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Google Says Vista Search Changes Not Enough
akkarin writes "Following Google's complaint to Microsoft regarding Vista's 'desktop search,'
Google claims that Vista's search has not changed enough: 'Google said yesterday that the remedies don't go far enough. Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, "We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista."'"
Is it really that hard to make an open api with replaceable components. That way google could just plug in their search and have it open to the whole os. MS still seems to be stuck in the monolithic, tightly coupled programming era.
Look, Google, release your own OS already, and shut up. We know you've been working on one.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
you can't turn it off
YOU CAN.
I quickly discovered that searching it automatically called up MSIE
I have no idea why that happens. I don't have GDS (no need for it), but I tried to set Firefox as the default and EVERYTHING passed to Firefox. Search results from the Start menu, URLs in emails, HTML files, EVERYTHING. The problems actually does seem to be GDS.
I don't understand why this was moderated flamebait. I suppose it could have been worded differently, but there is a valid point. Some people loved Microsoft in the late 80s and early 90s. Microsoft provided the software that was an alternative to Mac OS. People who hated Apple loved it.
Microsoft agreed to make changes. Why push it further? I don't like Microsoft's business practices, but I don't see how google is all that much better as of late.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Has this tagging thing been opened up again?
For a while there, the tags almost meant something.
Max.
Supposedly Google suddenly started complaining about Vista's integrated search four days after Microsoft complained to the FTC about Google's acquisition of Doubleclick. It seems to be a "Oh yeah? Well fuck you!" move.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
While I agree with your sentiment, I do have a problem with grown-up software companies walking around acting whiny spoiled children. As much as Microsoft may deserve a "jab in the heart" on some level, Google needs to get over their emotion driven "issues" and move on to more, truly important, things.
ILuxRamen would taunt Google with obviously false blather.
If you think your product is better, don't complain that something like it comes with Vista cuz it won't matter.
No one can really be oblivious to the actual problem here: M$ has sabotaged yet another competitor on "their" OS. It does not matter how good your program is when you try to port it to Winblows and M$ decides they want your "market". Remember DRDOS, Lotus, Word Perfect, Netscape and non M$ antivirus programs? All of them were far better than the M$ junk that eventually triumphed due to sabotage and vendor manipulation. Their demise has been meticulously documented in several anti-trust trials. This is no longer a matter of partisan bickering or fanboy ranting, it's court proven fact.
Protecting real competition is what antiturst is all about. The judgement and findings of fact against M$ were supposed to take care of these problems but did not because they left M$ intact. Their attack on Google, iPod anti-virus makers and even Wikipedia is more of the same. All of these other companies are just as legitimate and important as M$ and all of them are going to be slaughtered if things go as they did before. That's people who lose their jobs so that M$ can rack up more monopoly rent. Government action has failed miserably.
Fortunately, the market is correcting itself. People are avoiding Vista even though that means using ancient software on aging hardware. Dell is still selling XP, despite M$'s wishes, because people just don't want Vista. It's hurt hardware sales and everyone who trusted the usual business predictions are feeling the burn. Businesses and government offices continue to look for escape and they are finding it in Mac and free software that runs their existing equipment. With vendors like Dell selling free software, the dam has burst on M$. There's a reliable hardware path out of the mess. People who want what competition really has to offer are going to steer clear of M$ for the forseeable future.
All M$ can do is advertise, but that's not working like it used to. They can't polish the Vista turd. After six years, they can't produce much better, so it's all downhill from here. Everyone knows it too. Bye Bye M$.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> "Do no evil unless it gives us money."
c king/
I think you're jumping the gun here. Microsoft is like a fool with a rope; Give 'em enough, and next thing you know they want to be Cowboy Neal. Microsoft has enough money to buy just about any legal outcome they want - and don't fool yourself, they do. Google knows this and is nipping the problem in the bud right now. If they don't, before you know it, you won't even be able to use Google with Vista. Clippy will pop up and direct you to Vista Search instead (or some other such idiotic nonsense that the population seems to lap up). Being that Baldy is going to "Fucking kill Google"* I would be handling this with a wary eye as well. Google is playing it smart.
[*] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/05/chair_chu
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I don't think it's a matter of simply turning off vista search, or how Google desktop may be 10% slower than vista's own. I'm thinking that the whole issue is not this simple.
Vista searches probably feed Live with info on your interests, so it gives Live the advantage over google in search accuracy. Google is probably asking microsoft to let them make a drop in replacement for vista's search, one that will not alter the user's experience using his OS. The user would use his OS the same way (same search box, the same place, comparable performance), but the engine would be powered by Google.
So, if the connection between desktop search and internet search is made, it is quite clear that MS _is_ using it's dominant position to cut off Google.
I get that Google's peeved and everything -- but since when did it become improper for an OS to index the harddrive? Why should Microsoft allow that to be disabled?! What, then, if GDS is uninstalled later on and Vista search doesn't start back up, for example? It just seems like a basic thing that should be part of an OS.
Not taking sides in the OS wars ? Damn, Cyrus, but there's something MUCH more disturbing in your post:
... "the government", my dear boy is YOUR PRIMARY REPRESENTATIVE to curtail the psychopathic behaviour of megacorporations that without law (implemented by government) and justice (implemented by government) and effective policing and watchdogging (implemented by government) would fuck over you and your grandma in a blink of an eye.
...
"If there's anything worse than a company bullying someone, it's the government bullying someone, regardless of who they are."
I'm stunned
You seem to have a problem with pronouns too. "who" does not apply to a company, it applies to PEOPLE.
My own retort: If there's anything worse than a company bullying someone, it's an ignorant prat astroturfing for corporate personhood at the expense of the rest of us.
Me, I'm happy when the government jumps all over the criminal, monopolistic, anti-competitive (and therefore anti-democratic) fukkers who are subsidised by our tax dollars to build infrastructure and empires so they can overcharge us and funnel our ever-shrinking disposable income toward the moneyed elite.
Maybe I had too much coffee this morning
Everyone is saying Google is in the wrong here, but I can't see how. Google isn't saying Vista shouldn't include a search engine, it's saying it should be possible to replace it with a competing search engine. At the moment (if I read this right, I dunno for sure I dont have Vista) you can install Google's Desktop search, but Vistas search will continue to index thus slowing the computer down. To any non-tech-savy user this is going to look like Google's software is at fault, but the system is actually doing twice as much.
Google is right to kick up a fuss about this, coz M$ has pretty much (indirectly) stopped people using Google software by using their OS monopoly.
It also has to do with the fact that the update software was an ActiveX control which most other browsers don't touch with a 10-ft (~3.05m) pole. The functionality that allows the Microsoft Update website to search the computer for software is the source of the vulnerabilities that these browsers are avoiding.
I'm not sure Google cares that much about desktop search per se. They probably think they can do a better job of it than Microsoft, but assuming Vista provided equal access to the desktop search database, I don't thing Google would care that much.
The real point, and where Vista *is* anticompetitive is that the built-in search wants to integrate Microsoft's version of Internet search into the built-in desktop search viewer. Internet search is not a feature of the OS - or any desktop OS I know of, and there's no reason Microsoft should be able to use their desktop monopoly to make it look like their internet search is built-in while other engines are added on. In the light of past anticompetitive behavior and agreements, that's not legal.
It appears that the hooks between desktop search and an internet search engine *have* been built into Vista, and there's no good reason other than the anticompetitive one for the relevant API's to be limited to Microsoft.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Where are those ads you speak of? Oh that's right, next to the search results!
You are mistaken, extremely so. When you are browsing various websites the ads that you see are targeted, not everyone is getting the same ad. Basically the website pays Google to tell the website which banner ad to show you. And of course Google uses the website's query to keep track of your browsing habits and further develop their profile. You do not need to search to be profiled. And of course, Google is not alone in this business, and *that* is what all this fighting is about, *not* about who gets to fulfill your search.