Microsoft Changing Users' Default Search Engine 389
BabyDuckHat writes "Cnet's Dennis O'Reilly caught 'Windows Search Helper' trying to change his default Firefox search from Google to Bing. This isn't the first time the software company has been caught quietly changing user's preferences to benefit its own products."
Once more with feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Funny)
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Legal - Free legal advice, legal directory, legally blond staring Reese Witherspoon, LeGaL - Lesbian & Gay Law Association of Greater New York, legal sea foods, legal......
Suffering from search overload? Only Bing knows how to keep you out of legal trouble.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
The secret, as in many business situations, is cash flow. As long as the cash is coming in, you can weather any storm. If you have better cash flow than the other guy, you can outlast him in a fight.
If you look at a monopolist's legal expenses as a black box, cash spent on litigation, fines, and settlements is analogous to R&D. You put cash in on one end, you get ownership of a technology out the other. The companies you crush aren't going to rise from the dead. The stockholders are happy to get any cash they can out of a settlement, they aren't going to try to restart the company as a going to concern. Trying to win back ownership of some technical area once the monopolist is entrenched is not likely to be profitable; ownership of that area is more valuable to the monopolist has part of its portfolio than it is to the victim company's investors.
So the monopolist goes on doing the illegal things it has always done, just different enough so that the next company in its sights has to assemble its case from scratch. That takes cash.
Now we have an interesting situation with Google. Google has cash too: 17B to Microsoft's 23.9B. But here's something interesting: the current ratio. That's the ratio of short term assets (cash-like things) to short term liabilities. For Google, that's 10.1; for Microsoft that's 1.7. Microsoft has roughly twice the amount of cash on hand than it needs to keep running. That's healthy. Google, on the other hand has 10x the cash it needs to keep running. That's insanely healthy. It means they've got insane amounts of money to spend.
If Microsoft manages to use its monopoly power to steal Google's business, this picture will change quickly. Google's revenues would dry up fast. So if there is some kind of illegal anticompetitive thing going on, Google had better react fast, but if it does, it has the cash to put up a good fight.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, too bad it couldn't be modded "Sarcastic" And how many times have they even prevailed? Near constant litigation is just a cost of doing business, eh?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Poor Microsoft is just misunderstood. (Score:4, Insightful)
People think that Microsoft is a computer company that is abusive. But that's not true. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses computer equipment as a means of delivering abuse. Seen in that way, Microsoft is completely successful at what it tries to do.
(I am not liable for any damage displaying this opinion causes to your monitor.)
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Once more with feeling (Score:4, Informative)
Funnily enough, everytime my package manager updated Firefox on Ubuntu, my chosen search engine (Yahoo) seems to get bumped back to Google. Google of course being one of the big funders of Mozilla. Same annoying thing. But apparently Microsoft's change only affects IE6, so who cares?
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:4, Funny)
Still no reason to resort to senseless violins.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:4, Interesting)
Ock the Knife... (Score:4, Insightful)
(subject line courtesy of "Journey of Man - A Genetic Oddysey")
Or...
Could it be that that page is relatively new and most people who had IE7 went to a different page before* , where most people will have gotten their Google search provider; rather than this page.
Could it be that most people already know Google (and likely already have it installed) and are less-inclined to click on it than the more exotic search providers?
Could it be that Bing! was recently-launched, causing most people to click on it just to see what all the fuss was about?
* The old page sucked quite badly as well. I wanted to add Google from a Dutch IE7, which landed me at an English-language search providers page, and after adding Google it always landed the machine at google.co.uk(!). Took some manual registry mangling to get it to point to google.nl (not my machine, tyvm) instead. Looks like the IE8 points things to a dutch page, at least; though only 4 providers seem to be offered there... Wikipedia, Bing, 'Kenteken opzoeken' ( license plate search ) and Harware.Info price comparison visualiser, along with the 5th option of 'make your own search engine' (love the shoddy translations from English).
Naw, you're right, they probably tried burying the Google option. That's probably why they list it twice, too ;)
Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
I actively tried to switch the default search engine to Google, and guess what, it was hard to find even knowing what I'm looking about.
If I was Google, I'd file an antitrust petition against this NOW.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He's talking about the search bar that comes with IE (I think 7 and 8, but I am not sure about 7). It's like the search bar that comes with Firefox. Unlike the Firefox add-on though, which by default searches 7 different engines and has the capability to add literally hundreds more, the MS one by default only searches Bing and allows you add maybe 10 more. One of the ones you can add is Google, but as GP points out it's at the bottom of the list and not well labeled.
Did you click any of the buttons? (Score:2, Interesting)
Funnily enough, clicking on any "Add to Internet Explorer" button in Firefox opened a window suggesting I install IE8 to use the feature - any button except for the button under Bing. That one opened a message box informing me that Firefox doesn't support this search provider.
Link to Page, funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure if this is funny or sad. Seeing was believing:
Search Box > "Find More Providers..."
Takes you here:
http://www.ieaddons.com/en/searchproviders
With the following
Bing, NYT, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, OneRiot, ESPN, Truveo, Google, Bidtopia, Freebase
Go Freebase and Bidtopia, you *almost* caught Google. Keep up the good work!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's already hard enough to switch to Google.
Nah. It's pretty damn painless [mozilla.com] actually.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Informative)
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Still better that Safari on Mac which doesn't allow anything but Google as the search engine.
Maybe not out of the box, but the FREE Safari plugin Inquisitor [inquisitorx.com] allows the search engine to be changed at will, and much more.
The site does a really poor job of explaining this, but trust me, Inquisitor will do the trick.
I have read that Inquisitor may not work with Safari 4 yet (which may be outdated information). Here is another free plugin, Glims [machangout.com], that will allow the changing of search engines in Safari 4 for Mac.
As a Mac user, it IS kind of odd that Safari 4 for Windows allows the selection of Sea
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody would care about MS having a monopoly if they actually made the best software. Or if they released all their software for free, as Google does.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
I need to have Digg's "OK this is lame" to bury this article.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Informative)
If you actualy read the article, he admits he doesnt know what was trying to change the default search provider, or what it was being set to. All he knows is his google toolbar said a change was being made.
Any atribution of this action to Microsoft, or that the provider was being set to Bing are suppositions - there is no evidence of that provided.
Re:Once more with feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, if you look at the timestamps, the Search shows up at 7:41:27.
The oddly named "gupdate1c99e2ec" below it (as in "Google Update" maybe?) fired off at 7:41:26 -- precisely one second before it.
Maybe he should be looking at items before that "gupdate" item to see what happened before that.
(Now, I've had MS change my default browser before -- I'm just not convinced that what he's got shown matches what he saw.)
Cheers
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Wait, the guy has NO evidence that it was "Search" that changed it. Only that the entry is at the approximate time. But what else happened at that same time? Right before the supposed culprit is the google update service running. More likely what happened is that they (being google) changed the entry on their own which, while in the end would've still been google search, their own software detected as a change. Similar situation to a firewall having a rule to allow a certain exe access to the network,
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
That's most surprising.
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Someone needs to document the patches and the dates of all of the Microsoft 'anti-competive' user-preference changes through patching...
I remember at least the following:
1. reinstalling of MSN Messenger through a patch
2. setting MSN Messenger to restart on boot even after preferences were turned off (after upgrading Outlook Express maybe)
3. Setting homepage to 'live.com' or 'msn.com' with any Internet Explorer upgrades
4. MSN Explorer randomly appearing after uninstall
5. Putting 'Free Hotmail' link back into
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and the FF plugin ".NET Framework" that installed automatically and apparently can't be uninstalled...
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Microsoft released a new version that can be uninstalled or disabled using the standard Firefox Add-Ons UI.
But, the first version was pretty easy to uninstall...it took me about two minutes after the Firefox restart that highlighted the new add-on to find the registry entry (somewhere under the Mozilla key in the Software hive) and delete it.
BING (Score:5, Funny)
BING = But It's Not Google
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Re:BING (Score:5, Funny)
Bing Is Not Google
recursive
iBing! coming in 2010 (Score:4, Funny)
Icant Believe It's Not Google!
Google Owns Search (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Google Owns Search (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch this [youtube.com] and you'll see what I mean. People think Google is a web browser. They probably think Bing is part of Internet Explorer. And I'm sure the overwhelming majority of users have no idea they can change their default provider, or even what that means.
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Bing does not look like google: its HIDEOUS.
Google does not get in my way, bing brings me, today, some shitty picture of jacko's "neverland".
Re:Google Owns Search (Score:5, Interesting)
They haven't just copied Google either.
The Bing Travel page is almost a pixel-perfect copy of the Kayak travel site [douglassims.org].
It seems imitation is the strategy of the Bing team.
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When the general public think about searching the Internet they think of Google, even the phrase 'Google it' is fairly common. I wonder what the success rate is for this strategy?
It's not foolproof. In the UK, "hoovering" is a synonym for vacuum cleaning, but Hoover no longer dominate the vacuum cleaner market.
Wrong Summary! (Score:5, Informative)
Tim,
Please read the story yourself;
It's not Firefox that Vista tries to change but IE8. Google's toolbar caught the action in IE8 and alerted him to the change. He then said that there was no alert option offered in Firefox's Google toolbar.
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No, we need FUD.
Also, we need idiots who use the Google toolbar in Firefox, apparently. Who the fuck uses that with FF?
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I do, you insensitive clod!!!
I like the ability to click the 'word search' buttons for my search. The gmail button is nice too. Don't care about the rest though.
Want more ad money? Bash Microsoft ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how "geeks" here accept such crappy evidence as proof of any wrong doing. What happened to the geeks to could reverse engineer executables and actually point to the specific CPU instruction that actually did it?
Take the FUD surrounding DRM, take this crappy story, no geek has ever been able to point to that level of proof. Seems like the virus and malware authors being crappy programmers are happily able to reverse engineer windows binaries and find bugs.
Seems like F/OSS world is filled with wussies who need source code to figure things out. Ever heard of a game crack author crying about not having source code? LOL.. turn in your geek cards...
Re:Want more ad money? Bash Microsoft ! (Score:4, Informative)
What happened to the geeks to could reverse engineer executables and actually point to the specific CPU instruction that actually did it?
They got legal threats after the DMCA was passed.
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> They got legal threats after the DMCA was passed.
The DMCA is utterly irrelevant to this issue.
Re:Want more ad money? Bash Microsoft ! (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, but it's entirely relevant to reverse engineering executables. Which means it is directly relevant to the post you replied to.
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When said executables are part of a DRM (or my preferred term, Fair Use Circumvention Kit) system. Which these aren't.
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Ah, but it's entirely relevant to reverse engineering executables.
Only in the US. Although the US does like to extradite people to enforce its laws in far off places like, say, Australia, from time to time.
Parent does have a point... proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy got this warning when he booted up his computer - then mentions that he didn't give permission to any search engine change. What, after he booted up? I guess not. Perhaps he did so before he shut it down? Perhaps he did so several days ago and whatever he installed* told him that the system would need rebooting to finish installation, and he ignored it (like most people).
* I'm saying "whatever he installed" because I'm looking at my Vista Business N 32bit install with Internet Explorer 8 (upgraded from 7 a day or two back), and..
- Google is still (it was in IE7) my first-listed search provider
- I can find no "Windows Search Helper" service (there's a "Windows Search" service; different thing, presumably)
- I can find no "Windows Search *anything*" in IE8's Add-ons list.
Hitting Google with "Windows Search Helper" yields the story and... well.. supposed anti-malware sites that are ever-so-useful in telling me what it is or where it comes from (sarcasm.)
So for all we know, he installed.. who knows what, something.. and that something may very well have asked him if he wanted to change the default search to Bing.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something like this.. but as of yet, my Vista machine isn't showing any evidence of it; nor does the article.
'course the other part of the article is 'sane'.. letting the google toolbar (if you have that installed anyway) make sure that your default search is Google if you're so-inclined as to have two search fields with the same provider (if I installed it, I'd set the IE8 one to Bing and leave the Google Toolbar one to Google, but that's me... then again, I tend to use Firefox), seems like a pretty good precaution to take.
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It's part of Windows search. Every time I've accidentally installed that 'update' I see the Windows search helper, until I go and kill it off.
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Since I assume he didn't allow it to change it, he probably never did a search with the default changed. His SS's certainly don't show that it was Bing.
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You sir, are dead on.
The only thing worse than no security is the insecurity of paranoia.
Re:Want more ad money? Bash Microsoft ! (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened to the geeks to could reverse engineer executables and actually point to the specific CPU instruction that actually did it?
That sort of died out when video drivers hit 80MB, printer drivers hit 40MB, OSes hit 2+GB and god knows how many MB of bloated code are needed to switch a default search engine. I'd say at least 15MB. No one can be bothered to sift through all that shite anymore. It was easy when programs were 16k.
How is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Too late. I already switched my default. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some things Google does very well. Others, not so well.
I'm using Bing now to see if I like it. It's like UNIX. It's like non-Apple MP3 players. I'll give the underdog a try so I don't have to be part of the herd. Besides, most popular doesn't always mean best.
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Re:Too late. I already switched my default. (Score:4, Insightful)
But you explicitly said that you based your decision on "not being part of the herd". I hear that breathing is pretty popular among "the herd" too, perhaps you should try not breathing for a change?
Your "popular doesn't mean good" argument also has corollaries. By the same token, popular does not equal "bad" and unpopular does not equal "good."
You use of the phrase "the herd" also implies that people who choose the popular option do it unthinkingly, that they don't "conduct their own tests and make their own decisions." But, of course, many people do that and make the decision to use the popular item.
I just found your comment amusing, because it reminds me of the "individualists" who flock to subcultures in an effort to become "alternative" - but as soon as their subculture/music/fashion becomes popular they don't like it anymore. They tend to be worse fashion victims and conformists than those in the mainstream, all the while maintaining that they are unique and beholden to nobody. I mean, why did you like that music in the first place? Isn't it still good music if it suddenly becomes a popular hit?
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I'll give the underdog a try so I don't have to be part of the herd.
Being contrarian just for the sake of it isn't a virtue. I know lots of people who do it just so they can act self-righteous.
Also installing unwanted Firefox extension (Score:2, Interesting)
On Tuesday Microsoft also pushed an update for their .Net runtime that again tried to install a some kind of Firefox extension. I had already removed this extension and the associated registry entry a few months ago when the latest .Net runtime was installed. Here they are doing it again.
Re:Also installing unwanted Firefox extension (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately the .Net runtime installer crashes every time it tries to update my Windows machine, so I don't have this problem :).
Google does it too (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe a but more research next time /. ? (Score:4, Interesting)
His proof is the event view showing the MS Search service "starting". You know, the one that's actually for searching your own computer. And the timing of it was right after start-up.
I'm not saying it was, or it wasn't. But his proof is flimsy at best. His conclusion something I expect from the typical college age
How about some actual proof of what happened. For all we know this tool downloaded something that asked him to change search engines and in his haste to get to porn (which btw Bing is king at), just clicked through without looking, and when he rebooted next time the change tried to happen. Or it could be that the MS Search service tried to hide a change. But I don't buy it based on his SS of a service starting (wow) and his own "jump" to a conclusion. Especially since if it were true there should be reports of it all over.
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Exactly, the search service is an indexing service. It has nothing to do with searching the web. Slashdot doesnt need proof, it needs its daily 3 minutes of hate.
There's no proof... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'll probably get modded as a troll for this, but the article doesn't offer any actual evidence that Microsoft is changing search engine preferences without users knowing it. Even the author himself doesn't say that there's conclusive evidence. He writes in his article:
"Vista's Event Viewer identified the Windows Search Service as the likely source of the attempt to change my search default."
and
"Well, I can't prove it based solely on the Event Viewer logs, but it's safe to say the search service is the prime suspect."
The author of the article doesn't bother to conduct any meaningful research into the purpose of the Windows Search service or what it actually does [microsoft.com]. Now I'm all for throwing the punches at Microsoft for the stupid crap they pull and I wouldn't put it past them to do something shady and underhanded like this. However, this article is little more than the rambling conjecture of a computer illiterate who can't tell the difference between a system service and an online search engine. If you're going to post articles about the devious, dirty deeds of Microsoft at least have the common sense to post articles with at least some level of truth behind them.
it is all happening agian (Score:4, Informative)
I have noticed that IE7 and IE8, anything typed into the URL field will go to Bing, unless it is 100% qualified. I know MS has always wanted everything to go through it's servers, but now it seems it is getting more extreme. If you don't type in HTTP it will go to bing. I also recall a time, or maybe not, when you could the URL field to go to google. In any case, the idea that a URL will go to a search engine never made sense to me. If the URL is not sufficiently qualified, then it should return a 404. The security risk of expecting a URL to return something other than the intended target is certainly a securty risk.
But no one else is any better. I have noticed on Adobe updates that they try to sneak in Yahoo tool bar. Apple will change the default browser to Safari with any little excuse, almost at every reboot. I don't know what google is doing, but since I prefer it to other things, I haven't had any issues in trying to get rid of it. I suspect when they begin to lose market share, all hell will break loose.
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If I pay for a machine, and I pay for the software. then I don't want it changing the options. I want to set what will happen. And I want it to work efficiently, without useless overhead put in simply to increase bragging rights of the vendor.
So some guy wrote an article about... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best part about freedom!! (Score:3, Insightful)
You can choose a different OS. I don't think Microsoft did anything wrong. As a consumer the responsibility of picking a product that behaves the way you want is in your hands.
IE7 has been misbehaving too (Score:3, Interesting)
This is relatively innocuous, compared to (Score:5, Insightful)
This is relatively innocuous, compared to the thing everyone seems to be missing - namely, IE8's default setting due to which (if you don't disable it during install) it will send all your search queries, browsed page URLs (except in HTTPS mode and on the intranet) and a few other bits and pieces of data to Microsoft for the purpose of "providing you with related sites". Of course the real purpose is to collect data to feed to Bing and adCenter.
This is why Sergey Brin is running around scared, and this is why Google is releasing their own browser in a hurry (it too sends all your browsing data to Google, for the same purposes).
You see, IE still has something like 70% marketshare, and all that browsing pattern data is hugely useful for things like:
1. Discovering new sites not yet within the crawl graph
2. Improving relevance of search results
3. Fighting spam
4. Establishing true popularity metrics for web resources.
5. Extracting behavioral information for the purposes of ad targeting.
6. Establishing (through correlation with a truth set) your gender, race, ethnicity, age, income bracket and preferences (for ad targeting, too).
7. Geolocation
8. Etc, etc.
This means MSFT now has ginormous amounts of data it didn't have before, and it can sic their PHDs on it and "fucking kill Google". It is no coincidence that they pushed IE8 as a "mandatory" update. I will not be surprised in the least if within a year Bing has substantially higher relevance than everyone else.
Google has no answer to this, short of paying Mozilla a ton of money to embed the same thing into Firefox. Since this pretty much amounts to spyware, I doubt Mozilla will go for it.
Run your own test (Score:3, Funny)
Hope they... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hope they go to court over this and finally learn a hard lesson. You can't change the settings on a user's computer without his knowledge and approval. Doing so, makes you a criminal capable of going to jail .... if enough people set up a class action lawsuit, they WILL get M$ on this. Sony was caught and faced a big fine for doing this, as for M$ trying to use the old, well it's our OS and we can do what we want with it...those days are over as per the previous Anti trust case against them in EU.
When will they learn, I guess we are doomed to repeat are failures...no?
it was just an accident (Score:3, Funny)
Redirect Bing to Google (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had msnbot rejected from my site for many years. The just under a year ago I get a request from someone working for MSN Live Search asking to remove the block from robots.txt. I said, "no" and gave her the short version of my falling out with Microsoft (just the 1995 to 1998 subset).
Then I started getting hits from Bing. Their support site only mentioned msnbot gathering information, so how did my site get index? Well, this had to stop.
So, I wrote a filter that would redirect anything with a REFERER from bing.com to google.com with the same search query. After running for a few weeks now, I see that some IP addresses never return, but most come back from Google - often with more specific search queries than the first time. I still haven't heard a word from the confused Bing users about it, though. So I'm guessing that it works well for keeping the completely clueless out.
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
And putting all Apple apps back onto the desktop and at the top level of the Windows start menu every time you upgrade, irrespective of where you'd tidied the previous version up to.
I can agree with GP and GGP complaint v. Apple, but this one here, that applies to like 90% of applications. They check the default locations for the icons, if not found, it puts them there. Does that behavior suck?--Yes it does, but it's nowhere near an "Apple" problem. It's universal.
I strongly disagree (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't Windows - it's entirely up to the installer author whether or not to create icons (desktop, start menu, start menu favorites, quick launch bar (yeah, there's more...)).
Most installers give you the option to install them or not. Okay.. most -older- installers do. Ever since 'usability experts' decreed that users want -less- choice, things just get tossed everywhere, whether you like it or not. More user-friendly to have 20 icons in the quick launch bar, apparently? whatever.
But even if you don't give that option - there's no reason the installer can't detect whether the user removed the icons -after- installation when you're installing an update.. and just not re-install them (or prompt the user).
It might not be able to easily figure out -where- a user relocated icons, if that's what they did, but presuming you're only upgrading and not changing anything, those old icons (shortcuts) should still work just fine from wherever the user put them.
The only reason most installers don't is per that usability stuff. Say you removed the icon for QuickTime, now you install the update, so you expect to have QuickTime available... but you search and search on your desktop (as the layman you are), and.. no QuickTime icon. "Did something go wrong during installation?", you might ask yourself, and re-install again. Still no icon. So poste hate-mail in a forum and give Apple some bad press; even though it'd be your own fault, as you decided at some point in the past that you didn't want that icon.
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yup. This is what you get when you use software made by for-profit groups. Say what you will about how capitalism (greed) is good, how it promotes competition and growth. Sure - but it also puts a stopper in it. People that really care about making good software make it free. Between them, and corporate businesspeople, I think I trust the former when it comes to making my software.
Now go ahead and mod me overrated.
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's because IE7 IS a update to IE6. How the heck is Safari an update to Quicktime or iTunes?
Re:Surprise surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they actually DON'T know what you want... (Score:2)
... nor do they really care. What Microsoft DOES know is what IT wants: knowledge of your buttons and which ones they can press to make money flow out. Isn't that what so-called behavioral marketing is all about?
See, you're really nothing more than a human slot machine to Microsoft, and Bing is just one of their attempts at a "system" to let them cash in more often than the house does.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
But it takes a 6 year old to read the article and find out that the story is bullshit.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Google's antitrust is because of a book deal, not search market tomfoolery.
Completely different playground.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If he'd installed the google toolbar (which by default sets your search to google), would he have been so similiarly "relieved" if Microsoft had popped up a warning message that "An attempt has been made to switch your default search away from Microsoft Search"?
You're deliberately installing the google search bar. You're doing it with intent. It should be obvious that if you're installing the google search bar, you're going to be using google search. It's not as though installing the google search toolba
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You're deliberately installing the google search bar
Its its "google toolbar" not "google search toolbar". Maybe I'm installing it for autofill, or bookmark synchronization, or pagerange...? Its not like I need google toolbar for search. Both Firefox and IE7/8 let me search google directly without it.
Windows Search Helper...
And "Google Desktop" is no different. Actually, I'm wrong. Google desktop is worse. You can't choose not to use google's search engine on the web, and it wants to hook into your gmail, an
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Mod parent up and grandparent down.
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Just to throw in a "me too", I have had Google set as my default search engine for well over 3 or 4 years on many machines and installations.
I've since installed a wide variety of Microsoft apps, including Live Messenger, Windows Desktop Search, and Search 4, and never once has it changed my preference.
I think Live Messenger *asked* me if I could, but I said no and it didn't.
His findings don't even suggest that it was his default search that could have been changed.
I suspect there's a chance that if anythin
Re: (Score:2)
and the amount of work you have to do is less than if you had to blow your nose.
Try going into a bank and changing the default screen-saver on one of the cashiers' terminals, then ask me if you wouldn't be landed in jail with felony computer tampering/hacking charges. "But changing it back is less effort than blowing your nose" will not buy you any sympathy from the judge.
The point is they did something without permission. It used to be just plain bad manners. Now
Re: (Score:2)
The point is they did something without permission.
Right. They modified the settings of a product they make upon the installation of a 2nd product they make that really isn't a standalone product tat has some integration with the first product (and othe products too, like outlook). And further you requested both products be installed. Hmmm... where exactly was the without permission thing again?
Next you'll be saying that when you install adobe reader and it changes itself to be the default pdf viewer, mo
Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it and never will (Score:5, Interesting)
For stuff other then videos, yeah, Google is king and will be for a loooong time.
Re: (Score:2)
Other then that, I don't see anything in the article that shows it was the search service that did it, or even that Bing is what it was change