I confess that I’m the guy who uses Bing.
I know, I know – it’s not even on the same “word that became a verb” like Google. No one says “let me bing that”. And who can forget the whole hiybbprqag debacle.
Personally I use it only because Microsoft pays me to do so (and they’ll happily pay you as well). I think I’ve got about $450 in Amazon GCs cumulatively from using Bing. I don’t know if the search results are as good as Google’s but they’re certainly in the same ballpark and meet my needs. And even if I wasn’t being paid, I’d use Bing’s superior image filtering interface. Google has disabled a lot of the most useful image search filters and never supported as many as Bing.
Now it appears that I may have a few more fellow Bingers, as Microsoft is courting both Firefox and Apple to make Bing the default choice for search in their browsers.
Yahoo did this a while back: you give Mozilla a big donation and Firefox is shipped with Yahoo turned on as the default. Users can switch it to something else, but of course many do not.
Microsoft is apparently hoping for the same:
Microsoft wants to bid to make Bing Firefox’s default search engine. The browser’s contract with Google is set to expire this year, at which point Mozilla could either renew it or switch to a different search engine. Microsoft would very much like to take Google’s place in Firefox. It’s not a guarantee that it will actually help boost Bing’s usage — after all, Firefox users who don’t want to use Bing could just switch to a different search engine, as Yahoo found out a few years ago — but Microsoft sees potential in such a deal.
The report also notes that there’s also a potentially more juicy opportunity coming up for Microsoft if it really wants to get serious about pushing Bing. Apple’s Safari browser, which is the main web browser on Apple devices, will have its Google contract expire next year. Despite throwing shade constantly, Google really benefits from the deal it currently has with Apple, and Microsoft could sweep in and try to get Bing to become the main browser on iPhones.
Firefox would be a nice bump but Safari would be huge because suddenly every iPhone on the planet defaults to your browser.
I just hope Microsoft doesn’t stop the Amazon gift cards.
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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In a hundred years, never thought I would say: I am using Bing / Edge now for 95% of my browsing / surfing.
When trying to solve complex coding issues, many times I turn to Google search. Google gives the results for coding much easier; Bing tries to sell me something and have to dig deep to find the solutions:)
I have had two Gmail accounts for many years, one from their beta invite way back. Was a Google girl for many years, but something happened to Google – what I am not sure and cannot put my finger on it, but the big G changed and so did I.
Love the gift cards from Bing too. Between teaching and coding I rack up points fast. During boredom spells I play their trivia for even more points:)
Since I use Windows a lot, figure I might as well stick with Microsoft. Many call them big and evil, I call them part of my life now.