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Microsoft Limits Cortana Search Box In Windows 10 To Bing and Edge Only (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Microsoft has announced a big change for how the Cortana search box in Windows 10 will work going forward: all searches will be powered by Bing and all links will open with the Edge browser. This is a server-side change going into effect today. Once it takes effect on your Windows 10 computer, Cortana will no longer be able to serve up results from third-party search providers, like Google or Yahoo, nor take you to a third-party browser, such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's general manager of search and Cortana, said in a Windows blog post announcing the change, "Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with Cortana. The result is a compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable. The continuity of these types of task completion scenarios is disrupted if Cortana can't depend on Bing as the search provider and Microsoft Edge as the browser. The only way we can confidently deliver this personalized, end-to-end search experience is through the integration of Cortana, Microsoft Edge and Bing -- all designed to do more for you."
Translation: You belong to us, bitches! Now bend over so we can serve you some search results!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
First thing I do when installing windows 10 is to disable cortana, and limit search to the local computer only.
I don't need or want desktop search to go out on the internet; that's what the search in my browser is for.
The is emblematic of the entire issue with cortana on the desktop. There needs to be desktop search. When I want to search my computer for a file that starts with 'kid' i just want results from my computer. I don't care about Nicole Kidman's latest movie, i don't care about 'kid friendly meals'.
I get that microsoft wants to be able to get you to search from the desktop with Cortana... and that's fine I guess for people who want that. But I still need desktop search, and right now, cortana and web results gets in the way of that. If it was a separate UI, I migth leave it on and use.. but its not. So I disable cortana and I disable including web results.
"Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with Cortana. The result is a compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable. The continuity of these types of task completion scenarios is disrupted if Cortana can't depend on Bing as the search provider and Microsoft Edge as the browser. The only way we can confidently deliver this personalized, end-to-end search experience is through the integration of Cortana, Microsoft Edge and Bing -- all designed to do more for you."
Unfortunately, as we have continued to sneak Windows 10 onto unsuspecting users systems, we have seen some software designed to disrupt the malware like experience of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to collect all of your information and send it to Microsoft. The result is a compromised user database that is not worth as much as an ad platform as we had hoped. The completeness of our database is crucial to us, and is disrupted if CompTelRunner, Cortana, and other subsystems cannot use the MS backend for data collection. The only way we can plan on how to pillage further and make our database more valuable to other entities (NSA) is through the integration of Cortana, Edge, and Bing. -- All designed to capture more for us."
FTFY
Disclosure, sent from a Win 10 box. Hypocritical I know.
Silence is a state of mime.
$$$$$$$$$$ money money money
That makes two of us then! You know why? Because, let's face it, Bing sucks. Because the one job it has it can't do. Give me quality results on the SERP page. Bing results suck. Period. Until they fix that fatal flaw, people will run, not walk away from it. Of course, why fix your product when you can just shove it down your customers' throats? Monopolistic megacorp motherfuckers.
Nothing is preventing you from using any browser and search engine you want. Typing something into Cortana doesn't get you anything you can't get by typing the same thing into any search engine.
Bundling Internet Explorer with Windows is what got them into trouble in 2001. Nothing stopped users from downloading some other browser but that argument didn't prevent Microsoft being found in violation of antitrust law.
I'm amazed at how blatantly they're ignoring history.
This would annoy me if I had any reason to run Windows. Thankfully, that's not the case.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I had to use Edge at work for a couple of months and it would frequently crash while trying to render Slashdot. Maybe as much as 50% of the time it would freeze or pop up a message saying that "Edge has stopped" and then it would try and restart.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Did MS learn nothing from their antitrust rulings in the early 00s?
And yes, bing is a terrible abhorrent creation. MS should be ashamed.
Could it be that the settlement against Microsoft established in 2002 which, amongst other things, required them to open their browser to competition, was preventing them from eliminating competing search engines? The only reason Microsoft permitted other browsers, and by extension, search engines in the browser, was because of this case. I suspect that they just forgot that they can now be evil again.