusion. Not everything has to sound like a reuters byline.
- liberty-bzmh 3y ago
  Yes.
rhelz 3y ago
Search Engines are not designed to give you the truth. They are designed to give you the result you wanted to find. The linked article is a good example: the author was looking for a result from Bing which they could write a florid article about, and Bing obliged.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  > They are designed to give you the result you wanted to find. This is not true anymore... they're designed to give you the result that their paying customers want you to find. Even if that means that most of the search results are irrelevant to what you wanted to find.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  That is right. If you search for tarot or astrology, it will send you to the websites that are the most relevant given those search terms, instead of showing you authoritative content from scientists or scholars telling you it's false.
  - hunter2_ 3y ago
    This is an interesting case. While dangerous false information (such as vaccine misinformation) does get effectively replaced with truth, not-generally-dangerous false information doesn't, and that's probably a very good thing. It would be an interesting option to make available to users, especially with generative stuff if possible.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
It must really, really suck to be a Google executive finally seeing their own stunts reversed on them. It's absolutely amazing how much criticism Microsoft pushing Bing gets when Google did it more and worse for longer. As usual: People who generally use Google products don't even notice how insanely aggressively Google uses it's various monopolies to push their other products. I have a screenshot of Gmail on Firefox which had three separate Chrome banners stacked in my browser at once.
- stingraycharles 3y ago
  From another perspective, over the past decade it must have been really frustrating for Microsoft execs to see their own stunts reversed on them by Google.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  I don’t think any company or fan base is different than any other, really. Google, Microsoft, Apple, et al all serve their own best interests first, all in very similar ways. Their fans often have a blind spot for their company’s actions while lambasting the others for doing the same thing. And it’s just plain human nature; people see fandom as “belonging as part of a group” and any criticism towards an “enemy” is going to reinforce their choice of browser/OS/phone/whatever and that the company they are cheering for is the best. And the deeper you are in the fandom, the more your echo chamber feeds into those same beliefs. In truth, all companies suck, as do their fans. Some may suck less on a particular day/week/month, but over a long enough time period it’s all the same shit.
- nycdatasci 3y ago
  This isn’t a fair comparison. Open Chrome then open Edge. In the former, you see a simple inferface with a search bar and maybe a few icons for frequently visited websites. In the latter, you’re meandering through a Turkish bazaar filled with thousands of knick-knack vendors, newsstands, etc. Microsoft puts no thought into the user experience and every thought into “we can use it to make money!”
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
asddubs 3y ago
called it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34735045#34736028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34735045#34736028
nullindividual 3y ago
I can't reproduce. If I search for 'chrome', the answer I get back from Bing AI: > Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It is known for its speed, simplicity, and security features. Would you like to know more about Chrome? Additionally, I get a proper download link for Chrome as the top result. This is on Edge. Performing this on Chrome yields a different, arguably better answer from Bing AI. > Chrome is a web browser developed by Google1. It is fast, secure, and free to download and use. It also has features like bookmarks sync, form autofill, and Google smarts built-in. Chrome supports various operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook. You can check if your device meets the system requirements to use Chrome3.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  They pulled it: > Shortly after we published this story with that comment, Fischel confirmed Microsoft has pulled the plug on this particular idea. “The experience is no longer flighting.” Sure enough, I no longer see it. But "flighting"? Does that mean "deployed"? I've never heard that before -- I'm guessing a weird variation of "in flight" which itself is an unusual metaphor? Is that something people are saying now?
  - roseway4 3y ago
    It’s an advertising term. Unsurprising, given the context. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flighting.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flighting.asp
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      As a former Microsoft employee, “flighting” is the internal (and external, in some cases like https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/flighting https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/flighting) name for A/B testing or feature flags and has been for a long time. If that was the original definition from whoever introduced it to the company, it’s long been forgotten.
  - jimbobimbo 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Animats 3y ago
Bing search in Firefox on Linux, not logged into Microsoft, for "Chrome": Promoted by Microsoft Microsoft Edge Try the latest browser from Microsoft Microsoft Edge is powered by the same open source technology as Google Chrome, providing best in class web and extension compatibility. Bing has become annoying about putting ads before real results, and often hiding the real results. Bing image search is awful about this.
- cpncrunch 3y ago
  >Bing has become annoying about putting ads before real results, and often hiding the real results. Bing image search is awful about this Comparing bing to google: - Google has a number of "sponsored" results at the top of search results, which look identical to the actual search results, other than having a "sponsored". - Searching for chrome on bing.com produces an Edge advert (the one you mention) at the top, but it has a grey background and is obviously not a search result. - Searching for anything else (e.g. "online tutor") on bing does produce ads above the search results, similar to google, which look identical to search results, with the word "Ad" in front. So, from what I can tell, Microsoft isn't really any worse than Google.
  - calo_star 3y ago
    > - Google has a number of "sponsored" results at the top of search results, which look identical to the actual search results, other than having a "sponsored". That was the reason I switched away from Google. Here when I search "apache cassandra" the first result is something something free trial. edit: I just tried with Bing it gave something similar, oh well.
    - cpncrunch 3y ago
      I tried "apache cassandra" with yahoo and duckduckgo and they both have similar ads that look like search results. Yahoo is even worse, as they just have "Ads related to: apache cassandra" at the top, and then a bunch of ads, where is isn't really obvious where the actual search results begin, just a horizontal line. Having a look for other search engines, I see all the regular ones from the 90s seem to be dead. There is one called swisscows.com which I hadn't heard of, and it has similar inline ads.
nixcraft 3y ago
Microsoft is very hostile toward its users. They added Ads in the paid version of the operating system. You can't uninstall Edge. Even if you remove Edge, which is difficult, the following Windows update will reinstall it. Instead of searching for the next big idea, how about you fix your dam OS first and stop installing stupid games and showing Ads? Keep it Microsoft with your stupid games, and Google has nothing to worry about you. LOL.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  Honestly people who can, should ditch windows.
  - yndoendo 3y ago
    Often the anchor to Microsoft Windows is legacy. Both in existing code and existing knowledge. Takes energy to diverge away from both. Currently maintain applications because the former developer only knew C#. Also the tools used to configure devices are only Windows based. This dramatically harms quality of the product in the long run and support. My experience with product is design. Use the solution the fits the problem not the solution you currently know and rely on. You have to pay me to engage with Microsoft / Windows!
- judge2020 3y ago
  Doesn't Edge on Windows work like Chrome does on Android, with it providing an API that other apps can use to render webpages in something other than Trident?
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    Yeah. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/concepts/distribution https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/co...
  - tacticus 3y ago
    and yet the "are you sure you don't want edge" popup isn't requried in this use case. combine that with the fact that their own apps will only open in edge in future versions makes it not like chrome on android.
laserbeam 3y ago
Someone had to write about this properly but blaming Bing is shortsighted. This is what LLM based searches are bound to turn into: full page undisclosed ads disguised as helpful summaries. Bing, Bard, and likely others will do the same.
- Taek 3y ago
  That's why Open Source LLMs are critical. Any commercial LLM you use is going to have advertisements baked in, preferences for particular products, perhaps political biases. Corporations will pay through the nose to have a trusted assistant push their products.
  - laserbeam 3y ago
    I don't think open sourceness is relevant here. If the business model of the product is ads, then the thing will eventually serve ads. I'm also not arguing against LLMs in general if that was the vibe of the previous comment. Just claiming that Google and Microsoft found an excuse to include full screen ads instead of search results.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    An open source LLM tells you nothing about what a company fine tunes it on at a later time. BERT is open source now.
  - pndy 3y ago
    > perhaps political biases. "Perhaps"? That seems rather unavoidable. Younger generations already are being molded by corporations so think what happens when LLMs will take the lead. Set the parameters of "safety" and there you have it: a trained in a particular way society who is not allowed to think by itself or criticize and is unaware of situation because what they perceive is the norm. Ads baked in are one thing but the potential social implications are much worse, I believe "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
HKH2 3y ago
Has Microsoft ever had any shame? You asked for convenience and you got it, except for this mild inconvenience. Why should we care?
janalsncm 3y ago
What I think was going on: Bing opened an A/B test to test a feature (which explains why the author couldn’t reproduce everywhere). The new feature related to how search terms were classified as “Bing features”. Maybe it was some kind of threshold. Because of that change, searches for “chrome” were tagged as “Bing features” and therefore the flow for promoting Bing was triggered. Ultimately the goal of such an experiment is to increase the uptake of Edge but they overshot it this time.
Y_Y 3y ago
> The experience is no longer flighting. What a shit neologism.
- grouchomarx 3y ago
  I'd be truly embarrassed to put that statement out. Microsoft can really find no bottom
- bagacrap 3y ago
  hopefully because it crashed into the ocean
- lastangryman 3y ago
  I got sinking feelings of dread and despair reading that, a terrifying insight in to the internal Microsoft mindset.
pierat 3y ago
Most of us pirates and hacker types use Yandex or Baidu these days. We get MUCH BETTER quality searches there than the US search engines. And yes, I'm located in the US. The ONLY problems we have are local-to-us searches. Then again, you're better off with a yellow pages/business phonebook than hoping that scroogle will give you what you ask for.
- smaudet 3y ago
  How does that compare to duckduckgo? I use that almost exclusively these days...
  - pndy 3y ago
    In my case DDG abilities seriously deteriorated in last 6 months. I'm getting more ads or irrelevant results just because phrase happens to be pointing on something, someone that could bee considered as more "popular". There are also fillers that doesn't even come near my initial inquiry, like I'm seeing sites about Łódź Ghetto because it happens I'm in Poland. Why? I have no idea.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    duckduckgo is basically Bing without the AI. They use other sources too, but those seem to be more for like the automatic link to Wikipedia or the calculator that shows up if you type "7*44" I personally have found both duckduckgo and Google to be terrible recently. I've tried a bit of yandex, but the results weren't immediately superior enough to make me switch. Baidu I haven't tried.
    - NayamAmarshe 3y ago
      Brave Search is a lot better.
  - Lio 3y ago
    The main problem with duckduckgo is that you can’t exclude results you don’t want. So if you’re searching for something on Linux and you add a -Microsoft term you’ll be served more windows results not less. That makes it pretty useless for narrowing results.
malikNF 3y ago
Not sure which party has no shame, is it the users who continue to get treated like aholes by ms and continue to expect them to change or ms who continue to treat their users as aholes every chance they get. Just leave their eco systems, reject their products until they treat their customers better.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Unfortunately it's hard to change OSs, and honestly it's Google which currently has the browser monopoly. IMHO rejecting newer versions of their products with unwanted changes is an intermediate step and more doable, however.
  - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    Why is it so hard to change OS? Which application is holding you back? (Sure there are some critical applications that only work in Windows and that’s fair, just curious to know). As for the browser - use a different browser, Chrome has the majority of the market but there is choice. There was choice even in the dark days of the First Browser Wars.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - charrondev 3y ago
      As for the browser alternatives I can use on my work machine are - Chrome (I’m already being tracked by Microsoft through my office365/Active Directory everywhere, might as well not give it all to google too). - Safari I might consider trying this again starting in the next MacOS version once PWA support lands. Right now I avoid having to install multiple Electron apps with the PWA support. - Firefox I’ve been off and on with. If uBlock origin support is finally gutted from chromium I’ll switch to this again, but I find the Firefox dev tools inferior and I quite dislike their interface in recent iterations.
Lapsa 3y ago
Bill still installing Movie Maker
intalentive 3y ago
Hilarious honestly. I am not a fan of MS but appreciate the balls.
doctor_eval 3y ago
> Microsoft has no shame Should perhaps read, “Microsoft has not changed”!
wodenokoto 3y ago
Honestly, I don't believe this. I know we all get a different search experience, so just because mine is different, doesn't mean author sees the same, but this is so far from what I am seeing and what seems reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. For what it's worth, on Edge, I see a large banner ad for Edge (no need to change browser), top search result is "download google Chrome" and on the side bing chat explains what the chrome browser is and suggest I go explore on google.com On Chrome, I see the same, only the add is "Try edge now". I don't think this is worse than what Google used to do against Firefox (where they'd advertise Google Chrome in a spot not reserved for advertisement, if you where merely visiting from Firefox. Although in fairness, they once upon a time advertised Firefox to IE users in a similar fashion)
jgaa 3y ago
> Microsoft has no shame They never did.
hunter2_ 3y ago
This seems like a gag that wasn't intended for production. Like an inside joke for an internal app used by MS only, which was then forgotten about when converting the system to be public-facing. QA happened to not run this code path (most likely), or overlooked it due to lack of awareness of antitrust law and lack of anticipating the bad vibes.
- nhgiang 3y ago
  MS PR hard at work
hooby 3y ago
I lack the psychology knowledge to know for sure - but isn't it quite normal psychological behavior to go into full rejection-mode, if someone tries to push something down your throat too hard? Nobody likes being manipulated - and if the manipulation attempts are too obvious and shameless - wouldn't people reject whatever is being pushed at them, just to assert their independence and self-determination? Even if the product being pushed at them might otherwise be something they'd want to take a closer look at? For me personally, Microsofts' behavior is definitely pushing me further away from trying or using Edge. Just hearing the word "Edge" creates negative emotions for me - simply because of many years of getting it inappropriately shoved into my face. The first thought that goes through my mind, when I see "Edge" or "Bing" mentioned anywhere in Windows is "Not again. F*k off. Just leave me in peace. Respect my decision to use the browser of MY choice." As Microsoft is continuing to be so pushy, aren't more and more people going to end up being immediately annoyed just at the bare mention of Edge or Bing?
- anoy8888 3y ago
  Microsoft likes to play dirty. It is in their genes
  - dingosity 3y ago
    It seemed like they were doing better when they were running leenucks servers in Azure. But you can't upload images on LinkedIn with firefox (at least on leenucks.) And there were some UI weirdness on GitHub, so yeah... Playing dirty is in their genome. And I was just getting to the point where I liked C#.
- shalmanese 3y ago
  No, the internet heavily biases towards people who are on the spectrum for Oppositional Defiant Disorder because only the top 1% of people who are the most passionate about any topic ever post and ODD biases people into being passionate about things most people don't care about. Thus, if you read internet comments, you get the impression that some significant fraction of the world has a massive chip on their shoulder and are willing to go to great lengths to defy authority whereas if you ever run analytics for a company, you realize that group of people are almost always a rounding error in terms of impact.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
Microsoft has been pulling this shit for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deafpolygon 3y ago
I'm not sure what the issue is. Google pushes Chrome when going to google.com. Also, I'm not getting the same results as OP. So, this might not be pushed out everywhere?
nunobrito 3y ago
Whenever I'm asked by friends or family to fix their computers for free, I make sure to install Linux + Brave + Qwant for browsing. Most times it works because they just use youtube, facebook and stuff on the browser and runs for years without troubling me again. Other times it doesn't work because "reasons" and they won't dare to trouble me again since that is all that I install. In either case, neither bother me again.
- Zardoz84 3y ago
  better use firefox
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    Firefox has a love relation to be sponsored by Google, no thanks. Brave was founded by the same person in front of firefox for many years, plus blocks advertisements. Their team built a capable search engine. Don't really want to use a browser with a political agenda that goes against me.
dingosity 3y ago
Yeah. I'm more or less off the web completely. Except HN, to which I am addicted.
aspyct 3y ago
Google used similar tactics to promote Chrome at the time.
NayamAmarshe 3y ago
It's Microsoft, what did you expect? This is a company that makes products that spit in the user's face and the users still happily continue to get disrespected again and again.
devsda 3y ago
If Microsoft is this hostile and in your face with its paying users, I'm concerned about what its policies are when it comes to its own employees. Are Microsoft employees allowed to use Firefox and Chrome internally on a daily basis or is it permitted only for UI tests? Is there an (un)official internal policy on this? If it is not enforced then I guess they only care about it when money is involved. Not sure how I should feel in that case.
winwhiz 3y ago
Bad headline.

252 points by dlb007 3y ago

sweetrobot2k 3y ago

Microhard

quyleanh 3y ago

An other clickbait title from theverge?

CamperBob2 3y ago
Eh, it's a legit beef.
Dylan16807 3y ago
What's clickbait about it? It seems quite clear to me, and vitriol doesn't make clickbait.
- wilg 3y ago
  > Microsoft has no shame entirely clickbait, ambiguous, over the top, all fluff > Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search comically, suspiciously aggressive > with a fake AI answer ah, the purpose of the article A non-clickbait, but not very punchy alternative is: "Microsoft's Bing Presents Pre-scripted Response as AI Chatbot in 'Chrome' Search Query"
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > comically, suspiciously aggressive All of those words are necessary except 'spit'! Come on! And if you got rid of 'spit' you'd need a different verb. You could remove "Microsoft has no shame", but I don't think that changes whether the article title in total is clickbait or not. Clickbait would be "Microsoft has no shame" all by itself.
    - wilg 3y ago
      I think your definition of clickbait is too narrow. For me, it includes the headline trying to gin up a controversy. But I don't really want to argue about it.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    Clickbait would be something that's misleading. Hence the "bait" (and switch) allusion. Not everything has to sound like a reuters byline.
liberty-bzmh 3y ago
Yes.

rhelz 3y ago

Search Engines are not designed to give you the truth. They are designed to give you the result you wanted to find. The linked article is a good example: the author was looking for a result from Bing which they could write a florid article about, and Bing obliged.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
> They are designed to give you the result you wanted to find. This is not true anymore... they're designed to give you the result that their paying customers want you to find. Even if that means that most of the search results are irrelevant to what you wanted to find.
29athrowaway 3y ago
That is right. If you search for tarot or astrology, it will send you to the websites that are the most relevant given those search terms, instead of showing you authoritative content from scientists or scholars telling you it's false.
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  This is an interesting case. While dangerous false information (such as vaccine misinformation) does get effectively replaced with truth, not-generally-dangerous false information doesn't, and that's probably a very good thing. It would be an interesting option to make available to users, especially with generative stuff if possible.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

It must really, really suck to be a Google executive finally seeing their own stunts reversed on them. It's absolutely amazing how much criticism Microsoft pushing Bing gets when Google did it more and worse for longer. As usual: People who generally use Google products don't even notice how insanely aggressively Google uses it's various monopolies to push their other products. I have a screenshot of Gmail on Firefox which had three separate Chrome banners stacked in my browser at once.

stingraycharles 3y ago
From another perspective, over the past decade it must have been really frustrating for Microsoft execs to see their own stunts reversed on them by Google.
mynameisvlad 3y ago
I don’t think any company or fan base is different than any other, really. Google, Microsoft, Apple, et al all serve their own best interests first, all in very similar ways. Their fans often have a blind spot for their company’s actions while lambasting the others for doing the same thing. And it’s just plain human nature; people see fandom as “belonging as part of a group” and any criticism towards an “enemy” is going to reinforce their choice of browser/OS/phone/whatever and that the company they are cheering for is the best. And the deeper you are in the fandom, the more your echo chamber feeds into those same beliefs. In truth, all companies suck, as do their fans. Some may suck less on a particular day/week/month, but over a long enough time period it’s all the same shit.
nycdatasci 3y ago
This isn’t a fair comparison. Open Chrome then open Edge. In the former, you see a simple inferface with a search bar and maybe a few icons for frequently visited websites. In the latter, you’re meandering through a Turkish bazaar filled with thousands of knick-knack vendors, newsstands, etc. Microsoft puts no thought into the user experience and every thought into “we can use it to make money!”
- mynameisvlad 3y ago

asddubs 3y ago

called it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34735045#34736028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34735045#34736028

nullindividual 3y ago

I can't reproduce. If I search for 'chrome', the answer I get back from Bing AI: > Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It is known for its speed, simplicity, and security features. Would you like to know more about Chrome? Additionally, I get a proper download link for Chrome as the top result. This is on Edge. Performing this on Chrome yields a different, arguably better answer from Bing AI. > Chrome is a web browser developed by Google1. It is fast, secure, and free to download and use. It also has features like bookmarks sync, form autofill, and Google smarts built-in. Chrome supports various operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook. You can check if your device meets the system requirements to use Chrome3.

crazygringo 3y ago
They pulled it: > Shortly after we published this story with that comment, Fischel confirmed Microsoft has pulled the plug on this particular idea. “The experience is no longer flighting.” Sure enough, I no longer see it. But "flighting"? Does that mean "deployed"? I've never heard that before -- I'm guessing a weird variation of "in flight" which itself is an unusual metaphor? Is that something people are saying now?
- roseway4 3y ago
  It’s an advertising term. Unsurprising, given the context. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flighting.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/flighting.asp
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    As a former Microsoft employee, “flighting” is the internal (and external, in some cases like https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/flighting https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/flighting) name for A/B testing or feature flags and has been for a long time. If that was the original definition from whoever introduced it to the company, it’s long been forgotten.
- jimbobimbo 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Animats 3y ago

Bing search in Firefox on Linux, not logged into Microsoft, for "Chrome": Promoted by Microsoft Microsoft Edge Try the latest browser from Microsoft Microsoft Edge is powered by the same open source technology as Google Chrome, providing best in class web and extension compatibility. Bing has become annoying about putting ads before real results, and often hiding the real results. Bing image search is awful about this.

cpncrunch 3y ago
>Bing has become annoying about putting ads before real results, and often hiding the real results. Bing image search is awful about this Comparing bing to google: - Google has a number of "sponsored" results at the top of search results, which look identical to the actual search results, other than having a "sponsored". - Searching for chrome on bing.com produces an Edge advert (the one you mention) at the top, but it has a grey background and is obviously not a search result. - Searching for anything else (e.g. "online tutor") on bing does produce ads above the search results, similar to google, which look identical to search results, with the word "Ad" in front. So, from what I can tell, Microsoft isn't really any worse than Google.
- calo_star 3y ago
  > - Google has a number of "sponsored" results at the top of search results, which look identical to the actual search results, other than having a "sponsored". That was the reason I switched away from Google. Here when I search "apache cassandra" the first result is something something free trial. edit: I just tried with Bing it gave something similar, oh well.
  - cpncrunch 3y ago
    I tried "apache cassandra" with yahoo and duckduckgo and they both have similar ads that look like search results. Yahoo is even worse, as they just have "Ads related to: apache cassandra" at the top, and then a bunch of ads, where is isn't really obvious where the actual search results begin, just a horizontal line. Having a look for other search engines, I see all the regular ones from the 90s seem to be dead. There is one called swisscows.com which I hadn't heard of, and it has similar inline ads.

nixcraft 3y ago

Microsoft is very hostile toward its users. They added Ads in the paid version of the operating system. You can't uninstall Edge. Even if you remove Edge, which is difficult, the following Windows update will reinstall it. Instead of searching for the next big idea, how about you fix your dam OS first and stop installing stupid games and showing Ads? Keep it Microsoft with your stupid games, and Google has nothing to worry about you. LOL.

aaomidi 3y ago
Honestly people who can, should ditch windows.
- yndoendo 3y ago
  Often the anchor to Microsoft Windows is legacy. Both in existing code and existing knowledge. Takes energy to diverge away from both. Currently maintain applications because the former developer only knew C#. Also the tools used to configure devices are only Windows based. This dramatically harms quality of the product in the long run and support. My experience with product is design. Use the solution the fits the problem not the solution you currently know and rely on. You have to pay me to engage with Microsoft / Windows!
judge2020 3y ago
Doesn't Edge on Windows work like Chrome does on Android, with it providing an API that other apps can use to render webpages in something other than Trident?
- kevingadd 3y ago
  Yeah. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/concepts/distribution https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/co...
- tacticus 3y ago
  and yet the "are you sure you don't want edge" popup isn't requried in this use case. combine that with the fact that their own apps will only open in edge in future versions makes it not like chrome on android.

laserbeam 3y ago

Someone had to write about this properly but blaming Bing is shortsighted. This is what LLM based searches are bound to turn into: full page undisclosed ads disguised as helpful summaries. Bing, Bard, and likely others will do the same.

Taek 3y ago
That's why Open Source LLMs are critical. Any commercial LLM you use is going to have advertisements baked in, preferences for particular products, perhaps political biases. Corporations will pay through the nose to have a trusted assistant push their products.
- laserbeam 3y ago
  I don't think open sourceness is relevant here. If the business model of the product is ads, then the thing will eventually serve ads. I'm also not arguing against LLMs in general if that was the vibe of the previous comment. Just claiming that Google and Microsoft found an excuse to include full screen ads instead of search results.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  An open source LLM tells you nothing about what a company fine tunes it on at a later time. BERT is open source now.
- pndy 3y ago
  > perhaps political biases. "Perhaps"? That seems rather unavoidable. Younger generations already are being molded by corporations so think what happens when LLMs will take the lead. Set the parameters of "safety" and there you have it: a trained in a particular way society who is not allowed to think by itself or criticize and is unaware of situation because what they perceive is the norm. Ads baked in are one thing but the potential social implications are much worse, I believe "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

HKH2 3y ago

Has Microsoft ever had any shame? You asked for convenience and you got it, except for this mild inconvenience. Why should we care?

janalsncm 3y ago

What I think was going on: Bing opened an A/B test to test a feature (which explains why the author couldn’t reproduce everywhere). The new feature related to how search terms were classified as “Bing features”. Maybe it was some kind of threshold. Because of that change, searches for “chrome” were tagged as “Bing features” and therefore the flow for promoting Bing was triggered. Ultimately the goal of such an experiment is to increase the uptake of Edge but they overshot it this time.

Y_Y 3y ago

> The experience is no longer flighting. What a shit neologism.

grouchomarx 3y ago
I'd be truly embarrassed to put that statement out. Microsoft can really find no bottom
bagacrap 3y ago
hopefully because it crashed into the ocean
lastangryman 3y ago
I got sinking feelings of dread and despair reading that, a terrifying insight in to the internal Microsoft mindset.

pierat 3y ago

Most of us pirates and hacker types use Yandex or Baidu these days. We get MUCH BETTER quality searches there than the US search engines. And yes, I'm located in the US. The ONLY problems we have are local-to-us searches. Then again, you're better off with a yellow pages/business phonebook than hoping that scroogle will give you what you ask for.

smaudet 3y ago
How does that compare to duckduckgo? I use that almost exclusively these days...
- pndy 3y ago
  In my case DDG abilities seriously deteriorated in last 6 months. I'm getting more ads or irrelevant results just because phrase happens to be pointing on something, someone that could bee considered as more "popular". There are also fillers that doesn't even come near my initial inquiry, like I'm seeing sites about Łódź Ghetto because it happens I'm in Poland. Why? I have no idea.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  duckduckgo is basically Bing without the AI. They use other sources too, but those seem to be more for like the automatic link to Wikipedia or the calculator that shows up if you type "7*44" I personally have found both duckduckgo and Google to be terrible recently. I've tried a bit of yandex, but the results weren't immediately superior enough to make me switch. Baidu I haven't tried.
  - NayamAmarshe 3y ago
    Brave Search is a lot better.
- Lio 3y ago
  The main problem with duckduckgo is that you can’t exclude results you don’t want. So if you’re searching for something on Linux and you add a -Microsoft term you’ll be served more windows results not less. That makes it pretty useless for narrowing results.

malikNF 3y ago

Not sure which party has no shame, is it the users who continue to get treated like aholes by ms and continue to expect them to change or ms who continue to treat their users as aholes every chance they get. Just leave their eco systems, reject their products until they treat their customers better.

userbinator 3y ago
Unfortunately it's hard to change OSs, and honestly it's Google which currently has the browser monopoly. IMHO rejecting newer versions of their products with unwanted changes is an intermediate step and more doable, however.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Why is it so hard to change OS? Which application is holding you back? (Sure there are some critical applications that only work in Windows and that’s fair, just curious to know). As for the browser - use a different browser, Chrome has the majority of the market but there is choice. There was choice even in the dark days of the First Browser Wars.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - charrondev 3y ago
    As for the browser alternatives I can use on my work machine are - Chrome (I’m already being tracked by Microsoft through my office365/Active Directory everywhere, might as well not give it all to google too). - Safari I might consider trying this again starting in the next MacOS version once PWA support lands. Right now I avoid having to install multiple Electron apps with the PWA support. - Firefox I’ve been off and on with. If uBlock origin support is finally gutted from chromium I’ll switch to this again, but I find the Firefox dev tools inferior and I quite dislike their interface in recent iterations.

Lapsa 3y ago

Bill still installing Movie Maker

intalentive 3y ago

Hilarious honestly. I am not a fan of MS but appreciate the balls.

doctor_eval 3y ago

> Microsoft has no shame Should perhaps read, “Microsoft has not changed”!

wodenokoto 3y ago

Honestly, I don't believe this. I know we all get a different search experience, so just because mine is different, doesn't mean author sees the same, but this is so far from what I am seeing and what seems reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. For what it's worth, on Edge, I see a large banner ad for Edge (no need to change browser), top search result is "download google Chrome" and on the side bing chat explains what the chrome browser is and suggest I go explore on google.com On Chrome, I see the same, only the add is "Try edge now". I don't think this is worse than what Google used to do against Firefox (where they'd advertise Google Chrome in a spot not reserved for advertisement, if you where merely visiting from Firefox. Although in fairness, they once upon a time advertised Firefox to IE users in a similar fashion)

jgaa 3y ago

> Microsoft has no shame They never did.

hunter2_ 3y ago

This seems like a gag that wasn't intended for production. Like an inside joke for an internal app used by MS only, which was then forgotten about when converting the system to be public-facing. QA happened to not run this code path (most likely), or overlooked it due to lack of awareness of antitrust law and lack of anticipating the bad vibes.

nhgiang 3y ago
MS PR hard at work

hooby 3y ago

I lack the psychology knowledge to know for sure - but isn't it quite normal psychological behavior to go into full rejection-mode, if someone tries to push something down your throat too hard? Nobody likes being manipulated - and if the manipulation attempts are too obvious and shameless - wouldn't people reject whatever is being pushed at them, just to assert their independence and self-determination? Even if the product being pushed at them might otherwise be something they'd want to take a closer look at? For me personally, Microsofts' behavior is definitely pushing me further away from trying or using Edge. Just hearing the word "Edge" creates negative emotions for me - simply because of many years of getting it inappropriately shoved into my face. The first thought that goes through my mind, when I see "Edge" or "Bing" mentioned anywhere in Windows is "Not again. F*k off. Just leave me in peace. Respect my decision to use the browser of MY choice." As Microsoft is continuing to be so pushy, aren't more and more people going to end up being immediately annoyed just at the bare mention of Edge or Bing?

anoy8888 3y ago
Microsoft likes to play dirty. It is in their genes
- dingosity 3y ago
  It seemed like they were doing better when they were running leenucks servers in Azure. But you can't upload images on LinkedIn with firefox (at least on leenucks.) And there were some UI weirdness on GitHub, so yeah... Playing dirty is in their genome. And I was just getting to the point where I liked C#.
shalmanese 3y ago
No, the internet heavily biases towards people who are on the spectrum for Oppositional Defiant Disorder because only the top 1% of people who are the most passionate about any topic ever post and ODD biases people into being passionate about things most people don't care about. Thus, if you read internet comments, you get the impression that some significant fraction of the world has a massive chip on their shoulder and are willing to go to great lengths to defy authority whereas if you ever run analytics for a company, you realize that group of people are almost always a rounding error in terms of impact.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

Microsoft has been pulling this shit for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deafpolygon 3y ago

I'm not sure what the issue is. Google pushes Chrome when going to google.com. Also, I'm not getting the same results as OP. So, this might not be pushed out everywhere?

nunobrito 3y ago

Whenever I'm asked by friends or family to fix their computers for free, I make sure to install Linux + Brave + Qwant for browsing. Most times it works because they just use youtube, facebook and stuff on the browser and runs for years without troubling me again. Other times it doesn't work because "reasons" and they won't dare to trouble me again since that is all that I install. In either case, neither bother me again.

Zardoz84 3y ago
better use firefox
- nunobrito 3y ago
  Firefox has a love relation to be sponsored by Google, no thanks. Brave was founded by the same person in front of firefox for many years, plus blocks advertisements. Their team built a capable search engine. Don't really want to use a browser with a political agenda that goes against me.

dingosity 3y ago

Yeah. I'm more or less off the web completely. Except HN, to which I am addicted.

aspyct 3y ago

Google used similar tactics to promote Chrome at the time.

NayamAmarshe 3y ago

It's Microsoft, what did you expect? This is a company that makes products that spit in the user's face and the users still happily continue to get disrespected again and again.

devsda 3y ago

If Microsoft is this hostile and in your face with its paying users, I'm concerned about what its policies are when it comes to its own employees. Are Microsoft employees allowed to use Firefox and Chrome internally on a daily basis or is it permitted only for UI tests? Is there an (un)official internal policy on this? If it is not enforced then I guess they only care about it when money is involved. Not sure how I should feel in that case.

winwhiz 3y ago

Bad headline.