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Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

docs.microsoft.com

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Re: Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

#3
This seems like it will just start a cat-and-mouse game with Google releasing Chrome updates to break their extension, like Firefox's "extensions.installDistroAddons" toggle.

Also I assume "Version 2002" means "2020, February", but that seems unnecessarily confusing in a way the Windows 10 "20H1"-style versioning isn't. Doubly so considering Office XP was co-branded "Version 2002" eighteen years ago! https://i.imgur.com/4814T6a.jpg

Re: Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

#6
It might be a bit of a stretch but I wonder what standing someone has to sue when search results are noticeably worse and changed in this way.

e.g. I just searched " emergency" in google and bing. Bing came up with a travel site and several news articles. Google came up with a map with the local emergency department as the highlighted pin and urgent care as subsequent pins.

Google's little blurbs are also very handy in this case with instructions popping up as the first result when I search snake bite treatment and seizure care. (Actually I went through a few more emergencies after that and was pleasantly suprised how good google was at turning up instructions for emergency care)

It wouldn't surprise me if the monetary pressure associated with medical care in the US and the deep pockets of microsoft made them a tempting target.

Re: Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

#7
post #6

It might be a bit of a stretch but I wonder what standing someone has to sue when search results are noticeably worse and changed in this way. e.g. I just searched " emergency" in google and bing. Bing came up with a travel site and several news articles. Google came up with a map with the local emergency department as the highlighted pin and urgent care as subsequent pins. Google's little blurbs are also very handy…

> search results are noticeably worse

This is not an endorsement of this article's allegations, or even of of Bing. But.

DDG uses Bing as one of its primary sources of data, and IMO DDG results are better than Google's for me both professionally and personally today. Maybe DDG is doing some special sauce behind the scenes, or maybe they're blending results from multiple sources, but that quality of search means I'm not at a point where I can unilaterally dismiss Bing and promote Google. Google's search results have just slid backwards too much lately.

Re: Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

#8
post #7
post #6

It might be a bit of a stretch but I wonder what standing someone has to sue when search results are noticeably worse and changed in this way. e.g. I just searched " emergency" in google and bing. Bing came up with a travel site and several news articles. Google came up with a map with the local emergency department as the highlighted pin and urgent care as subsequent pins. Google's little blurbs are also very handy…

> search results are noticeably worse This is not an endorsement of this article's allegations, or even of of Bing. But. DDG uses Bing as one of its primary sources of data, and IMO DDG results are better than Google's for me both professionally and personally today. Maybe DDG is doing some special sauce behind the scenes, or maybe they're blending results from multiple sources, but that quality of search means I'm n…

I don't disagree that Bing can give great results and is better than google in at least a few areas and use cases. So I probably painted with a broad brush in that subjective statement. I do think the point that the bing results (at least for my location) are objectively worse (considering why most would make such a search) compared to google when looking for emergency healthcare information.

Primarily I use duck duck even if I occasionally fall back to the !g command. But I think anyone who is able to change their default search engine in chrome could not then argue that microsoft changing the default impeded them from easily searching for information (which would be important in any legal action). So while ddg is a great search engine I don't think it needs to be considered in the thought experiment of reasons you could sue microsoft for this change.

Re: Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine

#9
I remember the great lengths Microsoft went to cleaning up Browser Helper Objects, toolbars, and extentions that kept changing the IE default search engine and homepage.

Chrome will need to add similar enforcement, and will likely end up removing the ability for addons to change these settings like Microsoft eventually did.

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