Google Just Made Bing the Best Search Engine

[beer]

I just switched the default search engine in my browser from Google to Bing. And if you care about working efficiently, or getting the right results when you search, then maybe you should too. Don't laugh!

Google changed the way search works this week. It deeply integrated Google+ into search results. It's ostensibly meant to deliver more personalized results. But it pulls those personalized results largely from Google services—Google+, Picasa, YouTube. Search for a restaurant, and instead of its Yelp page, the top result might be someone you know discussing it on Google Plus. Over at SearchEngineland, Danny Sullivan has compiled a series of damning examples of the ways Google's new interface promotes Plus over relevancy. Long story short: It's a huge step backwards.

A lot of people are crying foul, and even "anti-trust." Sure, it does seem pretty transparently designed to drive traffic and users to Google Plus, and to make Google Plus brand pages the go-to place for a company's social media presence. And it's true that results from Facebook and Twitter in particular have been noticeably kicked down.

But I didn't switch for political reasons, or as an act of protest. I don't care if Google hurts Twitter or Facebook—or even Friendster for that matter. Boo-hoo. I only care if it hurts me. And this does. Google broke itself.

For years, Google Search has been the highest quality web product I've ever used. It has remained consistently essential as an information-delivery mechanism. I typically hit it hundreds of times a day—on my phone, tablet, laptop and desktop. But with one update it wiped out all those years of loyalty and goodwill it had built up. Sure, I can opt out of social results with a click—but as with all things I don't want to have to opt out. I don't want to have to make that extra click. I want to enter a query, and have the most relevant results returned to me as quickly as possible. (And if Google genuinely doesn't think it's a big deal for people to take the extra step oft opting out, why has it focused so relentlessly on optimizing speed for so many years?)

The great thing is, of course, you can just switch. Hit up your browser preferences, and swap your default to Bing. I know, I know, but yes I'm serious. Sure, Bing had a rocky start. But if you haven't seen it recently it's worth another look. It has a super clean interface. It's fast. And operators work the way you expect them to. Best of all it's relevant.

In short, it's a lot like Google. Not the Google of today, but the Google you fell in love with, the one that put your search results above its financial ones. The Google that delivered.

(

source)

A temporary solution:

1. Sign out of Goolge+ or don't use it.
   
2. Use two browsers
   

I used to have great admiration for Google back in the days for understanding its users and making things intelligently simple, but for the past few years I have been disappointed at the directions they take with their implementations.

They have moved from a simple & intelligent company towards a big & we-know-what-you-will-like type company(ex. Microsoft). Many of the new features they've implemented do not come with an option to opt-out, and it takes months(sometimes even longer) of user complaints for Google to respond with a solution to the inconveniences they have caused. People are not asking them to remove the features, they are just asking to be given an option to use it or not.

These are some examples of their optionless implementations:

- Chrome unable to choose temp location (fixed later)

- Unable to delete/disable chrome most visited (fixed?)

- Disable Google Auto Preview Window (never fixed, redesigned a year or so later)

- Disable Chrome Constant Auto-Updates

- New Google Bar

...and more

Google is still my primary search engine, but I am just disappointed at the way they have become.

UPDATE: I found an official fix to turnoff Google+ personal search results.

Instructions posted here:

[Adrean]

yet another reason to keep away from using google search engine, though I still use youtube and gmail.

I have moved to duckduckgo a couple of months ago and just use google for second opinion xD.

[DKT27]

And it's true that results from Facebook and Twitter in particular have been noticeably kicked down.

Twitter themselves decided not to continue their agreement with Google that had expired some time ago. Twitter yesterday made a statement that they were disappointed by Google's move, but it was an epic fail as they themselves had decided the above. Just mentioning.

These are some examples of their optionless implementations:

- Chrome unable to choose temp location (fixed later)

- Unable to delete/disable chrome most visited (fixed?)

- Disable Google Auto Preview Window (never fixed, redesigned a year or so later)

- Disable Chrome Constant Auto-Updates

- New Google Bar

...and more

Not to forget, Chrome not allowing you to install it where you want it. It's forced installed in appdata folder or something.

[beer]

Not to forget, Chrome not allowing you to install it where you want it. It's forced installed in appdata folder or something.

Glad you mentioned that, because it was a very irritating issue for me as well. I remember it was a pain in the ass getting Chrome to work in limited user accounts without Admin Rights. In some cases, Chrome just wouldn't run even after applying the workarounds, and 100% of the time Chrome can't update due to lack of admin rights(even after setting the account from limited to admin). That was how should I say... retarded? LOL

After a long time of complaints, they finally posted a fix to address this issue. For those interested, the All-User Offline Chrome Installer lets you select Chrome's installation directory, and after installation Chrome can be updated in limited accounts.

[DKT27]

Thanks for the info. Appreciate it. Will try it tomorrow. :)

[beer]

:cheers: