Tired of begging, Microsoft now trying to trick users into thinking Bing is Google

It looks like Microsoft has come up with a new trick to keep those who accidentally end up on Bing from leaving for Google: Simply mimic the look of Google's homepage and hope no one will notice. Visitors to Bing.com who conduct a search for 'Google' while not signed into their Microsoft accounts might notice something strange …

[David 132]

Devious yet inept

I can't speak for anyone else here, but my nature is such that I will use, or not use, something on its merits. If it does a better job than what I was using previously, I'll switch - BUT if someone tries to cajole/browbeat/trick me into using it - nope, I will rebel, kick sharply backwards, and make a point of not using it, because I dislike being manipulated. Other examples: Microsoft's constant nagging to use a Microsoft account to sign in; their tricks and wheedling to prevent me setting Firefox as my default browser; and their pushing of OneDrive.

Hmm, come to think of it, all those examples involve Microsoft. Maybe they're just more inept and unsubtle at manipulating me than other companies.

[GoneFission]

Re: Devious yet inept

Microsoft's ideal scenario is one where you don't have a _choice_ on what to use. If they could, they would absolutely DRM-lock every Windows PC to not only firehose a live feed of all your activity back to their data collection pit (thanks Recall), but to also keep you from switching to anything else more respectful of your time and activity because it just won't run on the platform.

Thankfully we're not there yet, but the days of computer-based jobs now requiring "a subscription to Copilot and a Windows 12-locked PC" are just a few industry mergers and investment slides away

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Devious yet inept

So, you've not encountered Windows in S mode? (S - for stupid)

[nematoad]

Re: Devious yet inept

My sister bought herself a new laptop. It was locked in S mode and the applications she had bought the machine for were not loadable. So she turned to me for help.

Talk about the blind leading the blind. I haven't touched Windows in over twenty years and there was much hair-trearing and blaspheming before I was finally able to beat it into submission. What a nice way to treat your punters!

When Win 10 dies and she asks me to help the thing is going to be wiped and a proper OS that respects its user will be installed.

Probably Linux Mint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Devious yet inept

Yet people here talk about the Apple 'Walled Garden'.... This is one has walls 20 miles high.

But, it is what we have come to expect from Microsoft. They hate their use base so much that they are like the guards at a SuperMax prison tasked with keeping the unmates (the users) inside and without any possible chance of escape.

Nuke Windows ASAP if you can.

[Malcolm Weir]

Re: Devious yet inept

Hmmm... Apple is undeniably better at building the walls than Microsoft. As a post above notes, it's thus-far been entirely possible to defeat MS's approaches (with a greater or lesser degree of effort), but e.g. getting around Apple's App Store restriction is ... harder.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Devious yet inept

getting around Apple's App Store restriction is ... harder

I'm amazed that a reader of El Reg thinks that going into System Settings/Privacy and Security and setting 'Allow Applications from "App Store and known developers" hard..

And stuff that isn't signed can still be added - just go to the same place after getting the "unknown publisher" warning and click on the "run anyway" button (and it remembers the decision).

It's hardly apparmor..

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Devious yet inept

Agreed. I will use something if I find it useful to me.

If you try anything to force it on me, you're gone.

Forever.

[David 132]

Re: Devious yet inept

Indeed. The point I was trying and yet failed to articulate is that if someone tries to force a product on me - with popups, dark patterns, nags - I will in most cases refuse to use it even if it is actually useful, as a point of principle. Yes, the words "nose", "cut off", "spite" and "face" come to mind, but I am what I am. Bing could be the best search engine in the multiverse - spoiler, it isn't - Edge the best browser, and signing in with a Microsoft account could cause cherubim & seraphim to sound celestial trumpets... but I won't use them.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Devious yet inept

Cortical File System heard what you wrote and latched on to Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, getting in Phil Connors' face to sell him life insurance while he's on his way to Gobblers Knob.

Bing!

We all long since passed the point where the response goes: Ned Ryerson?! <Knockout punch>

Watch out for that first step, it's a doooozy.

[David 132]

Re: Devious yet inept

Wandering somewhat off topic but have you seen the Jeep commercial from a few years ago with Bill Murray, reprising his role in Groundhog Day?

Here: https://youtu.be/P3qH4TKLP0c

[CorwinX]

Re: Devious yet inept

That's one cute hog.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Devious yet inept

[quote]

Forever.

[/quote]

Well, forever until I come to the point where all the vendors remaining are just as bad...

Which would never happen, would it?

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: Devious yet inept

"Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice"

Pot, meet kettle.

[Paul Herber]

Bingle

Bungle

Goobing

Gobling

[StewartWhite]

Early team news on Southampton FC's midfield for the next game I see.

[navarac]

...and Pompey's it seems. Hey Ho.

[Steve Davies 3]

Pompey midfield

Can we borrow them for the next Shots game (Aldershot)?

We need all the help we can get or is it National League Div 1 South next year.

[GoneFission]

Gotta love the inexorable march of downward spiral. Redirecting people to tools or services that they didn't explicitly choose, making the "opt-out" button merely hide data collection from the user and conducting it anyway behind the scenes. Adding "AI" to every digital interaction to capture & monetize it under the pretense of some half-baked functionality. "Decline" is now "Remind me later", everything is a subscription with ads on top, and both marketing and developers are in an arms race of ever-louder jangling of keys to compete for users' screen time and attention.

Time to chuck it all in the bin and go back to usenet.

[Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world]

> Time to chuck it all in the bin and go back to usenet.

Amen, brother. I'll Gopher that.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Amen, brother. I'll Gopher that.

Got a WAIS to go before that.

[werdsmith]

Google seems to be doing the opposite to me. Telling that bad stuff is coming from my IP and making me jump through multiple captcha-like problems before it lets me in. Or sometimes not letting me in at all. I just go through DDG instead.

Because I’m permanently on private/incognito? No idea.

[LenG]

Moving on

I really need to get my finger out and complete my switch to linux.

Having said which, I don't think I've ever used bing. It could be the best thing since sliced bread, which isn't saying much (I dislike sliced bread)

[cookieMonster]

Re: Moving on

Re : best thing since sliced bread

It’s not. It’s shit.

[heyrick]

Re: Moving on

More or less shit than the alternative?

[David 132]

Re: Moving on

Ah, so you’re a waffle man.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Crumbs!

[David 132]

Is that you, Penfold?

[PenfoldUK]

No. I'm here... :-)

[werdsmith]

R A Penfold, author of some of my favourite Babani titles indeed.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Not forgetting J W

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/454343.R_A_Penfold

[TheGriz]

Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

If they can't BEAT it, or BUY it, they will imitate it. Classic Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

they will imitate it

.. badly. THAT is classic Microsoft. That said, it's always been a source of amusement to me to see Microsoft jump on something another company has made gazillions with and quietly abandon it a few years later because they made such a complete hash of it that even the usual harassment and blackmail didn't create sufficient adoption to make it profitable.

In my opinion, Microsoft would already be on its face if it wasn't for entanglement, politics, bribing and blackmail because it sure as hell is no longer because of the quality or usability of what it makes. As far as I can tell they have given up competing on merit a long time ago.

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

Actually, I can't remember a time when they did compete on merit.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

Windows 3.1 perhaps?

[Terry 6]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

Don't knock Win 3.1. For user experience ( ok maybe not for techies) at that time it just worked. Programs could be installed easily, found, according to their function, clicked on and they ran.

What more would a user have wanted from an OS?

No effing stupid start menu with random programmes in random ( alphabetic is effectively just the same as random when the name is unhelpful) order.

No difficult or impossible to remove programmes that no one wants.

No complicated settings hidden away in various different locations.

No locations that were actually somewhere else.

No random changes of behaviour when some political battle in MS HQ changes some trivial policy.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

For user experience ( ok maybe not for techies) at that time it just worked. Programs could be installed easily, found, according to their function, clicked on and they ran.

Right up until they didn't. Wasn't a BSOD then but the effect was much the same.

Plus all the faff of crafting a config.sys to actually get some usable RAM spacce for your network drivers, graphics driver etc etc.

Win 3.11 beating OS/2 was *very* much a triumph of marketing over function.

[Terry 6]

Re: Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core

Microsoft were succeeding fairly well up until (they missed the boat with) the coming of the internet. The shock of that existential failure seems to have left them in permanent panic mode ever since. Frightened to innovate themselves and then running to catch up with any and every new innovation that seems to be appearing over the horizon.Often failing because a) they do it worse or b) even if they do it well they do it too late. Sometimes both together- the Windows Phone itself was pretty good, but came too late and too slow and without managing to get the software ("apps") developers on board. Then they tried to create a kind of universal interface to integrate it with the desktop users, but put the cart before the horse making the accursed Windows 8.n that pissed off the desktop users, instead of bringing the phone users on board.

[Anonymous Coward]

and when that fails

They will follow the example of their Dear Leader (Trump) and sue everyone in sight. The american way.

When that fails, they will send in the marines. The real american way.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Even Microsoft has forgotten . . .

Bing

Is

Not

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Even Microsoft has forgotten . . .

DuckDuckGo?

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: DuckDuckGo?

Stop DuckDuckGo running JS when you search and see what you get.

It's a fucking shit show. Bing is better!

No srsly, try it. They are search results but they're not the ones you're looking for.

[Nematode]

Re: DuckDuckGo?

Is that the web page or the DuckDuckGo "app"?

[Terry 6]

Using Bing

I've actually tried to use Bing - such is my distaste for Google- but it's actually crappier than Google's search, giving even more meretricious results. And my distaste for Microsoft and Google were already pretty much level pegging.

[DrkShadow]

Re: Using Bing

Use DuckDuckGo for a week.

It takes a little getting used to, but then it's a fine search engine by its merits. I find the technical results that I need, and I don't get innundated with ads.

Never had luck with the MS search engine though.

[Kurgan]

Re: Using Bing

I have tried Duckduckgo because I also dislike Google, but its search results were mostly under performing.

I usually search for technical information as I'm a linux sysadmin. I was baffled I could not find anything relevant on some topic (I don't remember what) so I tried Google again with the same query: first hit was the right one.

I sadly went back to Google, because it gets the job done better than DDG, at least for tech questions. Probably DDG is better in other scenarios.

[Nematode]

Re: Using Bing

I use DDG for everything, including technical. Yes, occasionally it won't find something and I will try Google, successfully, but also unsuccessfully. Google may be finding more relevant search results for you as of course it is profiling you. If you and I entered the exact same query in Google, it will probably give us two different sets of results. That is both useful and scary.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Using Google

Is only safe if:-

1) Done using a readonly VM

AND

2) via a VPN with the point of presence set to Google HQ in the USA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Qwant? Re: Using Bing

I have used Qwant since Startpage was bought by System1.

Both search sites are reasonable, but depend also on Bing (Quant) and Google (Startpage uses both). Qwant gets 64% of answers from Bing according to an audit of Qwant, see Wikipedia. Both Qwant and Startpage claim to put privacy first. Both can be used over Tor, so if you want to search "anonymous", you can do that using Qwant or Startpage.

In general, I use Qwant (or Startpage) for daily search, Google when these do not deliver satisfying results. That suits me.

[Tron]

Zero innovation so they manipulate users.

It wouldn't be difficult to build a better search engine that current Google. The original was great, but over time, a reduction in search results, censorship, promotion of monetised links, loss of the cached copies and ignoring part of your search query and showing you something they want you to see have dragged what was once the best thing on the net down.

MS could bring back stuff axed by Google, implement better contextualisation, persistent searches, crowd searching, and loads more options. But instead they just try to con people.

They could have rebuilt the OS to be smaller, faster, 100% secure, with a built in distributive infrastructure, whilst allowing users to style it to work and look however they wanted it. But instead they make it worse with every version as they get ready to piss billions away on generative AI - the energy-sapping repackaging of other peoples' content in sentences, sold as magic.

Their Emperor's New Clothes moment will be painful when it comes, and very expensive.

[David 132]

Re: Zero innovation so they manipulate users.

Upvoted. With a 3 quatloos deduction for making the common typo “better […] that” vs. “better than” - which for irrational reasons I don’t understand, annoys me far more than other common typos (“lose/loose”, “rogue/rouge”, etc.)

Not your problem. I should probably seek help.

[christianh104]

Re: Zero innovation so they manipulate users.

I would like to point out that in languages such as Spanish and French, that and than are the same word, which I believe may explain why it is such a common mistake despite the words seeming totally unrelated to a native speaker. I actually enjoy spotting it now because I feel like I am able to learn something about the writer without it having been said which is kind of neat. Hope that makes it more fun for you as well, cheers.

[PB90210]

Re: Zero innovation so they manipulate users.

Remember when Google launched 'adwords' and allowed malware-slingers to buy a priority listing whenever you searched for '[big name] antivirus'!

If you were unlucky you would click their link and get taken to a page that claimed you were riddled with a billion nasties and they could get rid of them by installing their malware.

[ThomH]

Bing was my main search engine until about five years ago or so when it starting aping Google in showing AMP results in a little in-browser AMP browser, with the apparently-requisite not-quite-right hacked-up Javascript scrolling, double address bars, etc.

i.e. they decided to copy Google. They copied the feature that made me stop using Google. So I stopped using Bing.

[42656e4d203239]

Bing?

Seems to have found a way to replace Google as the search engine in some cases on my Android phone.... Might be related to SwiftKey which has been owned by M$ for a while now.

Like another poster here I ensure that any product that tries to cajole/trick/delude me into using it gets a hard no and, if particularly persistent, a prize slot in the Pihole rules at home.

[David Nash]

Re: Bing?

I have noticed that Swiftkey presents suggestions that, when clicked, open up in Bing. The trick is to ignore those and submit the search the normal way.

[v13]

Pick and choose

Funny how they imitate search but not Android. Wouldn't it be great if they had a Windows Open Source Project similar to AOSP? But I guess that's just plain old Microsoft. Take and never give back.

[PenfoldUK]

A few years ago I did use Bing for certain searches, as it had some features that Google apparently didn't have. Or at least they weren't as obvious to access.

Then Microsoft removed those features and I haven't used Bing since.

Instead of trying to ape Google, why not innovate and offer stuff Google doesn't?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

why not innovate and offer stuff Google doesn't?

Costs money and doesn't have an immediate shareholder return..

[Winkypop]

If Bing suddenly opens…

It’s usually a sign that I have mis-clicked on something.

[Sleep deprived]

Re: If Bing suddenly opens…

The same with Edge. Like when I hit F1 in a program that has no embedded help. If it weren't for the occasional Teams conference, I'd have removed it, if only for bypassing my default browser choice.

[Lee D]

Re: If Bing suddenly opens…

The only time I ever use Edge is to read Exchange admin delivery reports and some other admin functions (like searching for results across everyone's mailbox, etc.) because... for some weird reason... Microsoft FORCE you to use Bing to access them, download them and even use a local app to open the resulting file which only works via Edge.

Basically, unless you make me use Edge with no other choice, I'm not touching it.

This should be hint enough that you're DOING SOMETHING WRONG, but MS have never cared about that.

[Kev99]

I don't worry about mictosoft's bing and its tricks any more. I used Ultra File Search to locate all instances of edge, and then deleted them. I then used regedit to search for edge and copilot and deleted all entries for all references to the two. Peace & harmony have been restored.

[I should coco]

You and all references to your family will now be summarily removed from all MS platforms and you will be executed!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not worried. Nothing executes properly on Windows.

:)

[M.V. Lipvig]

Forced update in 3,2,1...

Oh look, they're back!

[CorwinX]

As mentioned here before...

I went from Mosaic > Netscape > Firefox.

Web searches started with Altavista (yes, I am a greybeard) and transitioned to Google.

My interest in Micro$oft's browsers or search engine is approximately −273.15C.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: As mentioned here before...

Wot, no Spyglass?

:)

[Roopee]

And the Prize for Breathtaking Hypocrisy...

...goes to GOOGLE for "long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice"!!

[Lee D]

When your product is so good, you have to pretend to be your larger competitor via deceptive practices to get people to use it.

MS haven't changed in decades, I don't know why anyone uses their stuff by choice. Especially where it concerns completely optional and replaceable things like a web browser, etc.

[Wang Cores]

Time compression due to the internet is fascinating

Used to take a half century or more for an operation to jump the shark this way.

[JoeCool]

Ironic ...

that MS simulates the google front page, right down to the links for Google services.

Or do they ?

It would be Ironic on multiple levels if MS resolve those links to Office365 promos.

[MJI]

I did a quick ask around

"That looks like Clickworker"

"Not Google?"

"Only a little bit"

So they were not taken in.

Not defending MS at all, mind you not Google either despite having a phone with their OS on it.

Luckily on our PC I just used the default browser as installed, so none of this MS Google nonsense.

[Lost in Cyberspace]

Dirty tricks

This is all Microsoft seems to know at the moment.

Icons mixed in with apps on the start menu, widgets that open with a hover, big search bars, links on the Lock Screen / wallpaper that open Edge/Bing.

And deceptive 'Start backup now' that moves your files to the inadequate 5GB OneDrive. Even in a Mac, I've seen Office ignore local/iCloud and store files straight in OneDrive without making it clear.

And I can think of half a dozen Microsoft apps that seem to have the capability of changing your local Windows account to a Microsoft one. Before you know it, files are at the mercy of your MSA, thanks to OneDrive and/or Bitlocker.

I frequently have users that don't know how they ended up with Microsoft products and services taking over.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Rebrand

Bing

Bong

Boogle

[Felonmarmer]

Re: Rebrand

Blame it on the Boogie.

[navarac]

Desperate

Microsoft comes across as really desperate these days. For a system on the majority of PCs, how desperate have they got to be? All the unwanted crap in it all made me feel if I was fighting everything all the time. I dumped the whole lot in 2020 and went the Linux route, but still get the shivers reading their shenanigans.

[Novatone]

Google gets a taste of its own medicine

Considering that chrome gained its prominence by paying free programs to install it when they were installed and Google pays to be the default almost everywhere…

And maybe Microsoft is doing an A B test to see if it is just the uncluttered search page rather than the search results that people prefer

I find the bing results to be fine, and the ai mostly helpful when I ask it to answer a question when the search results don’t look promising

[IdontTHINKso]

I am so sick of Microsoft trying to shove Bing down my throat. I do NOT like it when MS chooses underhanded tactics such as this to, once again, try to force me to use something I will NEVER use. This has been one of many issues for quite some time. There should be a law against what they are doing. I already had to buy a new PC, even though I already had one that worked perfectly. It's such a shame that we are relegated to use OS IOS or Google. There are so many different OS out there, but in the US, we don't know that much about them. Even if we did, they might not interface with the BIG TWO we are forced to use. I so wish I had gone to school to study ALL THINGS COMPUTER.