this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Microsoft Bing is trying to spoof Google UI when people search Google.com (www.windowslatest.com)
submitted 2 months ago by dantheclamman@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] FundMECFS@slrpnk.net 160 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Kind of fucked up but tbf Google does similarly shady stuff.

Please just use duckduckgo (or SearX).

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 46 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I host my own SearXNG instance, which miiiight be a bit of a bad idea because the anonymity of the crowd disappears but hosting your own services is way too cool to ignore. It's at search.gregtech.eu in case anyone wants to use it.

[–] vinyl@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Pretty impressed, very accurate informationLargest manufacturer in the world.

[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Accurate indeed. Pee is stored in the balls, cum is stored in the prostate

[–] Brumefey@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You know your content is certainly used to train LLMs ?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Did they stutter? Everything they said is 100% accurate.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 0 points 2 months ago

It pulls from Wikidata

[–] FundMECFS@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 months ago

Hahha GregSearX I love it!

I’ve used searX in the past and found it was decent but personally I am going to stick with duckduckgo because it just works better for my needs (especially since I’m on mobile).

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

What I don't like about SearXNG (aside of no favicons/icons I think) is that it doesn't show the content of what I am looking for in the browser desktop tabs, if I search for "Linux" in the tab it is only shown "SearXNG" instead of what I am searching for... That definitely kills my browsing habits... I hope I am being clear (can't post a screenshot right now), also unsure if it was the same with mobile browsers.

[–] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You can control that with a setting. In Settings - Privacy, turn on “Query in the page's title.”

My instance has a magnifying glass as the favicon.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Thank you, totally missed this then 😄

[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That is configurable. Settings > Privacy > Query in the page's title

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Oh, so it was a privacy feature then? Neat!

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can set up a favicon resolver on my instance. I'll do it today.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thank you, I didn't even know it was possible.

I am gonna try it later, happy spying /j

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 2 points 2 months ago

There we go, I have the favicons set up. Sorry for the intermittent downtime, I was doing some configuration.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It supports favicons now, it has to be enabled by the instance.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Thanks for the heads up, always a good thing being proved wrong when asking for features :p

[–] nef@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is nothing like GregTech! Where's the tedious microcrafting to enjoy before every search?

[–] Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

I asked them about that once and they created the instance without knowing about the modpack. xd

[–] moe93@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How did you change the logo? I tried to do that on my instance and failed miserably. Running it through docker.

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 3 points 2 months ago

You gotta mount the image to the place where searxng accesses it, like this in docker compose:

volumes:
      - ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw
      - type: bind
        source: ./images/searxng.png
        target: /usr/local/searxng/searx/static/themes/simple/img/searxng.png
[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So then you can track my searches?

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I guess I could technically do that, but I really don't give a f what people search for on my searxng instance. Plus, Google and the likes have an incentive to use your searches for advertising and building a profile on you.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If people search for illegal content does that get you in trouble?

[–] gregor@gregtech.eu 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, none of that content is on my server, and the search engines searxng indexes probably so their best to remove illegal stuff.

I really hope I don't get in trouble for anything, but I doubt I will. I have a grand Total of like 5 users.

[–] MuAraeOracle@real.lemmy.fan 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are in for a surprise, tomorrow you will have 7 users, you just got Lemmyed!

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago

Lemmy hug of... life?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

DDG is just Bing under the hood

[–] FundMECFS@slrpnk.net 58 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And Searx is the same. And startpage is just google.

But the point is they don’t track.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

DDG was letting Bing track users. They may have stopped now that they got in trouble for it.

[–] FundMECFS@slrpnk.net 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Wait really?

Best I could find was this arstechnica article from 2022:

Microsoft trackers run afoul of DuckDuckGo, get added to blocklist: Search privacy company still needs Bing, but won't allow Microsoft's trackers. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/microsoft-trackers-run-afoul-of-duckduckgo-get-added-to-blocklist/

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 months ago

Yeah that would be it:

Previously, we were limited in how we could apply our 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection on Microsoft tracking scripts due to a policy requirement related to our use of Bing as a source for our private search results

I couldn't remember the details exactly, but basically up until then they were allowing Microsoft tracking despite all their advertising claiming they wouldn't track users.

[–] dan@upvote.au 24 points 2 months ago

SearX is dead; you should use SearXNG now.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I feel like Microsoft is way more shameless about their shady stuff. They've been messing around with impersonating google/chrome for awhile now, they recently had that thing where they would copy all your open chrome tabs, and then when you started your computer it would open edge with all your chrome tabs to trick people into using edge instead.

[–] vinyl@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

They aren't afraid of people complaining about them, they are afraid of the government, and they fulfill a hefty amount of contracts for the gov

[–] vinyl@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I would use anything else before DDG, the primary function of it which is searching, generally feels sucky

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

Why? DDG is fine for search, and the bangs make up for any issues.