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Microsoft Changing Users' Default Search Engine
BabyDuckHat writes "Cnet's Dennis O'Reilly caught 'Windows Search Helper' trying to change his default Firefox search from Google to Bing. This isn't the first time the software company has been caught quietly changing user's preferences to benefit its own products."
It's already hard enough to switch to Google. Why is the most popular search engine at the bottom of the list? Could it be that it's weirdly labelled "Google Search Suggestions" unlike the very clear "Bing Search"? I thought that addon was just the suggestions the first time I saw it. If Google had started at the top then it would easily float there. Microsoft probably buried it so the Most Viewed providers would get viewed more and stay at the top.
Well, I can't prove it based solely on the Event Viewer logs, but it's safe to say the search service is the prime suspect.
/. reader that runs around wearing a T-shirt with a hidden message in binary on it, and refuses to play WoW on anything but a Mac so he can "stick it to the man".
His proof is the event view showing the MS Search service "starting". You know, the one that's actually for searching your own computer. And the timing of it was right after start-up.
I'm not saying it was, or it wasn't. But his proof is flimsy at best. His conclusion something I expect from the typical college age
How about some actual proof of what happened. For all we know this tool downloaded something that asked him to change search engines and in his haste to get to porn (which btw Bing is king at), just clicked through without looking, and when he rebooted next time the change tried to happen. Or it could be that the MS Search service tried to hide a change. But I don't buy it based on his SS of a service starting (wow) and his own "jump" to a conclusion. Especially since if it were true there should be reports of it all over.
Not sure if this is funny or sad. Seeing was believing:
Search Box > "Find More Providers..."
Takes you here:
http://www.ieaddons.com/en/searchproviders
With the following
Bing, NYT, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, OneRiot, ESPN, Truveo, Google, Bidtopia, Freebase
Go Freebase and Bidtopia, you *almost* caught Google. Keep up the good work!
If you're looking for video's I can't imagine using any other search engine then Bing right now. They're better at searching youtube then youtube is, and in a much friendlier manner.
For stuff other then videos, yeah, Google is king and will be for a loooong time.
And putting all Apple apps back onto the desktop and at the top level of the Windows start menu every time you upgrade, irrespective of where you'd tidied the previous version up to.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
They haven't just copied Google either.
The Bing Travel page is almost a pixel-perfect copy of the Kayak travel site.
It seems imitation is the strategy of the Bing team.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
That's because IE7 IS a update to IE6. How the heck is Safari an update to Quicktime or iTunes?
This space for rent.
Well, Microsoft has certainly been dragged through the courts often enough, but it would appear they rarely get around to paying their fines.
Nobody would care about MS having a monopoly if they actually made the best software. Or if they released all their software for free, as Google does.
which is totally what she said
I've had msnbot rejected from my site for many years. The just under a year ago I get a request from someone working for MSN Live Search asking to remove the block from robots.txt. I said, "no" and gave her the short version of my falling out with Microsoft (just the 1995 to 1998 subset).
Then I started getting hits from Bing. Their support site only mentioned msnbot gathering information, so how did my site get index? Well, this had to stop.
So, I wrote a filter that would redirect anything with a REFERER from bing.com to google.com with the same search query. After running for a few weeks now, I see that some IP addresses never return, but most come back from Google - often with more specific search queries than the first time. I still haven't heard a word from the confused Bing users about it, though. So I'm guessing that it works well for keeping the completely clueless out.