M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

it's Microsoft. You don't need to edgelord censor yourself.

Need to enshittify it enough to make the AI features feel like an improvement.

Here's the UBlock filters for a better experience, on this day, 12-9-2024. Sadly, the results are still bing results, and the MS data vacuum is still in effect. (there's a chance this get's filtered cause of all the urls, so if there's nothing below, oh well, woulda been nice, huh.

edit, image now

Oh my god that's amazing. Instructions on how to do what you're literally doing, dead internet theory is so correct. Instructions for robots by robots

Okay, totally off topic...what is it with this annoying trend of censoring a company/name with an asterisk when it's a subject of ire? It just bugs me - and not in a way that focuses my anger to Microsoft.

And to add insult to injury...

Is softonic actually malware or an unreliable repository that may contain malware? I’ve never actually clicked in lol

How is Softonic still allowed to advertise it's literally Malware

Softonic has to have made a deal with the SEO devil.

Non idea how their disgusting malware is always on top.

Softonic be like every app you want we have it, even the non exist ones. But once you installed our apps you already have made a pact with the devil

Wow reading through these comments makes me a little sad. Most people still don't know jack about search engines or how they differ under the hood, or eve just how to add them into your browser search bar. Looks like all the effort I put into that that simple search engine guide was in vain.

Not to defend Bing in anyway, but I typed logitech unifying software and the first result is the download page on logitechs site.

I am not doubting you, but why is it so different for me? I see non of the ???? section, no ads, just a link at the top like you would expect.

What are you using or doing different?

still looks better than the average Google search

I would give startpage.com a shot i find it works even better than duckduckgo

Borderline?

There's still DuckDuckGo, or Kagi if you are rich.

Hey now, that malware has paid to be the top result! Probably using the proceeds scammed out of somebody who downloaded it.

💸 Microsoft 🤑 got 💰 paid 🫰 so... they managed to come out ahead of this whole ordeal just fine.

The rest of us can go suck a bag of dicks for all they care.

Mainstream search engines (google and bing) are completely useless. Alternatives ftw.

Stract.com open search engine a guy built in his basement. It is not perfect but feels like Google used to in the late 90s, when you had real results

It’s gone really downhill ever since co-pilot

It’s hard to call it better than Google now

Damn is it ugly...

How does Microsoft’s compare to M*crosoft’s?

I just use Google with uBlock Origin to get rid of adverts

tbf it seems to be a common issue with search engines atm. brave also has the stupid ai response topmost, and startpage without adblock pushes in so many sponsored results that you need to scroll to get to anything else

And they force windows users to not use chrome

At least what you are looking for, is on the first page. With Google you get half a page of ads not relevant to your search, and two pages of SEO garbage, before you get to a relevant search.

Kagi

The only thing bing is good for is watching porn and I will stand by that opinion.

Isn't this the same as Google?

SearXNG is also amazing. The only reason I don't use it more is because it doesn't have an integration into the URL bar in Firefox.

I don't get malware and AI on firefox, but uBlock count's continually up. I know this behavior only from trash dump sites.

If you are interested maybe look at this post I made comparing search engines

I wouldn't say it's borderline unusable tbh...

The first adware result is blocked with any ad blocker, the fact you see it means you might not have your ad blocker on, or disabled in incognito mode.

The second and third copilot bullshit sections can be toggled off from any search result page, on the sidebar settings there's a toggle.

I do appreciate the bing rewards thing, basically every few weeks I get a gift card because you earn points by using bing

If you know you want Logitech software, why not go directly to the Logitech site and search there?

I've been using my own searxng instance for a few months now and my god I'm never going back.

Google is even worse.

SearXNG

Next time just go directly to the domain. You don't need to rely on a search engine for all web navigation, you know.

what’s even the point of a download link if you don’t have a guide that tells you how to click the link

No joke, I hesitated to even click on the thumbnail. That's what this bullshit modern internet has conditioned me to do.

Should've just asked your trusty copilot 🤖

I mean... you went to Bing to search for a program. That's something that a new or inexperienced user would do, and Bing tried to help. It gave a direct link to the software (a link which I just tested to be working and safe on a virtual machine), it instructed how to do it using the official website, and then as a third option, it gave a link to the website.

I know that a lot of people will automatically assume a site like Softonic is loaded with malware (and I don't have the time to refute all of those claims) but the download they provided of the software was just a mirror of the official download and came with no added malware, spyware, or adware. Use at your own risk, but OP is pretty clearly fearmongering in an attempt to get people to give them internet points.

Can someone ELI5 how searx works and if it's worth the hassle of hosting? I'm privacy conscious but not paranoid.

If only they could make a functioning store. Laterally the only os now where you still have to go to a third party website for software.

It’s amazing how bad that is.

Bing does not allow for exclusion of specific phrases by using hyphens and quotes. You can put them in your query, but they will be ignored.

Searching for: Topic -TopicSimilar

Is identical to: Topic

is it based on your searches or something? both in the browser with fingerprint protection where it thinks im from Usa and from the one where it detects my correct location the first result is from logi.com. I really hate bing, specially since they started pushing ai, but dunno, doesnt seem like the normal user experience what you are getting.

The relevant thing is almost certainly malware too in this case.

paid ActivityPub updooterer wen

Your search query is garbage incidentally. Unifying is a "feature" not the name of any particular software. You should have searched for the model of your hardware