• Hmm. I have an incredibly strong aversion to everything Microsoft, so even giving Bing a chance is difficult. However, I must admit that I can recognize the part about Google not delivering. I even went so far as to tamper with the CSS recently just to make Google’s results slightly easier to parse.

          Maybe it’s time to try something new 🤔 I just wish the only viable alternative wasn’t made by Microsoft 😓🤢

          Dark timeline, indeed! 😔

      • It was enough to make me try Bing… which lasted all of about ten seconds (one search) before I ran screaming for the hills back to Duck Duck Go.

        So no, I don’t think this can make people use Bing - that product has so many problems I’m not sure it will ever be good enough.

        Having said that - ChatGPT is really good at interpreting a user search term and equally good at understanding the contents of an arbitrary webpage. It’s a perfect tool to build a search engine around, and I can’t wait for someone more competent than Bing to do just that.

        • It’s incredible just how bad Microsoft is at product design 😳

          Every time I visit with parents, or other older-gen acquaintances, I’m the go-to “help me fix this tiny issue with my [software]”, and invariably it will be Outlook or Word or some other flavor of Office software, and I just want to scream. Even just looking at that nightmare top bar in Word triggers nausea.

          I know I’m just not the target audience, and that there is some degree of obfuscation-by-design going on to enable their meaty underbelly of third party support companies (an entire fucking industry just to deal with their software, which in turn need certification, and so forth). It’s still difficult to understand how people can interact with the overwhelming horribleness of it all, day in and day out, and not go on a rage-fueled rampage.

          Slightly unrelated, if not tangential — I mentioned in a comment somewhere yesterday that I love MacOS, but I wouldn’t touch an iPhone with a ten foot pole.

          Look at my shiny iPhone! someone will say, and then shove it in your face. It’s the new 2023 edition!

          That’s nice, you’ll reply, but why are the icons so big?

          Well you see…

          Couldn’t you make them smaller, and increase the grid size a bit? 4x6 seems a bit wasteful.

          Yeah well the thing is…

          Why did you place all the apps at the top of the screen? Isn’t that where they’ll be the most difficult to reach on a screen that big? Move that app to the bottom of the screen, would you, just to try it out?

          Yes, uhm, that’s not compatible with Apple’s design principles. They’ve been the bleeding edge of mobile phones since the first iPhone, and I’m sure they know best!

          You know, now that you mention it, it does look almost identical to the original iPhone screen layout! Imagine that, being right on your first try! Very impressive. Oh well, no problem, I’m happy you enjoy your phone ❤️

          🤢