5 ms·

The only thing I don't like about this is that I'm not seeing myself using Yahoo! for my searches, because I'm not living in the US and everything else I tried

The only thing I don't like about this is that I'm not seeing myself using Yahoo! for my searches, because I'm not living in the US and everything else I tried has poor local results. This is OK for me, because switching search engines is easy in Firefox. However, this means that the searches I'm doing will not generate revenue for Mozilla anymore. And I feel bad about that. I hope they'll cut a deal with Google for Europe.

cpeterso 12y ago
How much worse are Yahoo! or Bing search results compared to Google in Europe? Is the problem that Yahoo! or Bing don't crawl enough European language sites?
- hrvbr 12y ago
  I don't like the French version of Bing. One of the reasons is that it assumes I'm monolingual. Like, if I search for a film, I'll get the result for Allociné instead of IMDb. I much prefer IMDb.
- bad_user 12y ago
  I'm a Romanian and speaking from personal experience, they are much, much worse. For example I just searched for "restaurante" (the Romanian word for "restaurants"). Google gives me nearby restaurants in Google Maps plus links to Romanian guides to restaurants, whereas Yahoo is giving me the Spanish Wikipedia page for the Spanish definition as the first result (WTF!) and the results are complete bullshit. And look, DuckDuckGo is also returning the same bullshit (yes, even with regional searches turned on, I still get Spanish results): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=restaurante https://duckduckgo.com/?q=restaurante I could think of other blunders, as whenever I tried using alternatives it's been very painful for me (i.e. fixing the individual example above won't solve my needs) and Google is also often able to infer what I want based on my profile. For example when I search for Ruby I get a different set of results than my wife does ;-) You can say what you want about Google's privacy invading tactics, but their search results are really the best and if people wonder why they have a monopoly in search, well this is why.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dagw 12y ago
  Pretty terrible. I made an effort to try Bing and ddg a while back, and while it was good enough for searching for English language sites using English words, it fell down heavily when searching in Swedish. I think the problem isn't just crawling, it's parsing. Google does a lot of clever stuff where it tries to understand the site and handle things like alternate spelling, synonyms and typos. From what I've seen Bing at least is far behind on this front for non-english sites and I don't know if they're even really trying.
- MildlySerious 12y ago
  As most others, I mostly use search when I know where I want to end up, but can't be bothered clicking my way there. German Bing just doesn't show the relevant results on top, so the effect of saving time by using search is lost. I doubt it doesn't have the right sites indexed, it's just bad performance in delivering at the right time. At least in my case.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> The only thing I don't like about this is that I'm not seeing myself using Yahoo! for my searches, because I'm not living in the US and everything else I tried has poor local results. I was under the impression Yahoo was going to be US only.
- bad_user 12y ago
  Maybe, but if it works out in the US they could expand. Also, my desktop browser remained with its settings intact after the update, but my Android Firefox converted to Yahoo as the default, even though I'm not in the US - maybe it has something to do with Google Play, I don't know. It's fine for me, as converting back to Google as the default is easy. But as I've said, I hope they'll still struck a deal with Google for non-US markets that do not have an alternative to Google (like China or Russia do). Because that way users like myself can keep supporting them indirectly.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  A lot of people outside of the US don't want to use translated software. I grew up on English software and prefer it that way, so I never download the Danish translated version of Firefox. This is not uncommon at all. So given the broad usage of the US version of Firefox around the globe there need to be some level of localization in the services that are more sophisticated than simply assuming that a Yahoo search from the search bar must originate from the US.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    I never thought of that, very interesting. Obviously it's not ideal but you could download the GB/UK edition. English language and outside the US so the search engine should still be Google.
    - bad_user 12y ago
      You could of course change your default back to being Google, which is easy to do in Settings => Search (or just click the "Change Search Settings" in the new search bar). It's a problem for Mozilla though, since they are updating users that they haven't indented to update. But then, going back to my original problem - does Mozilla get credit for my searches? I always felt good about using Firefox and recommending Firefox to my peers, because Firefox usage brings them nickels that add up. So is the deal with Google over, on a global scale, or just for the US? And if I'm using the en_US version, while in Europe, does that bring them anything? That's what I'd like to know.

cpeterso 12y ago

How much worse are Yahoo! or Bing search results compared to Google in Europe? Is the problem that Yahoo! or Bing don't crawl enough European language sites?

hrvbr 12y ago
I don't like the French version of Bing. One of the reasons is that it assumes I'm monolingual. Like, if I search for a film, I'll get the result for Allociné instead of IMDb. I much prefer IMDb.
bad_user 12y ago
I'm a Romanian and speaking from personal experience, they are much, much worse. For example I just searched for "restaurante" (the Romanian word for "restaurants"). Google gives me nearby restaurants in Google Maps plus links to Romanian guides to restaurants, whereas Yahoo is giving me the Spanish Wikipedia page for the Spanish definition as the first result (WTF!) and the results are complete bullshit. And look, DuckDuckGo is also returning the same bullshit (yes, even with regional searches turned on, I still get Spanish results): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=restaurante https://duckduckgo.com/?q=restaurante I could think of other blunders, as whenever I tried using alternatives it's been very painful for me (i.e. fixing the individual example above won't solve my needs) and Google is also often able to infer what I want based on my profile. For example when I search for Ruby I get a different set of results than my wife does ;-) You can say what you want about Google's privacy invading tactics, but their search results are really the best and if people wonder why they have a monopoly in search, well this is why.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dagw 12y ago
Pretty terrible. I made an effort to try Bing and ddg a while back, and while it was good enough for searching for English language sites using English words, it fell down heavily when searching in Swedish. I think the problem isn't just crawling, it's parsing. Google does a lot of clever stuff where it tries to understand the site and handle things like alternate spelling, synonyms and typos. From what I've seen Bing at least is far behind on this front for non-english sites and I don't know if they're even really trying.
MildlySerious 12y ago
As most others, I mostly use search when I know where I want to end up, but can't be bothered clicking my way there. German Bing just doesn't show the relevant results on top, so the effect of saving time by using search is lost. I doubt it doesn't have the right sites indexed, it's just bad performance in delivering at the right time. At least in my case.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> The only thing I don't like about this is that I'm not seeing myself using Yahoo! for my searches, because I'm not living in the US and everything else I tried has poor local results. I was under the impression Yahoo was going to be US only.

bad_user 12y ago
Maybe, but if it works out in the US they could expand. Also, my desktop browser remained with its settings intact after the update, but my Android Firefox converted to Yahoo as the default, even though I'm not in the US - maybe it has something to do with Google Play, I don't know. It's fine for me, as converting back to Google as the default is easy. But as I've said, I hope they'll still struck a deal with Google for non-US markets that do not have an alternative to Google (like China or Russia do). Because that way users like myself can keep supporting them indirectly.
wodenokoto 12y ago
A lot of people outside of the US don't want to use translated software. I grew up on English software and prefer it that way, so I never download the Danish translated version of Firefox. This is not uncommon at all. So given the broad usage of the US version of Firefox around the globe there need to be some level of localization in the services that are more sophisticated than simply assuming that a Yahoo search from the search bar must originate from the US.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  I never thought of that, very interesting. Obviously it's not ideal but you could download the GB/UK edition. English language and outside the US so the search engine should still be Google.
  - bad_user 12y ago
    You could of course change your default back to being Google, which is easy to do in Settings => Search (or just click the "Change Search Settings" in the new search bar). It's a problem for Mozilla though, since they are updating users that they haven't indented to update. But then, going back to my original problem - does Mozilla get credit for my searches? I always felt good about using Firefox and recommending Firefox to my peers, because Firefox usage brings them nickels that add up. So is the deal with Google over, on a global scale, or just for the US? And if I'm using the en_US version, while in Europe, does that bring them anything? That's what I'd like to know.