latest - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: GEuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 08:14:35 am
content: Q

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 08:45:57 am
content: My god...Someone uses bing?

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 10:13:47 am
content: Yeah I do occasionally if the google search "paid for" results seem to dominate, and occasionally it seems to be useful.I am also glad it is there as a complete monopoly has obvious bad consequences.

author: mc
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 11:49:18 am
content: It's actually MS having a go at google, as google do scan your email/web searches so they can deliver targetted marketting.People love to criticise MS, however in privacy stakes, IMO google is far scarier.

author: tjb1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 12:02:54 pm
content: I should buy stock in Alcoa.

author: bwat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 12:11:53 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on July 21, 2014, 08:45:57 amLoads of people use BING because Bing Is Not Google. I use it fairly often.Quote from: tjb1 on July 21, 2014, 12:02:54 pmNo you misheard, blue horseshoe likes Anacott Steel.

author: tjb1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 12:49:27 pm
content: Quote from: bwat on July 21, 2014, 12:11:53 pmYeah, I don't think you get it but thanks for raising the stock price!

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 01:04:36 pm
content: If you are concerned about what people are dong with your data (and I agree that Google is still worse than MS in this regard), use something like duckduckgo.com for search.I run into problems with Google all the time with giving me what I already saw. The prior search bias is a big problem for finding things you want.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 04:35:00 pm
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 21, 2014, 10:13:47 amIf you'll install Firefox, there's an add-on for it called Grease Monkey and there's a Java-script for that that will allow you to block those spamming Google hits. You can't block the PAID Google ads but you can block those sites that pop up in EVERY Google search. For a short time Google even offered a block feature but they've dropped it. Also it was limited to 500 sites and that wasn't nearly enough!

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2014, 04:48:50 pm
content: Google pisses me off for uncommon searches. If I put 2 or three keywords as part of my search I have to skip to the 2nd or 3rd page before I find hits that contain all three, the first or second page contain noting but irrelevant crap!

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 05:04:21 am
content: Yeah I run grease monkey, Google search would be a complete PITA without it.It's those redirects and the fact that the results don't actually give you a pasteable link without it.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 05:40:58 am
content: In my view, Google long ago transitioned from "Do no Evil" to "Do anything, just don't get caught..."It is now in another transition: "Don't worry about getting caught as long as the legal cost for it is already in the approved budget..."Too bad so many of my system backup images already have Chrome in it. I will have to go back so far in my restores to find one without this parasite.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 05:46:20 am
content: I use altavista... oh wait, never mind memory lapse from 20 years ago.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 07:25:49 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 22, 2014, 05:46:20 amBitcrawler was another classic

author: corrado33
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 12:50:20 pm
content: You know you guys can click on "Worldwide" results to temporarily circumvent your personal results?I also don't know what you're complaining about. I use google (search) everyday and 90% of the time the site I want pops up on the first page. That other 10% I need to click the worldwide results to get anything useful.However, on my computers I do run "Personal Blocklist" (a chrome extension) that blocks out sites like "wiki.answers.com" because they pop up EVERY FREAKING TIME and they require 5-10 clicks to simply get the answer that you want.Also, this may be internet lore, but didn't Bing get caught using Google's algorithm in the past?I took the Bing challenge. Bing lost. I think google's doing some good things and people like to hate them just to be different. I am in no way a google fanboy (I have an iPhone), I've just found that their search works the best for me.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 02:51:42 pm
content: Quote from: corrado33 on July 22, 2014, 12:50:20 pmApparently they just copied google.http://gizmodo.com/5748843/google-caught-bing-stealing-its-search-resultsedit: better onehttp://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 03:00:13 pm
content: The algorithms that Bing and Google use require input from users in order to rank results.Bing won't get really good until lots of people use it, and lots of people won't use Bing until the results get really good. Catch-22.I use Bing once in a while just to give it some input. Each time I use it I notice it getting better, slightly, with less nonsense on the first page of results. Bing has much improved.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 03:11:33 pm
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on July 21, 2014, 04:48:50 pmDo you have an example?

author: mamalala
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 03:18:46 pm
content: Quote from: GEuser on July 21, 2014, 08:14:35 amTo me this sounds like a classic overly-specific statement. They don't just say "we don't snoop through your eMail/chat/video calls/ voicemail at all", but instead speficially talk only about not snooping through it to target advertising. You can see such overly-specific statements very frequently from politicians, law-enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, etc. Whenever there is some reason for concern about something in general, they are quick to make a statement in such a way that it is extremely specific about one aspect of the issue only, leaving enough room to later be able to say "well, but we did not deny/confirm that other aspect!".Greetings,Chris

author: opty
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 03:35:35 pm
content: What is not surprising Bing is much better in searching for MSFT related stuff... (MSDN, etc.)And it is not (yet?) that 'rich' in ads; I have impression that google gets worse each day I use it.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 03:39:30 pm
content: Quote from: opty on July 22, 2014, 03:35:35 pmMaybe you are making it worse

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 04:09:00 pm
content: Google is a nice lesson for the naive anti-Microsoft crowd who too eagerly bought into this -do no evil- mkting.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 04:16:34 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 22, 2014, 03:11:33 pmCan't think of one at the moment but often times you'll click on a hit do a ctrl+f on that page with one of your search terms and it's no where to be found. I remember once even "viewing source" and searching that with no results.I've also found where they show results with one of your search terms printed at the end crossed out and you have to scroll down or go to the next page before they show you hits with all terms

author: corrado33
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 04:29:27 pm
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on July 22, 2014, 04:16:34 pmI think you can circumvent this by using words like AND and OR. If a word is crossed out it means that google didn't find any results with ALL of your words, and had to get rid of one of them to come up with any relevant results. (It says all of this at the top of the results page.)

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 04:35:41 pm
content: Quote from: corrado33 on July 22, 2014, 04:29:27 pmRelevant to who? Their marketing department?As I explained all search terms appear eventually (if they exist)edit: I try to add extra search terms to narrow my results

author: corrado33
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 05:16:03 pm
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on July 22, 2014, 04:35:41 pmGotcha, I've never seen your problem. If I make a search too specific google doesn't give me many pages of results. It just tells me that it couldn't find anything. Sometimes it'll suggest other searches with some of the words crossed out.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 08:23:30 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on July 22, 2014, 02:51:42 pmThe thing is that if I got to wikipedia and search for Torsoraphyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsoraphyit redirects me to TarsorrhaphyNot sure about the other results but it doesn't mean they are copying the results.

author: corrado33
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 09:14:05 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 22, 2014, 08:23:30 pmRead the second link. Google employees essentially seeded a website to be returned as a result for a nonsense query. (Even though the website had zero relevance to the query.) A few weeks later, the same result was found if you searched bing for the same query. This happened after users used IE and the bing toolbar to search for that nonsense query and click on the link in google.Shortened:Google suspects Bing is cheating.Google makes up data and says Red is OrangeBing initially says Red is Red.Google employees search for Red using IE and Bing toolbar (to search google) and click on OrangeBing now says Red is Orange.It looks to me as it's not directly copying the algorithm, but rather monitoring (read, keylogging) users using IE and pulling the most clicked results from google's results. And since google is the most used search engine, Bing results are going to look mighty similar to google's. Regardless of the intentions of click monitoring, it sounds like cheating to me.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 10:32:48 pm
content: Well they may be cheating but I suspect most big international companies do a bit of that.Like not paying tax in the countries where the profit is made. They are using related party transactions to minimise tax.Google redirects your search results:Without Greasemonkey here is the source html of the search results returned links.Google:Code:<a href="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEarth_leakage_circuit_breaker&ei=POHOU9rTBsuWuASMnYCwCQ&usg=AFQjCNGvkNPtWZdXo4Psca1_yh7SrqKT-w&bvm=bv.71667212,d.c2E" onmousedown="return rwt(this,'','','','1','AFQjCNGvkNPtWZdXo4Psca1_yh7SrqKT-w','','0CBwQFjAA','','',event)"><em>ELCB</em> - Wikipedia</a>For all I know they are probably including information on my children in those hashed values.Bing:Code:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_leakage_circuit_breaker" h="ID=SERP,5094.1"><strong>Earth leakage circuit breaker</strong> - Wikipedia, the free ...</a>I hate those redirects, that's why I use greasemonkey and the 'No Google search redirect' script.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 10:42:54 pm
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 22, 2014, 10:32:48 pmThe 'vkNPt' code must mean 'cute'. ;-)

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 03:56:15 am
content: Bing stopped that nonsense the day it was uncovered. They claimed something that excused the results but was clearly a fabricated answer, IIRC.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 05:18:17 am
content: can you give us one of those links to see what google does?

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 05:34:57 am
content: can you give "me" one of those links to see what google does?I know that no matter what I do if I put a fully qualified url it comes first on google, so yeah I'm doubting what you said.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 05:59:25 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 23, 2014, 05:34:57 amIt's the second time in this thread that somebody mentions a broken search engine but does not provide an example. A URL is worth a thousand words.I use general search engines even to search this site. Try for example searching for: 'site:eevblog.com microsoft privacy' (without the quotes).

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 06:02:23 am
content: Quote from: Rigby on July 22, 2014, 03:00:13 pmThat's an interesting point. The barrier for quality is not only the computing infrastructure and algorithms also the existing user base.

author: bwat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 06:07:12 am
content: Google likes me better. Google reports 202 results when I ask it to search my personal website whereas bing reports only 59. Maybe bing is just better at filtering out nonsense.

author: steve30
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 07:20:46 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on July 21, 2014, 08:45:57 amI don't use it myself, but I had someone round here once who did a Bing search for Google, clicked on the Google link, then performed his Google search.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 07:22:46 am
content: Quote from: GEuser on July 23, 2014, 07:15:25 amI thought so, just empty claims

author: opty
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 07:51:50 am
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 22, 2014, 10:32:48 pmWhat is even more annoying they do the same with links in your emails. (at least if you are using gmail web interface).I can at least justify tracking search clicks but checking what links you choose to click on your private emails is just plain unethical to me. (with the exception of links known to be malicious and IFF you have the option to opt out)

author: bwat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 08:07:03 am
content: Quote from: opty on July 23, 2014, 07:51:50 amReally?I click on random garbage every now and again to reduce their ability to make correct inferences about me.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 08:39:33 am
content: QuoteI just tried it. Without a fully qualified url but with what he probably meant, which is a link to a site, ie no protocol. but a resolvable host name.assuming the search was crummywebsite.com.au (name changed to prevent embarrassment. )Google returnsShowing results for crummywebsite.orgSearch instead for crummywebsite.com.au (sic, no question mark)but doesn't actually list the site in the first 2 pages anyway.Bing returnsIncluding results for crummywebsite.com.Do you want results only for crummywebsite.com.au?but interestingly provided me a link to crummywebsite.com.au at postion number 6.people should be able to replicate this behavior using very rarely trafficked websites.So I don't think the claims were empty. But there was a slight overreaction.I also think Google should put this feature into their search and not rely on the browsers, so they can catch up with Bing.

author: tjb1
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 02:59:46 pm
content: Quote from: GEuser on July 23, 2014, 10:48:48 amWhere are the links? Why won't you provide them?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 03:09:39 pm
content: Quote from: GEuser on July 23, 2014, 10:48:48 amreminds me of this.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 03:42:15 pm
content: I don't understand why it's so hard to believe that our searches on these sites are not always to benefit us.At the end of the day these search engines generate a butt load of cash for their owners so it's not dissimilar to trying to get a genuine answer about a product from it's designated salesman

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 04:22:58 pm
content: Quote from: opty on July 23, 2014, 07:51:50 amRedirection also has its privacy benefits, it hides the referrer URL from the destination sites.For example, I am using draggo.com to manage my links (recommended) and because it does not do redirection, destination sites can see my draggo user id. That's a privacy leak IMO.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2014, 04:25:20 pm
content: Quote from: GEuser on July 23, 2014, 07:15:25 amNot nice.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2014, 12:08:47 am
content: -Please enjoy the missing Middle Finger icon placed in this post !-you are being childish here.

author: Rigby
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2014, 12:44:25 am
content: "Childish" barely scratches the surface of the prepubescent nonsense spewed by that fella.