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Official "Firefox With Bing" Released
MrSeb writes "Mozilla is now distributing a version of Firefox that uses Bing as the default search provider instead of Google. Rest assured that this is a joint project, though: the creatively-named Firefox with Bing website is run by Microsoft, and both Mozilla and MS are clear that this is a joint venture. Now, don't get too excited — the default version of Firefox available from Mozilla.com is still backed by Google, and there's no mention of an alternative, Bingy download anywhere on the site — but it's worth noting that Mozilla has been testing Bing's capabilities using Test Pilot over the last couple of months, and the release of Firefox with Bing indicates that Mozilla is now confident in Bing's ability to provide a top-notch service to Firefox users. Mozilla might be readying a large-scale switch to Bing when its current contract with Google expires in November."
No they haven't and that lie needs to stop. The reason why the tests Google did showed within Bing when Bing toolbar was installed because if users opt-in to it, it collects usage data on what links people click and their anchor texts. The reasoning for this being, if user thinks that the link is relevant, then it can be uses only one vector in Bing. It's only a really small part of it, but because Google used non-existing words within links they obviously didn't show any other results than Google's. And this behavior isn't limited to Bing only - Google uses tons of similar usage analysis to determine search page rankings and to gather information about new sites and pages.
What a fuckshit you are.
This "issue" was put to bed ages ago.
Google was engaging in a massive and extended search poisoning scheme against Bing.
Their results? They were able to get a few % success rate after untold numbers of insertions through the use of the Bing toolbar, which they downloaded intentionally. They also agreed to let it track search queries + clicks.
The Bing toolbar tracks search query + what you click on afterward. If they happen to track a search query sent to Google, or to Bing, or to Yahoo, so what? The USER is voluntarily submitting that data. Bing is not copying, or even seeing, Google search results. It sees search query + site you went to.
Absolutely pathetic on the part of google. Their success rate was extremely low even when the search terms had 0 hits.
Bing has figured out a good way to minimize the impact of user clicks (to prevent gaming). This is something Google has been entirely unable to do.
User clicks got gamed, so they stopped tracking and weighing them. The Page Rank up/down got gamed, so they removed that. +1 is getting gamed, just like Facebook Likes, but it looks like they don't give a shit.
Some shitchomper at Google threw a hissy fit and wrote a blog post after they failed to poison Bing. And MS called them on it.
Google was doing blackbox testing to figure out some of Bing's metrics.
Google was unable to figure anything out, so they tried massive poisoning.
Google was unable to even do that right, and when they finally had a handful of successes, they jumped to the conclusion that Bing MUST be copying Google. How else could it be so good?
MS said "Nope. Bing toolbar sends search query and page you ultimate go to to Bing, with user's permission. Google is wrong."