back to article Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

We're not saying Microsoft is desperate for people to use Bing, but a $1 million sweepstakes that grants entries to users of the search engine sure quacks like a duck. The contest, which kicked off last month, is open to anyone with a Microsoft account (who resides in the US, Canada, UK, France, or Germany) and a willingness …

  1. Paul Herber Silver badge

    Bing. This is what happens when you let Marketing run your business.

    s/run/ruin/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Marketing? Really?

      I've always found Bing best for specialty pornography. Whereas Google Search makes it impossible to identify the actresses without clicking through, Bing has an oh-so-helpful button that unblurs everything in two clicks. Also, having to append every Google search with "-ai" is getting to be a pain.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Marketing? Really?

        While I agree with your general sentiment, I must admit to being slightly unnerved by the phrase “specialty pornography”. The mind boggles!

        (Not my downvote btw… takes all sorts, live and let live, etc…)

        1. Bebu sa Ware
          Coat

          Re: Marketing? Really?

          the phrase “specialty pornography”. The mind boggles!

          Too true! It's not as though this domain has the range of interfaces that audio plugs or pre USB phones boasted.

          If it were really "specialty" I don't think donkeys have names or that nuns would want theirs bruited about. ;)

        2. Roopee Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Marketing? Really?

          FetLife would be a good place to start - it even has a Kinktionary to help explain it, though it might boggle your mind even more, depending on your proclivities/experience! At least there’s no AI and the adverts are very unobtrusive (though these will take you to interesting shops...). It’s actually a very effective social network with millions of members, not a normal porn site.

          Speaking as an active member of the community - I’ll grab my mac on the way out (had to get a computer angle in somewhere)...

    2. DS999 Silver badge

      You know you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas

      When you're copying off Elon Musk.

      1. SundogUK Silver badge

        Re: You know you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas

        Because copying SpaceX is such a bad idea...

        1. Roj Blake Silver badge

          Re: You know you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas

          SpaceX only became good at what they do once the musky one got distracted with other ventures.

  2. Andy Non Silver badge

    It won't be long before...

    Hi, you've won the Bing sweepstake, ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Congratulations, I just need your bank details to pay your winnings. erm... yeah, I need your online bank username and password for security reasons too... thank you and can you confirm by telling me the 2FA code sent to your phone... Great, thanks very much, have a nice day.

    1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: It won't be long before...

      You missed out "Hi there. I'm Clippy" as the opener.

      1. Sudosu Bronze badge

        Re: It won't be long before...

        "Hi There, I'm Clippy and it looks like you want to buy 1million dollars worth of Microsoft licensing with your winnings. Let me process that for you now"

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: It won't be long before...

      If you are using Windows and Edge, and you’ve accessed online bankings on Windows, I’m sure MS won’t need to ask for details….

  3. redpawn

    "Bing.

    Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing goes the internet." If memory serves that tune briefly hit the top million songs for a day. They should bring it back and play it from every desktop. Sure to strike fear into Ask Jeeves and Dog Pile.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least...

    Bing is not GOOGLE.

    Thanks for small mercies.

    I don't use either directly and have not done for a decade or more. I use one of the excellent anonymizers to hide my searching. FSCK to MS and Google for all their tracking and slurping.

    1. eswan

      Re: At least...

      Ahh, that's where they got the name.

    2. tin 2

      Re: At least...

      I'm willing to bet that if Bing suddenly became the bastion of not tracking and slurping, it would attract more people than it does currently.

      1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

        Re: At least...

        And avoiding Google's propensity for poisoning the first page of search results with ads that are tenuously related¹ to the search term.

        1: if you're really lucky. They are usually utterly irrelevant.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. AndrueC Silver badge

          Re: At least...

          And avoiding Google's propensity for poisoning the first page of search results with ads that are tenuously related¹ to the search term.

          I hardly ever get those. Perhaps it's the way you/I tend to search. I do occasionally get links to things I can buy but not often.

          A Google search for 'golf shoes' returns results that take me to various shopping sites and that's fine. 'spikeless or spiked golf shoes' gives me a reasonable selection of links giving the pros/cons of each. 'image of golf shoes' gives me images (some stock, some links to shops) but here it all goes wrong. If I click on the image I want to go straight to the web page. Instead I get a poxy little popup on the right hand side of my screen and I have to click on a button marked Visit or on the URL. Curiously 'golf shoes image' gives results with far fewer images.

          Then again I have an ad-blocker installed so perhaps I'm just not seeing what you are full stop. And I have a plug-in installed that hides the AI response.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: At least...

            "A Google search for 'golf shoes' returns results that take me to various shopping sites and that's fine."

            They've automatically helped you by adding "where do I buy" to whatever search term(s) you type.

            None of the search engines seem to parse entries that well. I was looking for tips on how to make a cover for my evaporative cooler. What I wound up with had nothing to do with sewing a cover for my cooler no matter how I phrased my desire. Perhaps there IS nothing available, but what I was shown was utterly useless and still had to be looked through, just in case.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: At least...

              If there is nothing the correct response is simply to tell you that. The corporations have a morbid fear of reporting nothing which is why they've filled search results with garbage for years and why they're now so keen on AI to create bigger and better garbage.

            2. Roopee Silver badge
              FAIL

              Re: At least...

              Amazon, Shein and Temu have just as (deliberately) useless search engines, designed to expose users to as much random junk as possible...

              1. Evilgoat76

                Re: At least...

                Then there's Marketplace search.....

        3. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: At least...

          "1: if you're really lucky. They are usually utterly irrelevant."

          ... But sponsored so it's just like getting a few more ads on the page.

      2. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

        Re: At least...

        Can't make money if you do that.

    3. OllieJones

      Re: At least...

      Ballmer Is Not Gates, either.

  5. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Coat

    Well - You'd Have To Pay Me To Use It

    & if it comes to just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise.

    But somehow I expect this will only be valid for Bing users in the good ole U S of A!

    1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: But somehow I expect this will only be valid for Bing users in the good ole U S of A!

      TFA says no.

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Ah, Bing

    Not even a runner-up in the search engine market. Second only because all the others are practically non-existant.

    Goes to show that the search engine market requires billions in datacenters and software. If Borkzilla can't make it work, who can ?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If I become the third user of Bing that means I have a 1 in 3 chance of winning. I'm not falling for it though.

    1. Dostoevsky Bronze badge

      Well, that was brutal!

      "Hello? Police? I'd like to report a murder..."

  8. eswan

    Somebody's year end bonus must be coming up. Gotta meet them milestones!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sure quacks like a duck

    I suppose that's why they didn't call it Bing Bingo.

    If

    Bing -> Duck

    Then

    Bing Bingo -> DuckDuckGo

    1. Roopee Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Sure quacks like a duck

      I would guess that the majority of Bing users are people on corporate PCs who aren’t allowed to change the Edge default search (and aren’t astute enough to make a bookmark), and/or the other extreme - DDG users using it anonymously.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, all I need to do is set up a script in a VM that Bings merrily all day long in a dusty corner of my laptop, and wait for the odds to tilt in my favor?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      May the odds be ever in you favour.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about something truly revolutionary - build a search engine that actually does its job well. Bing, Google, etc are now largely useless at times

  12. navarac Silver badge

    Scam

    Just another online Scam to get more details from more people. FFS give it up Microshit- you've lost the plot.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

    It felt bloated. The best thing Bing could do is stop reinventing the wheel and copy the Google's UI. Brave feels better, because it is similar. People don't like to change habits.

    The MSN-style bloat appears in many places: even already too sluggish Skype with its News section. WTF? Are you trying to be Yahoo? I would rather customize the horrible Skype ringtone. Or fix the "person is online" indicator, when she is not.

    Just focus on the main function, remove unrelated garbage, while making your apps snappy. MS Office UI has become sluggish too. I miss the days of WinAmp. No media player has ever bing better. Or look at modern online analytics platforms - they would render beautified graphs with a delay, just for the sake of the rendering effect. Nonsense. I want the graph immediately! The same with OS UI effects - waste of precious time. Life is too short.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

      Just access Bing via DDG.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

        It looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck duck go...

        (DDG works for me, mostly. Interesting that the company machine now blocks other google services, for example translation, but still allows most google search returns through).

        1. Bebu sa Ware
          Windows

          Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

          DDG ... Interesting that the company machine now blocks other google services, for example translation

          I also noticed Google translate appears not to work under the Android DDG browser but pasting the source text into the lhs translate pane seems to kick it into action. I was blaming the chocolate factory for sabotaging this. Not that google translations are uniformly of a high standard or even roughly accurate.

    2. xyz Silver badge

      Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

      Re Brave seems better...

      All the search engines that are not Bing or Google use Bing or Google as their back end. I tested it out. Eg the AI generated crap you get on Brave is Bing's AI crap. There was even a "green" German search engine and it used Bing's arse end. HotBot still exists, though it doesn't do pix.

      The only other search engine I found that didn't use the big boys sphincters was a useless POS from blighty.

      I went back to Google even though I hate it.

  14. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Dr Evil must have control over both Gates and Musk now

    You could win..... one meeeellion dollars!

  15. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Doesn’t have the Edge

    We have tried leaving Edge as the only browser on new laptops and desktops, and people just ask “how do I get Chrome?”.

    Bing is inextricably linked to Edge. Google search is on Chrome. People don’t know or care how to switch search engines. All they know is that Edge comes with that garish mix of sort-of-real-news, a bit of news, and clickbait bullshit as the default page. You can turn it off, but nobody knows (or cares) that all you need to do is go to one of the many top-right settings buttons and turn off something called “feed”.

    That’s what everyone hates.

    Google just has a home page with a search bar. Edge comes with time-wasting adverts and clickbait.

    The average computer user knows when they’re veering steered in a particular direction, and they don’t like it. Microsoft needs to learn that if they give people what they want, without the flimflam, they might start liking their “products”.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

      Possibly the other way around but you don't need Edge to use Bing.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

      "Google just has a home page with a search bar. Edge comes with time-wasting adverts and clickbait."

      What makes Google money is analyzing the hell out of you, banking that data and selling it on in multiple ways. Ads on the home page aren't helping get you to tell them all about you and how to be selective in what to show you today in all that is best in tinned pig product. Doing anything else is cutting their own throat.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Holmes

        Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

        "Google just has a home page with a search bar."

        And 300k of obfuscated javascript hiding behind it...

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

          "And 300k of obfuscated javascript hiding behind it..."

          They have to get all of the cookies and tracking beacons set up and loaded onto your computer.

    3. Wade Burchette

      Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

      I often tell people that Edge is Google Chrome but with the Google profit stripped out and replaced with Microsoft profit instead. I then mention Firefox and Brave as alternatives -- however you now need to change a setting in Firefox to stop tracking.

    4. Warhead1954

      Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

      "That’s what everyone hates."

      Particularly the repeated Clickbait that recommends that you (Check it out today)

  16. Cruachan Bronze badge

    ChatGPT is absolutely useless, I'd always assumed when we did get "AI" (which this isn't, but that's for another thread) it would do more than parse a few results from my search and put "certainly!" at the start.

    I do actually use Bing, for 2 reasons. One is Google has got worse and worse for actual results being hidden below ads, and the other is I use MS Rewards to get Game Pass free on my Xbox. Much of my searching is done for work anyway, looking up PowerShell command syntax and the like.

    1. 0laf Silver badge
      Meh

      As a search tool, yes, pretty useless. For other things, it depends. I am finding it useful for something bits and pieces. But the AI marketers are very good at impying it's good at everything, which it isn't.

  17. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    This might be a radical suggestion but how about making it not try to double guess what the user is searching for? Honour phrases in quotes. Honour logical operators "and", "or" and "not". KISS.

  18. IGotOut Silver badge

    They've all become shit.

    Since they starting ignoring negative or very specific prompts.

    Photo of Bird -duck -stock will give birds, ducks and stock images

    Keyword quote such a "duck" & "yellow" now means anything that is a duck or anything that is yellow.

    And if it's Google, the first 10 will most likely anywhere I can buy a duck or something yellow

    Search these days is a waste of time.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: They've all become shit.

      "Search these days is a waste of time."

      Try "septic service" in "my city". I get plenty of results that are web sites programmed to claim that the company services my city but is either located too far away or is a referral site that will collect a fee from a company nearby to forward my information. What I rarely find is the web site of the local company on the first 10 pages.

      In this case, I spotted the advertising on their truck and got a (clean) card from the person while I was out running errands. In the bronze age I would have had a yellow pages directory and found them in 3 minutes or less. Searching online is better, how exactly?

      1. Zoopy

        Re: They've all become shit.

        To be fair, you specifically asked for crap search results.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: They've all become shit.

          Today's internet winner!

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: They've all become shit.

          "To be fair, you specifically asked for crap search results."

          Cheers, mate! I'll be laughing for at least a half hour.

  19. heyrick Silver badge

    and a willingness to rely on Bing's oh-so-accurate search results

    I use Bing when I'm looking for datasheets for weird ICs, like whatever it is that I have in bits in front of me.

    Google is seriously shit here, and typically sends you to:

    A, A datasheet site that says the required datasheet doesn't exist.

    B, Some Chinese outfit that will sell you ten thousand of the things.

    C, Some site where the quoted text looks appropriate but the moment you go to the site you're a half dozen redirects into some maze of AI generated spam advertising.

    Oh, and Google will tell you it found a hundred and fifty thousand matches in a nanoparsec, but after page four or five it'll give up and say nothing else exists.

    With Bing, I've found stuff that Google couldn't. That's not to say that Bing doesn't have it's own problems, but it isn't totally useless.

    Oh, and the reverse image search is quite nice too, it actually often works, which is more than I can say about Google. Just a shame there doesn't appear to be a "pretend PInterest doesn't exist" option to stop that site clogging up the results on both searches.

    1. Fred Daggy Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: and a willingness to rely on Bing's oh-so-accurate search results

      Do enough searches on a particular topic and you'll know which are the sales sites and which .... aren't, or at least, less likely to be a sales site. Anything mac/iphone related normally brings up a "use our software instead" site rather than returning anything useful, for example.

      So I'd like "let me save a string of convenient IGNORE THESE sites". No, i don't want to sign in, I'll save them to a text file on my desktop thank you very much. Copy and pasta when required.

      1. Zoopy

        Re: and a willingness to rely on Bing's oh-so-accurate search results

        "So I'd like "let me save a string of convenient IGNORE THESE sites""

        IIRC, Kagi has that feature.

  20. Snowy Silver badge
    Holmes

    Full of Ai

    I'm quite sure Google is too.

  21. dangerous race
    Mushroom

    Bing is a stupid name for a search engine. I get it that it's 'bing' and the search answer is there but all I ever think of when I see the name Bing is a jumper wearing crooner and I hear 'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas' running through my head!

    1. Zoopy

      "Bing" reminds *me* of Ned Ryerson.

      Am I right or am I right?

  22. Bebu sa Ware
    Coat

    Bing is a stupid name for a search engine.

    Duck Duck isn't too? :)

    Seems to be a tradition of using arbitrary unrelated names.

    Archie probably wasn't even the first. Altavista was probably the sanest name of the lot. Jeeves makes sense if you were familar with PG Wodehouse's creation although arguably most search engines might be better named Bertie or Wooster.

    Often it is faster to go to wikipedia for general queries and specialist sites for more technical stuff or look up a text.

    Google is pretty much useless now. Its suggested completions on entering search terms, while often hilarious, are invariably ridiculous.

    I was recently trying to find an answer to a question related to ike2 negotiated security associations between ipv6 peers and wasted hours futilely sifting through mountains of google crap and middans of duck shit.

    1. Zoopy

      Re: Bing is a stupid name for a search engine.

      "Jeeves makes sense if you were familar with PG Wodehouse's creation although arguably most search engines might be better named Bertie or Wooster."

      If Laurie and Fry make a search engine, I'm switching to it, sight unseen.

  23. 0laf Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    I was there 3000yr ago

    Remember when search on the internet used to find things you actually wanted to find?

    When it was useful, and with a bit of skill and knowlege you could make it find quite specifically what you were looking for really quickly.

    I remember those days...

  24. Groo The Wanderer Silver badge

    Give me a million dollars and I'll use Bing. Cold, hard CASH.

    I'm retired; it doesn't matter if my tech answers are accurate any more!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Even Google is taking pity on Bing and trying to help them out (by forcing their AI Overviews on all searches soon)

  26. Ethan Strongtower

    No Reddit indexing

    One significant disadvantage of Bing relative to Google is that Bing no longer indexes new posts on Reddit. See https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/25/microsoft_generative_search_bing/

  27. Inachu

    I know they all do it but when Bing slurps data via browser when people search using google.

    This should be banned at the start. This is why I will never have only one account on a home computer. No account needs to be tied to online anything. Too much data sharing.

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