Slashdot Mirror
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.
Seriously, stop trying. Accidentally Binging something is terrible, but even with the results right there in front of me... I still closed it down, went to google and typed the same search over again.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
It sure seems like this is anticompetitive and probably should land Microsoft in some hot water with the DOJ.
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.
It would be slightly less annoying.
Listen to this while reading this. It syncs up better than Pink Floyd and Wizard of Oz.
Remember, this is not yet one week since Microsoft & Google announced a "no complaint" to regulators pact:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/04/22/1421201/microsoft-google-agree-to-stop-complaining-to-regulators-about-each-other
In classic Microsoft fashion, they forge an agreement with someone and then screw them over in the most mean-spirited, legalistic way possible. Google should have known better on this one.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
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...
The first thing I do in windows 10 is hide every visible thing about Cortona I can. I'm sure my co-workers would just love hearing me repeat myself to my computer over and over as it attempts to find anything useful on bing.
"In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society,Â..."
At this point, it might be cheaper to just get a supported scanner instead. It's not as if scanners are really that expensive any more.
Having said that, we are in a similar situation and our household still has a single Windows 8 machine. The rest is Linux, ChromeOS and a Macbook that for all practical purposes might as well be a Chromebook; it's not as if it ever does anything other than Chrome.
The Windows machine is needed for Photoshop. If there was a viable Photoshop clone for Linux, we would not have any need for Windows. As such, Windows 10 has absolutely zero appeal to us; if anything, it only has downsides compared to Windows 8. We'll continue using Windows 8 as long as it is supported, and then probably just disconnect it from the internet and keep using it for as long as we still need Photoshop.
I'm a new and somewhat reluctant user of Windows 10. I only use it as a platform to launch certain games, via Steam. All of its other features (other than what it provides as APIs to games) I don't need. I especially don't need any of this Cortana crap, auto-updates, or other typical PC-type features. I have a Mac for all that stuff.
So what I'd like to ask is how do I disable everything I don't need? Can someone point me to a "minimum Windows 10 for dummies" kind of thing? I've been through all the interface that I can see, but I suspect I'm only scratching the Surfaceâ, because it still acts somewhat intrusively, even interrupting a Dirt Rally session mid-stage the other day to tell me it needed to restart to install an update (and DR's design meant the stage was voided). I despise that behaviour - it must be possible to set things up such that I'm in charge of it, and not the other way around? Any tips or help appreciated!
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.
Cortana.
Where do you want to go today?
Well you CAN'T! FUCK YOU!
Instead of turning the Cortana interface into a useful tool, they've basically hamstrung it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Does Edge support plug-ins, like adblock and noscript? If not then it's a broken browser.
And what problems in Windows 8.1 are fixed? That's what I'm running and it fixed stuff in Win8. I don't care about the stupid start menu anymore, I learned to live wihtout it and I don't want a stupid wannabe start menu that shows Metro apps.
What about all the problems and misfeatures that Windows 10 added? Cortana, pure idiocy (hey, if we copy Siri badly we can be rich too!). Forced acceptance of all upgrades, idiocy. A giant string of registry hacks and control panel settings to make the thing play nice with telemetry, spying, advertising, peer-to-peer sharing of updates, sharing wifi passwords, etc, it's all idiocy. Not to mention the militant marketing campaign to dupe people into getting Windows 10.
This.
Often people are surprised at how well scanners work on Linux in general. For example, I was in the office recently and needed to scan a lengthy document, so I borrowed one of those nice Fujitsu scansnap-style scanners. The owner cautioned me that the software and drivers were a 300+mb download for Windows, and was astounded that it was fully supported in xSane and SimpleScan with *no* driver download. I have a similar one at home and knew the drill, but it was fun to see someone really take in how bad the experience is on Windows these days. I plugged in the USB cable, started xSane, threw 50+ pages into the feeder, clicked just a couple adjustments, and saved the project as PDF with no fuss, no driver fuckery, etc etc. Works better, faster, cheaper in Linux than the "fully supported" Windows config.
Otoh, there's no convincing some people, and I'm not the geek evangelist I used to be. More for me, I guess.
(Oh, and Hi there, fellow 2K slashdotter... )
I think not...(*poof*)
They seem to have forgotten the requirement to have the browser selection screen to handle the anti-competitive behavior.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"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 Microsoft stooge went on to say:
"Of course, we /could/ have created a framework that incorporated the ability to use different search providers, since this is obviously something in which some customers are interested. But instead, we have decided to further limit customer choice, breaking third-party applications, so we can bolster the diminishing market-share of the financial black-hole that is Bing, while pretending it's all in the name of "improving" the customer experience. And then we'll look around all confused as people stop buying our products because we've stopped providing them something that works for /them/ in lieu of offering something that works for /us/."
Similar to Android maps. When any application wants to display a map it only displays Google Maps. Despite I have several other better (=offline) maps installed. And no, I have downloaded the areas into Google Maps offline maps and it still does not display anything offline. Plus other maps (like mapy.cz or MapsWithMe) render the maps better anyway.
MS is going nuts over us disabling all the spying telemetry that 'makes' bing works? Yes, I know I got a free upgrade going from windows 7 to windows 10,
No, you got a major downgrade. You lost the interface that works, the OS that uses practically no resources, and the right to turn off telemetry. Meanwhile, Windows 7 runs all the same software, at least, everything meaningful. You got raped, not upgraded.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Its hard to imagine windows 10 getting any traction in the business world if you couldn't turn this consumer nonsense off.
Microsoft doesn't want Windows 10 "getting any traction in the business world". It wants the more expensive Windows 10 Enterprise "getting any traction in the business world".
Do you need standing to complain to the EC? Because if so, the only one likely to complain is Google, and conveniently they just signed an agreement with MS not to complain to regulators. I'm sure the timing of this announcement so shortly after that agreement was signed is a mere coincidence...
If now is not the time, it will never be. Windows 10 is essentially only good for gaming. For every other task, a Chromebook or a MacBook, depending on your budget and preferences, does the job better while being less annoying. Yes, they also have frequent software updates, limitations and analytics. But they are not obnoxious in normal daily use. Every time I want to use my gaming box, it has logged me out and I have to sit through 10 minutes of "working on updates" until I can start Portal.
Video card and game manufacturers should partner with distributors like Steam and commit to same day Linux releases for titles and drivers. Invest in Vulcan and whatever is the most promising replacement for X11 until performance/stability is as good as DirectX. Then there will be no more reasons for people to get abused by their computers.
I just wonder if they have enough politicians in their pocket now that they can get all antitrust claims waived.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Actually, I think that's the issue. There are paid results on google too but google puts them at the bottom of every page and bing always puts 2-3 at the top of the first page ala amazon.
The main difference is google has become very adept at removing clickbaity sites from the first page and Bing has not. I don't think Microsoft is making money off any of those results, they are just not good at removing them.