Slashdot Mirror
Bing Now Nearly As Good As Google — Says Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes "Harry Shum, who oversees research and development for Microsoft's Bing search engine, believes his company has now matched Google's ability to build software platforms that can harness the power of tens of thousands of servers. — 'For many years, we've really tried to play the catch-up game,' Shum says. 'And now we feel that after a lot of effort, we understand search quality problems better than before, and that if you look at Google and Bing, the quality is beginning to be very comparable.' While his comments might be a little biased, many people do share the same opinion. How do you feel about Bing's search results compared to Google's? For example DuckDuckGo, the privacy oriented search engine, uses Bing's back-end and has gained a small following on Slashdot."
...as a lowering in standards. Slashdot is now all about the paid astro-turfing, self-referential brand-building, and manufactured outrages designed to generate pageviews. The founders are gone, and It's Time to Start Running This Like a Business, Goddammit!
"Nearly as good" like "not good as"?
DuckDuckGo? It works. hat else is there to say?
-- no sig today
If it uses Microsoft servers and software on the back end, I want to say: DuckAndCover.
I think the Slashdot crowd is at least above the average level of intelligence for Internet communities.
Yet even so, they throw a shit-fit over Google.
As far as I understand it, Google uses all of its free (awesome) tools to collect information on you. This is the route you take to work everyday. You like this genre of book. Your wife is a cheating whore. You know, basically a personality profile. They then take this profile and sell it (along with millions of others) to advertisers - or rather, Google sells their service of targeting advertising. So if I really like martial arts movies, I'll see ads from Google.
Let's posit that I had nothing beyond the basic protection of an antivirus and a weekly MBAM scan. No adblock, no NoScript, and I'm running Chrome. After Google's evil plan comes to fruition, I see... advertisements. Which precisely do nothing to me. Sure an ad might give me a suggestion on something I was looking for in the general area, but I'm not going to buy a product solely on the quality of its ad alone. I very rarely buy things at all, anyway.
So what's the big worry here?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Same here. I'd say that Bing has 'caught up' by Google becoming useless. When DDG doesn't give me any results, I go to Google. I have yet to find a search where that gives me any useful results. Typically either DDG returns something useful or DDG nothing and Google returns a million totally irrelevant pages.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Google seem to go out of its ways to pissed of long time customers.
Now you're being silly.
I wouldn't want to see an internet where Microsoft had the controlling share of the search market. I've had enough of them attempting to destroy the market while they controlled the desktop (and I'm still dealing with that).
I use Microsoft's products where it's appropriate and/or necessary, but avoid them where it's anything close to a judgement call. I'm certainly not going to help them gain a new monopoly where they don't currently have one. Keeping them hungry is probably good for the competitive environment.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I don't consider the changes they made very significant, but I had actually always assumed that they aggregated results between their different products. I actually prefer to have a single privacy policy, but I do realize that the potential for abuse is greater with the aggregation. From what I've seen so far though, their is no abuse ... they only do what they said they'd do with the data. Microsoft on the other hand is using extortion tactics to force companies to give them money for producing Linux devices, and makes it extremely difficult for me to buy a laptop without paying for Windows. I'm also very bitter with them over the OOXML travesty among other things. If you don't want Google to track your searches, don't log in for searches. I would like the option to choose whether or not I have search results targeted to my taste though ... I would imagine running a search while not being logged in will also do that though.
You can always use the "Verbatim" search option (under "More search options" on the left). It'll still say "Did you mean ...?" but it won't autocorrect if for you.
I started using duck duck go over google a couple weeks ago. If the google search of 8 or 10 years ago (back when I first used it) looked like the google search of today, I wouldn't have used them back then. In no particular order: the new privacy policy, google+ integration, replacing URLs with redirection URLs, and all the rollover javascript crap. Oh, and ignoring what I searched for in favor of what they think I meant.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What the heck are you searching for that you get completely useless results on both Bing and Google?
Part of Bing's problem is that they're trying to be "as good as Google". They need to be better than Google to catch up. Bing still has half the market share of Google. Most of Bing's traffic is from Internet Explorer, where Bing is the default browser. Few people use Bing by choice.
Google has its vulnerabilities. The quality of the business data in Google Places is pathetic. Small businesses complain constantly about Google Places, but it's not their fault. Google can't even get the big ones right. Google Places sometimes thinks Ford Motor Company headquarters is a medical clinic, that WalMart headquarters is a pharmacy, and that Fannie Mae headquarters is permanently closed. It also thinks that Coit Tower, a San Francisco landmark, is a carpet cleaning service. Try searching for Fortune 1000 companies in Google Places. The results for major companies are often just wrong. Google's approach to business locations is still very keyword-oriented, which makes it error-prone and easily spammed. It's quite common for a search for a major company to map to a hotel near their HQ.
These are "Places" queries. If you ask that question of a map system, you probably want to go there. These are queries for which there is a right answer. It's not an opinion. It's not a popularity contest. It's not "social". Google can't handle that.
Bing could win by getting that right. Real data is available about businesses and business locations.
Would anyone use the not quite, but almost as good (according to the developer) product?
Especially when it's Microsoft, because fuck them.
Microsoft are evil. I don't touch their OS, I don't touch their software and I am not touching their search engine. So there.
Some people have no idea how to use a search engine.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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The hits just keep coming!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."