Microsoft has no shame: Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search with a fake AI answer
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Nobody likes being manipulated - and if the manipulation attempts are too obvious and shameless - wouldn't people reject whatever is being pushed at them, just to assert their independence and self-determination?
Even if the product being pushed at them might otherwise be something they'd want to take a closer look at?
For me personally, Microsofts' behavior is definitely pushing me further away from trying or using Edge. Just hearing the word "Edge" creates negative emotions for me - simply because of many years of getting it inappropriately shoved into my face. The first thought that goes through my mind, when I see "Edge" or "Bing" mentioned anywhere in Windows is "Not again. F*k off. Just leave me in peace. Respect my decision to use the browser of MY choice."
As Microsoft is continuing to be so pushy, aren't more and more people going to end up being immediately annoyed just at the bare mention of Edge or Bing?
Thus, if you read internet comments, you get the impression that some significant fraction of the world has a massive chip on their shoulder and are willing to go to great lengths to defy authority whereas if you ever run analytics for a company, you realize that group of people are almost always a rounding error in terms of impact.
And not everyone would buy everything some market crier advertises to them - or order anything that's hyped on some shopping channel.
And hopefully not too many would not fall for those scam calls, were the caller claims to be from Microsoft and to need their help (and password) to fix a Virus on their Computer.
And not everyone will just blindly agree to every single upsell that any company offers them.
Most people are kind of conditioned to be at least somewhat suspicious of anyone trying very hard to convince them of something.
I don't know if it's correct to call that a "disorder", kinda implying that this is the "abnormal" behavior - and also implying that agreeing and accepting all of the above is what a "normal" person (with no disorder) would do.
(related: not sure "impact" was the word you were searching for there)
I'm pretty sure they would consider this response as something which could be a feasible search result and would engage with it, albeit somewhat confused. They'd very likely discard it as a non-helpful response, but I'm not sure if they would know that Microsoft has injected this huge ad on purpose in order to glue them to Bing, so I don't see how they would go into full rejection-mode.
To them the internet is full of inexplicable annoyances that get in the way all the time, unless they stay in their walled garden, so they've accepted it. Even more so since they don't use an ad-blocker and therefore get bombarded with a lot of trash.
Is that really the sort of audience that would actually switch to Edge, if whoever maintains their computer for them has setup a different browser as default?
What you are saying is that your parents would NOT detect this as a manipulation attempt. And my post above says that when people DO detect the attempt, the natural response would be to resist it.
But Microsoft is not exactly subtle in their attempts - and that means more people will be able to detect it, right?
Someone whos default browser changed unknowingly upon system update?
I propose the name: "Internet Edgeplorer" ;)
Oh, ok, good.
Currently maintain applications because the former developer only knew C#. Also the tools used to configure devices are only Windows based. This dramatically harms quality of the product in the long run and support.
My experience with product is design. Use the solution the fits the problem not the solution you currently know and rely on.
You have to pay me to engage with Microsoft / Windows!
combine that with the fact that their own apps will only open in edge in future versions makes it not like chrome on android.
And before Edge it was IE..
IE was also impossible to remove backj in the days.. they did have an option uninstall but all it did was remove the icons from start menu, but all the files where still there..
At this day and age the browser is so deeply integrated into the OS that is not really possible to remove it without breaking things..
This is why you cant remove Edge from Windows, Chrome from Android and Safari from apple things.
Even in linux, Gnome has Epiphany (now Gnome WEB) and KDE has Konqueror..
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/07/01/whats...
The speed of apps, lol. Yep, that's right. Move fast and break things.
I'm so much happier after doing it. Hard to believe Microsoft thought it was a good move for user happiness. Sure, they should avoid intimidating users with no computer savvy, but I doubt those users often open the context menu.
My 8 year old and 12 year old are both fine using Linux, so I wouldn't call them advanced or technical. What do you need it to do that you can't?
[Edit] Somehow I missed the blind part. I haven't tried those accessibility functions, though I would have thought that corporate customers would have required that so they don't get sued.
I mean unless you also discredit Windows and MacOS as being accessible because there exist pro applications that aren't present on those platforms, Im not sure what your point is.
They’re monetizing their install base. All of the things they do that annoy the heck out of people on HN are things they’ve A/B tested to increase revenues. If they listened to you then you’d be happier but they’d be leaving money on the table.
You’re probably right that this sort of “scorched earth” monetization at all costs is bad for the company’s long-term future. But the stock market doesn’t care about that. They only care about the next quarter.
These top / early / elite consumers tell the rest what to buy. For example, the non-techies in my life use (MS) ChatGPT only because I told them about it and also told them it’s the next big thing.
I will also add that I think the majority of investment money is in the hands of long-term thinkers; a lot of this money is managed on behalf of others. It would behoove every CEO to make the power users happy over the long term.
People will just use the pirated version where all this crap is disabled.
But feel free to keep being the "old man yells at cloud". that cloud (microsoft) doesn't care.
This youtube video has been featured here before, "The Tragedy of Systemd" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207533
Like the 1h long video goes into detail, I think that systemd is a definite step in the right direction, but definitely has bad aspects about it. To that end, I think work can be (and is being) done to remedy those deficiencies.
Now to compare "good intending but buggy software" to malicious (and guilty of monopolization exploitation) actions to further cement themselves in the lead is completely and utterly a laughable comparison.
But some people keep buying and using their products without bothering to look for alternatives.
This worked marvels for non paid mass adoption back in the day.
A browser I can understand with how common PWAs are these days.
If you want a phone without "G.suite" that's way harder of course.
Google did the same thing in the early days of Chrome.. using search to heavily promote Chrome..
They went as far as making so everything else they did would not work correctly on other browsers artificially..
They would introduce random delays or flat out refuse to work in other browsers but all you had to do was change the browser user-agent to mimic Chrome and things would magically start working..
Sorry but i am not sorry at all for Google.. They both are no different from each other.. Just two companies trying to maximize the amount of money they make..
Promoted by Microsoft
Microsoft Edge
Try the latest browser from Microsoft
Microsoft Edge is powered by the same open source technology as Google Chrome,
providing best in class web and extension compatibility.
Comparing bing to google:
- Google has a number of "sponsored" results at the top of search results, which look identical to the actual search results, other than having a "sponsored".
- Searching for chrome on bing.com produces an Edge advert (the one you mention) at the top, but it has a grey background and is obviously not a search result.
- Searching for anything else (e.g. "online tutor") on bing does produce ads above the search results, similar to google, which look identical to search results, with the word "Ad" in front.
So, from what I can tell, Microsoft isn't really any worse than Google.
That was the reason I switched away from Google. Here when I search "apache cassandra" the first result is something something free trial.
edit: I just tried with Bing it gave something similar, oh well.
Having a look for other search engines, I see all the regular ones from the 90s seem to be dead. There is one called swisscows.com which I hadn't heard of, and it has similar inline ads.
https://i.ibb.co/2SxBTcV/Screenshot-20230606-230829-Firefox....
Anyway, I also advocate for Kagi, but Brave happens to be free, and I haven't been convinced of the value of what Kagi charges for search, but I have been tempted.
Regarding Bing - I am still yet to meet anyone who uses Bing on a day to day basis for reasons other than adult content, and the fact that Microsoft "still" has a rewards program for people who use Bing itself makes it very clear that it cannot get enough user growth after all these years and is trying to hard to force it by incentivizing it.
I do use edge for my work. It has a few key features that I quite like:
- a very nice inbuilt vertical tab implementation for support for auto-suspending tabs with exclusion rules. - uBlock Origin Support (at least for a while longer, I’ll re-evaluate if things change). - Familiar dev tools - no google tracking built-in. I know I’m trading this for a Microsoft tracking but I trust Microsoft more than google nowadays. All my companies stuff is tied into Office365/Active Directory anyways so it’s not like I can avoid it.
> Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It is known for its speed, simplicity, and security features. Would you like to know more about Chrome?
Additionally, I get a proper download link for Chrome as the top result. This is on Edge.
Performing this on Chrome yields a different, arguably better answer from Bing AI.
> Chrome is a web browser developed by Google1. It is fast, secure, and free to download and use. It also has features like bookmarks sync, form autofill, and Google smarts built-in. Chrome supports various operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebook. You can check if your device meets the system requirements to use Chrome3.
> Shortly after we published this story with that comment, Fischel confirmed Microsoft has pulled the plug on this particular idea. “The experience is no longer flighting.” Sure enough, I no longer see it.
But "flighting"? Does that mean "deployed"? I've never heard that before -- I'm guessing a weird variation of "in flight" which itself is an unusual metaphor? Is that something people are saying now?
If that was the original definition from whoever introduced it to the company, it’s long been forgotten.
New English mod where one says "need to action this" I guess leads to "flighting"... because reasons.
(To be fair, Mozilla has done the same shit in the past when they went adware: https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish... --- I'd look for the HN article discussing it and link that here too, but ironically Google is also refusing to find it.)
It’s something that’s being tried out to gauge effectiveness.
It’s also an excuse to dismiss something as insignificant. Oh that thing? We were just flightning it, it hardly counts.
Edit: sibling comment was faster.
As usual: People who generally use Google products don't even notice how insanely aggressively Google uses it's various monopolies to push their other products. I have a screenshot of Gmail on Firefox which had three separate Chrome banners stacked in my browser at once.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, et al all serve their own best interests first, all in very similar ways. Their fans often have a blind spot for their company’s actions while lambasting the others for doing the same thing.
And it’s just plain human nature; people see fandom as “belonging as part of a group” and any criticism towards an “enemy” is going to reinforce their choice of browser/OS/phone/whatever and that the company they are cheering for is the best. And the deeper you are in the fandom, the more your echo chamber feeds into those same beliefs.
In truth, all companies suck, as do their fans. Some may suck less on a particular day/week/month, but over a long enough time period it’s all the same shit.
Chrome has a feature called “Cards” which is enabled by default, but is currently not as in your face as the Bing News stuff.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/11032183?hl=en&co=G...
> Chrome curates content that may interest you based on your activity. You must be signed in to your Google Account for your Cards to appear on the New Tab page. When you click on an item in a card, it opens the content in the same tab.
It looks like right now it’s limited to recipes and unfinished shopping carts, but the intent seems to be the same in the long run.
FWIW it can easily be disabled, but so can the Bing News ads.
I think I’ve seen the “cart” one once or twice but the recipe one was downright obnoxious. The only reason I know the feature even exists is because I once searched for a street corn recipe and would constantly get the same cards reminding me about the recipe for weeks after.
If I haven’t touched the card in weeks, you’d think they’d get the hint that I no longer want to make street corn.
Yea exactly. Microsoft is so oafish and blatant about it that tech writers pay attention
Ultimately the goal of such an experiment is to increase the uptake of Edge but they overshot it this time.
Just leave their eco systems, reject their products until they treat their customers better.
IMHO rejecting newer versions of their products with unwanted changes is an intermediate step and more doable, however.
As for the browser - use a different browser, Chrome has the majority of the market but there is choice. There was choice even in the dark days of the First Browser Wars.
- Chrome (I’m already being tracked by Microsoft through my office365/Active Directory everywhere, might as well not give it all to google too). - Safari I might consider trying this again starting in the next MacOS version once PWA support lands. Right now I avoid having to install multiple Electron apps with the PWA support. - Firefox I’ve been off and on with. If uBlock origin support is finally gutted from chromium I’ll switch to this again, but I find the Firefox dev tools inferior and I quite dislike their interface in recent iterations.
I'm also not arguing against LLMs in general if that was the vibe of the previous comment. Just claiming that Google and Microsoft found an excuse to include full screen ads instead of search results.
"Perhaps"? That seems rather unavoidable. Younger generations already are being molded by corporations so think what happens when LLMs will take the lead. Set the parameters of "safety" and there you have it: a trained in a particular way society who is not allowed to think by itself or criticize and is unaware of situation because what they perceive is the norm. Ads baked in are one thing but the potential social implications are much worse, I believe
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
What a shit neologism.
Are Microsoft employees allowed to use Firefox and Chrome internally on a daily basis or is it permitted only for UI tests?
Is there an (un)official internal policy on this? If it is not enforced then I guess they only care about it when money is involved. Not sure how I should feel in that case.
This is a company that makes products that spit in the user's face and the users still happily continue to get disrespected again and again.
Also, I'm not getting the same results as OP. So, this might not be pushed out everywhere?
Should perhaps read, “Microsoft has not changed”!
Most times it works because they just use youtube, facebook and stuff on the browser and runs for years without troubling me again.
Other times it doesn't work because "reasons" and they won't dare to trouble me again since that is all that I install.
In either case, neither bother me again.
Brave was founded by the same person in front of firefox for many years, plus blocks advertisements. Their team built a capable search engine.
Don't really want to use a browser with a political agenda that goes against me.
They never did.
The ONLY problems we have are local-to-us searches. Then again, you're better off with a yellow pages/business phonebook than hoping that scroogle will give you what you ask for.
I personally have found both duckduckgo and Google to be terrible recently. I've tried a bit of yandex, but the results weren't immediately superior enough to make me switch. Baidu I haven't tried.
So if you’re searching for something on Linux and you add a -Microsoft term you’ll be served more windows results not less.
That makes it pretty useless for narrowing results.
entirely clickbait, ambiguous, over the top, all fluff
> Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search
comically, suspiciously aggressive
> with a fake AI answer
ah, the purpose of the article
A non-clickbait, but not very punchy alternative is:
"Microsoft's Bing Presents Pre-scripted Response as AI Chatbot in 'Chrome' Search Query"
All of those words are necessary except 'spit'! Come on!
And if you got rid of 'spit' you'd need a different verb.
You could remove "Microsoft has no shame", but I don't think that changes whether the article title in total is clickbait or not. Clickbait would be "Microsoft has no shame" all by itself.
The linked article is a good example: the author was looking for a result from Bing which they could write a florid article about, and Bing obliged.
This is not true anymore... they're designed to give you the result that their paying customers want you to find. Even if that means that most of the search results are irrelevant to what you wanted to find.
It would be an interesting option to make available to users, especially with generative stuff if possible.
For what it's worth, on Edge, I see a large banner ad for Edge (no need to change browser), top search result is "download google Chrome" and on the side bing chat explains what the chrome browser is and suggest I go explore on google.com
On Chrome, I see the same, only the add is "Try edge now".
I don't think this is worse than what Google used to do against Firefox (where they'd advertise Google Chrome in a spot not reserved for advertisement, if you where merely visiting from Firefox. Although in fairness, they once upon a time advertised Firefox to IE users in a similar fashion)