Tired of begging, Microsoft now trying to trick users into thinking Bing is Google
- Reference: 1736191814
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/06/microsoft_bing_spoof_google/
- Source link:
Visitors to Bing.com who conduct a search for 'Google' while not signed into their Microsoft accounts might notice something strange when they hit enter, as demonstrated in the video below captured by The Register . Not only does the screen look suspiciously like a [1]Google doodle , complete with a mostly blank white screen, a search bar, and some text beneath it, but the usual top bar that shows Bing's usual search bar and various ways to filter results is moved off the screen to add to the illusion.
[2]Youtube Video
[3]
Once the shift to hide the actual Bing bar is complete (the remaining search window is just another Bing search field, not a Google one), there's no obvious Microsoft branding at first glance - just a small banner promoting its Rewards points as a reason to "choose Microsoft Bing." Searches for other engines don't return similar results, nor do any other search terms we tried.
[4]
[5]
In short, with everything else Microsoft has tried to do, failing to move Bing beyond a place people go to get to Google, it seems Redmond's latest ploy may involve making Bing's homepage [6]look like Google's to create familiarity or confusion.
Microsoft has been trying for a while to get people to ditch Google's Chrome browser for its own replacement for Internet Explorer, Edge, and Google search for Bing search, naturally, with little success.
[7]
Edge has [8]barely managed to move the needle on [9]browser market share over Chrome in the past year despite trying tricks like putting [10]Edge ads on the Google Chrome download page begging users not to ditch it, [11]force-opening links in Edge instead of a user's preferred browser and [12]importing Chrome data without user permission .
[13]Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing
[14]Did all that AI chatbot hype boost Bing's market share? Oh, wait, never mind
[15]Bing Wallpaper app, now in Windows Store, accused of cookie shenanigans
[16]Bing Chat so hungry for GPUs, Microsoft will rent them from Oracle
Likewise for Bing, Microsoft has tried tricks like [17]popping up advertisements for its own search engine over Chrome on Windows PCs, suggesting users make Bing their default Chrome search engine, in part to get access to [18]GenAI-powered search results . These tricks haven't worked either, with Bing still capturing [19]less than four percent of the online search market.
Will this latest attempt - potentially misleading those who aren't paying close attention - pay off? Probably not sizably. It's also not clear whether Microsoft will reverse course with people beginning to take notice of the trick: We've asked, but haven't heard back.
When asked for its take on the matter, Google responded by referring us to a [20]post on X from Google's VP and GM of Chrome, Parisa Tabriz, who called Microsoft out for the move.
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice," Tabriz wrote. "New year; new low, @Microsoft." ®
[21]
Editor's note: This story was amended post-publication with Google's response.
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/04/google_wallace/
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/01/06/bing-google-results-demo.mov
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z3xgkCqfLBQIO550D_9IIwAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z3xgkCqfLBQIO550D_9IIwAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z3xgkCqfLBQIO550D_9IIwAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/01/06/microsoft-bing-is-trying-to-spoof-google-ui-when-people-search-google-com/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z3xgkCqfLBQIO550D_9IIwAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/24/microsoft_edge_2024/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/23/microsoft_edge_banner_chrome/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/30/microsoft_windows_11_bing/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/30/microsoft_edge_tabs/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/04/microsoft_bing_1m_giveaway/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/bing_ai_search/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/bing_wallpaper_app/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/bing_gpu_oracle/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/chrome_bing_microsoft_pop_ups/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/04/microsoft_openai_chatgpt_bing/
[19] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share
[20] https://x.com/laparisa/status/1876343944700887223
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z3xgkCqfLBQIO550D_9IIwAAAQc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Devious yet inept
Microsoft's ideal scenario is one where you don't have a _choice_ on what to use. If they could, they would absolutely DRM-lock every Windows PC to not only firehose a live feed of all your activity back to their data collection pit (thanks Recall), but to also keep you from switching to anything else more respectful of your time and activity because it just won't run on the platform.
Thankfully we're not there yet, but the days of computer-based jobs now requiring "a subscription to Copilot and a Windows 12-locked PC" are just a few industry mergers and investment slides away
Re: Devious yet inept
Agreed. I will use something if I find it useful to me .
If you try anything to force it on me, you're gone.
Forever.
Bingle
Bungle
Goobing
Gobling
Gotta love the inexorable march of downward spiral. Redirecting people to tools or services that they didn't explicitly choose, making the "opt-out" button merely hide data collection from the user and conducting it anyway behind the scenes. Adding "AI" to every digital interaction to capture & monetize it under the pretense of some half-baked functionality. "Decline" is now "Remind me later", everything is a subscription with ads on top, and both marketing and developers are in an arms race of ever-louder jangling of keys to compete for users' screen time and attention.
Time to chuck it all in the bin and go back to usenet.
> Time to chuck it all in the bin and go back to usenet.
Amen, brother. I'll Gopher that.
Moving on
I really need to get my finger out and complete my switch to linux.
Having said which, I don't think I've ever used bing. It could be the best thing since sliced bread, which isn't saying much (I dislike sliced bread)
Crumbs!
Don't Act Shocked - This is basic Microsoft at it's core
If they can't BEAT it, or BUY it, they will imitate it. Classic Microsoft.
Even Microsoft has forgotten . . .
Bing
Is
Not
Using Bing
I've actually tried to use Bing - such is my distaste for Google- but it's actually crappier than Google's search, giving even more meretricious results. And my distaste for Microsoft and Google were already pretty much level pegging.
Zero innovation so they manipulate users.
It wouldn't be difficult to build a better search engine that current Google. The original was great, but over time, a reduction in search results, censorship, promotion of monetised links, loss of the cached copies and ignoring part of your search query and showing you something they want you to see have dragged what was once the best thing on the net down.
MS could bring back stuff axed by Google, implement better contextualisation, persistent searches, crowd searching, and loads more options. But instead they just try to con people.
They could have rebuilt the OS to be smaller, faster, 100% secure, with a built in distributive infrastructure, whilst allowing users to style it to work and look however they wanted it. But instead they make it worse with every version as they get ready to piss billions away on generative AI - the energy-sapping repackaging of other peoples' content in sentences, sold as magic.
Their Emperor's New Clothes moment will be painful when it comes, and very expensive.
Re: Zero innovation so they manipulate users.
Upvoted. With a 3 quatloos deduction for making the common typo “better […] that ” vs. “better than” - which for irrational reasons I don’t understand, annoys me far more than other common typos (“lose/loose”, “rogue/rouge”, etc.)
Not your problem. I should probably seek help.
Bing was my main search engine until about five years ago or so when it starting aping Google in showing AMP results in a little in-browser AMP browser, with the apparently-requisite not-quite-right hacked-up Javascript scrolling, double address bars, etc.
i.e. they decided to copy Google. They copied the feature that made me stop using Google. So I stopped using Bing.
Bing?
Seems to have found a way to replace Google as the search engine in some cases on my Android phone.... Might be related to SwiftKey which has been owned by M$ for a while now.
Like another poster here I ensure that any product that tries to cajole/trick/delude me into using it gets a hard no and, if particularly persistent, a prize slot in the Pihole rules at home.
Dr. Evil: I need ideas to make our search engine numero uno people!
No. 2: Why don't we mimic Google.
Frau Fabrissa: Ya, people will think we are them!
Scott: A lot of people are unhappy with Google. Why dont we produce relevant results without over-cluttered first page ads and people will happily leave Google for us!
Everybody: [all laughing hysterically]
Dr. Evil: Scott, that's not how things work.
Devious yet inept
I can't speak for anyone else here, but my nature is such that I will use, or not use, something on its merits. If it does a better job than what I was using previously, I'll switch - BUT if someone tries to cajole/browbeat/trick me into using it - nope, I will rebel, kick sharply backwards, and make a point of not using it, because I dislike being manipulated. Other examples: Microsoft's constant nagging to use a Microsoft account to sign in; their tricks and wheedling to prevent me setting Firefox as my default browser; and their pushing of OneDrive.
Hmm, come to think of it, all those examples involve Microsoft. Maybe they're just more inept and unsubtle at manipulating me than other companies.