Here's a sentence I never expected to write: For the past few months I've used Bing as my default search engine.<p>While Bing's standard search results are slightly worse than Google's, both sets of traditional searches have been in a steady decline for years. It's not news on HN that both technical results and product recommendations have become especially awful outside of forums like Reddit.<p>However, Bing's "chat" feature with ChatGPT 4 was brilliant. I'd developed a habit of "chatting" instead of searching, especially for technical queries. Bing became my go-to instead of Google. They converted me! I thought it was a brilliant move by Microsoft.<p>Being a Linux + un-googled Chromium user, this was largely thanks to the "Bing Chat for All Browsers" extension. Even if I <i>wanted</i> to use Edge as my daily driver, I couldn't on my Fedora workstation. But Microsoft sent a legal takedown to the developer, leading to this: https://github.com/anaclumos/bing-chat-for-all-browsers/issues/119<p>So I just switched back to Google today. They have Bard now, with no browser restrictions - I'll try it out instead.<p>Was I really so far out of Microsoft's target demographic that it's part of their product strategy to lose me? They're clearly aiming at Windows + Edge users. Maybe they're getting so many conversions in that segment that actively churning Linux-centric developers like me isn't a big deal?
I wouldn't say missed the opportunity, they definitely tried to, but they botched the opportunity.<p>Many people have switched off using Bing, not just alternative users. But..<p>I'm sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.
So many tech companies have their strategy to develop and train AI.<p>Microsoft has Windows+InternetExplorer/Edge and users.<p>Google has its API's like fonts and users.<p>Reddit has it sub reddits, moderators and users.<p>Facebook has its users.<p>So all these tech companies are still competing, just in their own unique way.<p>Apple I havent figured out yet.
Neither Google nor Bing is a search engine; neither one makes any money from search. They are both advertising sales and placement engines. Google is winning because it started with a larger audience, and is thus more attractive to advertisers.
> Even if I wanted to use Edge as my daily driver, I couldn't on my Fedora workstation.<p>Why not? Edge exists for Linux. Microsoft maintains a repository with rpm packages for Edge and it is also available via a Flatpak.
I like that DuckDuckGo uses Bing as a source and DDG acts as a proxy to Bing. Bing is a huge personal-data grab by Microsoft and all their recent AI is just cruft I will never use, personally.