Bing Becomes No.2 Search Engine at 4.37% 366
suraj.sun writes "Bing overtook Yahoo for the first time worldwide in January, and increased its lead in February, according to web analytics company, StatCounter. Its research arm StatCounter Global Stats finds that globally Bing reached 4.37%, in February ahead of Yahoo! at 3.93%. Both trail far behind Google's 89.94% of the global search engine market." Just a little more plagiarizing to go!
Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if only it didn't suck.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
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Now if only it didn't suck.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
Moammar? Is that you?
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Hush you fool! You know they're listening. Do you *want* to be sent back to the camp?
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not. Google has not engaged in any anticompetitive practices to hold on to that market share. Being successful simply because you're good at what you do is not a crime. Microsofts agreements with OEMs, other software makers and Intel were used to make it impossible for other OS makers to compete. It would be like if Google created a new standard called norobotsexceptgoogles.txt and lowered the page rank of any sites that didn't refuse to be crawled by anyone but google.
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Google may not be a true monopoly but they are an effective monopoly. However that said there is nothing wrong or illegal about being a monopoly. It is illegal however to abuse that monopoly to stop future competitors.
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Considering they've let Verizon lock some of their Android phones to exclusively use Bing as their default search engine, with no way of removing said app without tinkering and/or rooting, I'd say they've been staying far from anything that could put them in trouble in that regard.
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Interesting)
1: You don't have to be anti-competitive to be a monopoly. You just have to be significantly larger than your nearest rival.
2: Drastically undercutting your opponents prices in a new market by leveraging profits from a different market to support it can be seen as anti-competitive. Many for profit vendors see google pushing open source products as this.
Bogus! (Score:2)
You don't get to call monopoly-sized-things "bad" if they aren't acting anti-competitively, and the term "monopoly" has a negative connotation.
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No. you are incorrectly believing that monopoly has a negative connotation because you only ever hear about it when preceded by "abuse of".
Monopolies are not inherently bad. Its just that it puts an entity solely motivated to profit in a position of inequitable power that can be leveraged to further that goal at the expense of everyone else. Abusing that power is negative.
The only inherent bad quality of a monopoly is in the homogeneous qualities of a monoculture being slow or unable to adapt to rapid chang
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)
Even when Microsoft was at the top of it's position in the 90s, it didn't have exclusive control. You could always get a Mac or use Linux.
If I decide I'm tired of Google, I can at no cost and with no limitations switch to yahoo, or Bing or one of the other engines out there. There is no cost to the customer, there are no restrictions in choosing to use other options that are equally free.
As has been pointed out on Slashdot before, you aren't the customer. You are what is being sold to advertisers. The advertisers are the Google's customers, and from their point of view, if they want to pay for search engine advertisements, Google is the monopoly equivalent of Microsoft.
I was actually shocked when I read the headline. I knew Google was popular, but the number two position is only at 4%? Wow.
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It's interesting that Microsoft has 4.37% even after making Bing the default search engine on Windows. That's a HUGE number of people changing the default over to other engines
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Been a while since I used IE, but I think on first run there is a nag screen that lets you pick and its order is randomized.
No robot sex...? (Re:Excellent!) (Score:3)
No, it's not. Google has not engaged in any anticompetitive practices to hold on to that market share. Being successful simply because you're good at what you do is not a crime. Microsofts agreements with OEMs, other software makers and Intel were used to make it impossible for other OS makers to compete. It would be like if Google created a new standard called norobotsex—
My brain instinctively paused right there...
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So it wasn't just me then XD
It took a couple of re-reads for me to not see the robot sex...
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googles just want a monogamous robot relationship. Is that so wrong?
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No, not even a little bit.
Google has a near monopoly (which btw, is not illegal in of itself) because the best product is maintaining its position and crowding out inferior solutions.
On the other hand, many superior solutions have been illegally barred from entry because of anti-competitive and illegal practices by Microsoft. Google's situation actually encourages competition and an ever improving product. Microsoft's solution destroys competition and ensures product stagnation and inferior products compare
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They are a near-monopoly. Erecting barriers to entry isn't a sign of a monopoly either, it's a sign of a monopoly that is unfairly using its position/power. (In fact, in most of the western world, anti-monopoly legislation doesn't prevent monopolies, it only prevents them from misusing their monopolistic power.)
But regardless, it's the lack of a better (or comparable and competing) search engine that I lament.
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So I can still put hotels on both Boardwalk and Park Place?
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That didn't stop the EU from forcing MS to provide a browser ballot. Despite the fact that IE's market share is falling, Window's market share is falling, you can fully uninstall IE8 from W7, and there are at least 4 other big players in the game who are increasing market share, EU still felt the need to step in.
It would be funny though, if Google was forced to put a ballot on Google.com, which would redirect you to your search engine of choice.
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Some areas of the US were served by a CLEC, not a Bell. I guess Bell wasn't a monopoly, either, cause I had GTE before they merged with Bell Atlantic and became Verizon...
Actually they are (Score:2)
Google has not been taken to court and been declared a monopoly, but by definition they have an overwhelming market share in searching, and are by definition a monopoly. In this case they are a natural monopoly, one that has simply grown up by having all their users consume their product over competitors (and by users I mean people who search their site).
Microsoft became a monopoly in the same way, in that they tied MS DOS and then windows to IBM PC, compatibles, and clones and everyone bought them. Howev
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no, there are a monopoly, there just not wielding their monopoly in a way that sets up barriers.
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Microsoft is (or at least was) a monopoly by definition. The definition being: losing your case against charges of monopolistic behavior makes you a monopolist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft [wikipedia.org]
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By definition, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. They aren't the only operating system in town, they just happen to be the most successful with a vast majority of the market share. That's not because they are erecting large barriers to entry, it's just because the other operating systems aren't as smart as theirs.
See what I did there?
I think you may have missed this entire wikipedia article mostly about microsoft, most of which google is not guilty of. Neither are pure saints or pure sinners, but one is certainly way worse than the other, and only the astroturfers claim MS is the better one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices [wikipedia.org]
Google is a natural monopoly, looking at the capital costs of gathering all that data. I'm not seeing a cruddy OS, cruddy web browser, or a middle of the road office suite as being natural mono
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Content search does suck, but I like the image search much better than the new-ish Google image search.
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Oblg.: Bing Is No Good. :-)
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Well, GNU stands for Gnu's Not UNIX
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I guess I was wrong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym [wikipedia.org]
Although it doesn't make much sense to me.
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Actually, I was under the assumption that Bing Is Not Google.
Google alternative: duckduckgo (Score:3, Informative)
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google.
I've switched recently from google to DuckDuckGo [duckduckgo.com]. I'd call it a decent alternative with a few advantages over Google, and a few disadvantages.
All in all, I consider it a slight downgrade, but google was starting to creep me out too much.
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There was one created by some ex-Google employees a couple years ago, I think it was called Cuil. Going to www.cuil.com times out for me, so I guess it wasn't a success.
I remember trying it a couple times, but I just haven't been able to find another search engine that is good with error messages and technical keywords.
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I find Bing maps to be much better than Google's. At least for my area, bing has higher resolution maps, and the Bird's eye view is a nifty feature: view and location from any angle. I also thing Bing maps has better transitions for zooming. Zoom in real far on Google maps, then zoom out very fast. Your old position will be a small square in a sea of gray, where the new images haven't loaded yet. On Bing maps you get more transitions as you zoom out.
I'm actually using satellite images for part of my researc
Re: Monopoly (Score:3)
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Nobody has a problem with copying, not even google. The problem is that they aren't even *improving* anything! If people want copied google search results they will just use google.
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I tried the image search since Google recently ruined their's. It was even worse as they somehow disabled middle click, open in a new tab.
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What do you expect me to do? Write a spider and create an index of the web on *my* computer?
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Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
What?
You didn't get that?
Editing is a lost art (Score:5, Informative)
"Has overtook Bing"
Cringe..... Maybe they should BING the word overtaken.
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My initial response as well. [cringe] Overtook? OVERTOOK? What the HELL!
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That's true but it should have been either "has overaken" or "overtook"... "has overtook" is wrong
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"Bing has overtook Yahoo"
overtook is the past tense of overtake.
Overtook is the past simple tense: "Bing overtook Yahoo".
Overtaken is the past participle, and is needed here: "Bing has overtaken Yahoo".
Re:Editing is a lost art (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I think it's well wrote as well.
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No, "has overtaken" is the _present_ perfect of "overtake." The _past_ perfect (or pluperfect) is "had overtaken."
Jesus, I had to know these things to get through 2nd grade. Just what are they teaching in schools nowadays?
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2nd grade? I call bs. College freshman don't get that stuff right.I only know those English rules because I had to learn them while earning my two foreign language degrees.
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If you read enough (and that's not much), you don't need to know the fancy grammatical terminology. The bad grammar just sounds wrong.
That said, I'm having to lighten up and accept that the world at large is going to keep saying "less" instead of "fewer", and the word "gotten" is going to continue to encroach upon British English.
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It's possible to disagree with Stephen Fry, you know.
In the case of "less" vs "fewer", for me -- presumably because of lots of exposure to 'correct' English -- it jars and makes me feel uncomfortable when I hear it.
You'd think it odd if I asked for "fewer sugar" in my coffee, or that due to cuts the local council is getting "fewer money". For many of us it jars the same way if someone says the library is getting "less books". However, as I said, it seems to be a lost cause and I'm having to get used to it.
Q
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I literally did a facepalm when I saw this. The only reason I was going to post was to make the same observation.
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I suspect that horrid phrasing was an improvement. I imagine the earliest versions of that phrase were something like "has overtookened".
Hm. That word is perfectly cromulent.
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Submitter should of drug his dictionary out of hiding.
How many by choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:How many by choice? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I live, all the goverment employees computers are set to use Bing in the IE search box (and this cannot be changed, it is enforced by group policy) because Microsoft gave the government a discount if they made all government employees use Bing on their work machines.
Of course government employees can type in "google.com" into the address bar and use Google (or whoever else) if they wish, but I would imagine most just enter things into the search bar.
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Microsoft abusing their monopoly yet again, using their desktop OS to force their way into the search (advertising) market. They haven't changed a bit.
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You mean like Android or Chrome or...
The search Business is all about defaults. Google developed an operating system in order to be the default search engine.
And I has (Score:3)
Overtook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Overtook? Really? Why do we have editors? Why not just vote on the news items that get posted, since the editors apparently are incapable of doing their job. On top of that, the whole first sentence is a complete mess, not to mention the rest of the summary. Did a 5th grader write it?
Maybe the submitter should have plagiarized someone competent in grammar and spelling.
Double-surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Which is more surprising? That 4.37% can land a #2 spot, or that anyone uses Bing?
Both are rather startling, imho.
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"I actually use travel.bing.com..."
Well I have a young child, so I'd prefer if I could search for children's fares as well. Interface is ok otherwise, but not better or worse than your average flight search site.
Yahoo = Bing (Score:5, Insightful)
Bing = Google (Score:4, Funny)
Since Bing is getting data from Google doesn't that make Google 94.31%?
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Damn, just ran out of +1 Insightful, Article Submitter and Editards Are A Bunch of Marketdroid Cretins Who Don't Know The Difference Between An Engine And A Brand ratings points.
I make that 4.37% + 3.93% = 8.3% for Bing, the "search engine".
Re:Yahoo = Bing (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, so now we know the number of people too lazy to change their default search engine :)
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In one sense, yes. But in another, no. Yahoo was once powered by Google. Since Yahoo can just switch out what they use relatively seamlessly from the perspective of the average user, it's implicitly understood that the numbers are just comparing what the internet population uses as a portal/url for search.
wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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They haven't figured that out... they've just figured out how to go to google first...
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Yes - this is the case in the large organisation I work for - we share terminals briefly for looking up data, and sometimes search the web. It isn't time-worthwhile to go through changing the default search engine to google, although I still do it every now and then.
I have seen people 'bing' for 'google'
D
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I ask this as someone that has seen his wife bring up Google in the Firefox browser window to do a search when the Google search bar is right! frickin! there!
She probably used web browsers for awhile before search bars were "invented". I certainly did.
Its much more of a pain to delete your history in the search bar than just "X" a tab. Some things I search for are best forgotten, as best as possible, I guess.
It also annoys me that once I'm "done" with searching something, the search bar does not blank and I've gotta keep looking at something I'm done with. Poor UI. Its like not being allowed to kill a browser tab or not being allowed to delete an email. Boy
Probably due to Verizon / RIM (Score:2)
Baidu (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that this article does not mention Baidu makes me very suspicious. Its information is fallacious.
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The Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
No thanks.
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I think you got it backwards:
MSN Search first launched in the third quarter of 1998 and used search results from Inktomi
Windows Search first popped up in XT (after that) and it is a rather decent search. I am using it all the time at work.
Microsoft SharePoint 2003 - the first commercial release of SharePoint
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And then there's Sharepoint. Again, I can "search" for a term that I know is somewhere and it won't show up. Since search doesn't work, I have to send raw URLs out to people and they're always something like "https://monkey.spank.org/gtfo/wtf/LAME/sites/Guides%20or%20Documents%20Blah.aspx?RootFolder=%2asdf%2zxcv%2fGTFO%2fSites%20
Bing is over rated when given 2nd place. (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
loldot (Score:2)
Can Bing haz overtook Yahoo!?
Google Web == MS Desktop (Score:3)
Why is Windows monoculture bad and Google monoculture good?
Monoculture is monoculture.
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Because this is Monoculture 2.0!!!
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Windows is an inferior product (especially in the past), which has lent significant ammunition to critics of Microsoft. Is ther
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Pyrrhic Victory (Score:5, Insightful)
How many tens of millions of dollars in development hours and PR efforts has this cost them? And for what? To say they are a bit better than Yahoo which is quite literally a zombie?
Once again, Microsoft makes much hyperbole about obtaining dominance, rolls out it's big new weapon of terror, fires it's salvo and calls it a victory when it manages to only barely scratch the armor of it's target.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
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To say they are a bit better than Yahoo which is quite literally a zombie?
It is even more pathetic than that. Yahoo is actually using Bing as its search engine provider for quite some time. So the migration is not due to any inherent superiority of Bing over Yahoo, noticed by the users. The computers set to use yahoo by default, which happened when the users installed yahoo instant messenger some four or five years ago, are dying. They are being replaced by new ones that use Bing by default. This set of users, about 8% of the total, are clueless about search engines. These chump
congrats (Score:2)
on being the top loser.
And still... (Score:2)
Where are they getting their numbers? (Score:4, Interesting)
ComScore reports search engine market share for the US [comscore.com] each month. They report, for January 2011:
Yahoo is just reselling Bing now. Yahoo no longer has a search engine. So Bing's total is 29.2%. The US market has been split about like that for the last several years - Google with 2/3 of the market, Microsoft + Yahoo with 1/3, and the rest nowhere.
Outside the US, Google is dominant in most countries [searchenginewatch.com] other than China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex).
Grammar. (Score:3)
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Which makes it all the more amazing that Google has a ~90% share.
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I don't need advertising companies watching everything I do under the guise of "free stuff".
So, which crawler are you using to operate your own search engine, and how many pages are you indexing?