>Google's horror-show of a search engine What's wrong with the search engine? I've never heard anyone complain about it before. Mind giving examples of why their search engine is a 'horror show'?

Dreadful filtering of search results.
Being old-school, I use a number of advanced search techniques the manual way. Even then the number of results I get, which have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm looking for are absurd.

Sponsored results and paid-for prioritising of search results.
When I use a search engine, I want to know that the results I get are prioritised based upon their relevance to what I actually went looking for, NOT because someone has paid to make sure their site gets higher priority

As far as alternatives, AltVista used to be an excellent alternative, but due to the massive marketing machine that is Google, it has almost been run into insignificance.

"Not heard compliants"?
Do a search for "Google Alternatives" and see just how many results you get. The simple fact is that a HUGE number of people have been looking for a Google Search alternative for a LONG time now.

showing to be the new tyrant on the block! Google actually reminds me of Microsoft ten yrs ago Really? You'll have to explain this one to me. How is google like microsoft 10 years ago? How does google have bad marketing practices (I think thats what you ment by "the new tyrant on the block" )?

The massive amount of acquisitions , which are either re-branded as their own, or snuffed out to remove competition.

Also the way they put their weight behind the EU witch-hunt over MS and their bundling of IE and other core apps... and just what are they proposing with the much-rumoured Chrome OS, which is literally an OS being built around all of their own apps!

And then there is of course the way they are trying to build their own monopoly at the expense of MS

Google has long been a privacy-wh@re Yup. Even I don't like it. But Google has a good history of not giving it out. They are not known for using it in bad way's, and I doubt that a human will ever read any of it.

The fact that they use my info to tailor the Ad-Sense listing I get hit with, either on GMail or Google Search - or anything ELSE Google - is more than a little worrisome.... even more so since several hundred thousand clients private data got leaked a month or two ago.

Plus, you do realise there are lawsuits pending for Google on their handling of privacy, as well as other topics. Read links below. http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5135
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4804
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1476
http://searchengineland.com/google-book-search-lawsuit-gets-conference-treatment-21746
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/google-facing-texas-sized-class-action-lawsuit-over-adwords.ars
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10239946-93.html

Hey guy's have a look at this . It's a blind test of who's search results are better - Google, Bing and Yahoo! Click on the monkey in the corner to get the results. It look's like Google's results are still better than Bing's, but there were a few close calls.

I don't mind Google shipping their own app's in the OS. A) Everything will be open source, so it would be easy to rebrand it with your own app's and settings.
B) I highly dout that Google will start making their program's uncompatble with standard programs. In fact, that would be pointless since it's open source.
I would still probably end up using abyword and other non-google app's offline, if I use their operating system.

>The massive amount of acquisitions, which are either re-branded as their own, or snuffed out to remove competition.
Can you post a link? I've looked through a few anti-google site, but this seems original. If not than can you share more? I like being informed.

The leak was a security problem. It would have happend even if Google wasnt a "privacy wh@re". It was a problem with their online office. Honest error. Google's privacy standard's are arguable . I think that they should raise them for the public, but as an individual, I really don't care.

The bashing is understandable, IMO. People need to vent. In my experience, most peoples' main beefs with Microsoft are the monopolies/anti-trust/bundling issues, which all boil down to people feeling they are being FORCED to use a Microsoft product rather than being allowed to CHOOSE the product they want to use. Thus even when Microsoft comes out with a good product, that backlash and smoldering rage is there and people are unwilling/unable to judge the individual product simply on its merits.

I still haven't understood the whole "bundling issue" debate. If someone is bundling a browser with their OS, what's wrong with that? If a person wants to use Firefox, they'll simply install it on the OS and use itdespite having IE on the system. I know a lot of novice computer users who switched to FF simply because they had read somewhere that it was better than IE. They were in no way wavered by the fact that the system came preinstalled with IE. They just used FF because they wanted to. What's the problem here?

I still haven't understood the whole "bundling issue" debate. If someone is bundling a browser with their OS, what's wrong with that? If a person wants to use Firefox, they'll simply install it on the OS and use it despite having IE on the system. I know a lot of novice computer users who switched to FF simply because they had read somewhere that it was better than IE. They were in no way wavered by the fact that the system came preinstalled with IE. They just used FF because they wanted to. What's the problem here?

Exactly! I know the Microsoft of the nineties and early millennia, was a questionable force unto its own, and in know way do I support that behaviour. But people can't seem to move on, or even the fact that others seem to have taken up the mantle.

Yes MS bundles IE into Windows... con someone give me a single example of an OS which doesn't bundle a browser, or who would even be willing to install an OS which didn't come with a browser out of the box?? Apple bundles Safari - with all its quirks - yet just like Windows users, one can install an alternate browser (even though some of the options available to Windows and Linux users have no OS X build available), but no-one mentions a word. I recently caught a post the Nintendo's Wii uses OPERA for their bundled internet browser, with NO alternative available (ironic, given the fact that it was Opera that started the EU witch-hunt!!). When is this lunacy, and blind anti-MS crap going to stop??

Now yes I am primarily a Windows user, but I still acknowledge the good points of OS X and some Linux distros (Ubuntu.... well forget it!). I also can acknowledge MS's past crimes, but also can understand some of where it came from. Early MS was under the helm os Gates - we all know that. What many MS hates don't know is that Gate's is mildly Autistic... a condition well documented cause diminished capabilities of empathy, social awareness, as well as a tendency for a "blinkered" focus on one's passions and interests... anyone see how this sounds a little familiar?? As the Microsoft has evolved and loosened the Gate's grip, we can see a company moving away from those roots.

Meanwhile we have Apple over in one corner doing the following:Suing the crap out of anyone who either offers a way to install its precious OS on any hardware not built by them, or heaven forbid sells alternate hardware with OS X pre-installed.
Actively works against ANY application which alters the appearance of OS X.the HELL gives them the right (morally or legally) to decide what the phone's OWNER can or cannot install on the device they paid a small fortune for?? And you can MS "Tyrants"??
Creating a situation where an iPhone owner has to JailBreak their phone just to install any app that Apple hasn't approved (I mean what
Delays any warnings when security flaws are found in their OS, for fears the glam might by wiped away
And bases their ad campaigns not on the actual positives of OS X (and I can happily admit it does have some real positives), but by slandering the competitor.

And then of course we have Google with all its privacy abuses and its spamming of the entire bl@@dy internet.

Personally I'm tired of the anti-MS band-wagoners. If you can't find a relevent and up-to-date argument, or can't admit the flaws of the competitors who are often surpassing MS's past (or especially recent) behaviour, then shut up and go home!

The problem with Windows bundling there own browser was that they create their own "html" if you will, and made it so other browsers can't legally copy them. Soon people developed their webpages for IE, and anyone who wanted to see them had to use IE. kaninelupus said Microsoft has changed, which I partially agree on based on an ad I saw for Windows Azure . I'm still using Google bassed on quality, and I wan't to see how their OS fairs against Windows.

BTW, What's wrong with Ubuntu? It is a little bit balky for my taist, but it's starting to lighten up.

i gonna use it
i like to try new things

I have tried Bing but I don't see any different from google.com, there are not special function, the results can be found in Bing also can be find in Google, so why bother changing it?:-/

I have tried Bing but I don't see any different from google.com, there are not special function, the results can be found in Bing also can be find in Google, so why bother changing it?:-/

Why bother changing?? Maybe because it can return those results without:

a) invading my personal info to "customise" the search results

b) without bombarding with a whole heap of irrelevant results, thus a more useful search.

c) without storing my search history for later use.

I've been looking for a Google search alternative for some time now, as I simply find much about Google's practices, both inefficient and disturbing. I don't care if a better model comes from MS or the man on the moon... if it provides a viable alternative to Google, I'm running it though its paces.

I still haven't understood the whole "bundling issue" debate. If someone is bundling a browser with their OS, what's wrong with that? If a person wants to use Firefox, they'll simply install it on the OS and use it despite having IE on the system. I know a lot of novice computer users who switched to FF simply because they had read somewhere that it was better than IE. They were in no way wavered by the fact that the system came preinstalled with IE. They just used FF because they wanted to. What's the problem here?

My personal worst horror story regarding bundling, and it's a very common horror story, is the bundling of my laptop with Vista Home when I bought it two or three years ago. Vista was new, I didn't want it and I definitely didn't want Vista HOME, but I had absolutely no choice in the matter. Everything in the store had Vista on it so it wasn't like I could buy a different laptop. Vista, at that time, hadn't worked out the kinks yet to say the least. I couldn't install XP since there were and I think still are no drivers for it for this laptop. You don't get a Vista Home disk with the laptop. You get a System Restore disk, which is bundled with all of the Microsoft special offers, stuff like that, so you have to uninstall all that junk. You CAN'T uninstall Internet Explorer even if it's corrupted, I don't think, which mine is. Ditto with Windows Exlorer and Windows Media Player, I believe, which is constantly crashing. Etc., etc. I don't know if it's the fact that I don't have the plain old Vista disk but instead have the System Restore disk. End result is the laptop came bundled with a (at that time) new OS that I don't want to use and which was constantly crashing and I had no way to change to XP. I suppose I could have changed it to Linux. And I can't simply completely uninstall the programs I don't want.

I know I am not the only one who has had this bad experience. If I had wanted to volunteer to be a Vista beta tester, I would have done so.

Everyone (kaninelupus) seems to getting quite annoyed at the fact that google looks at your personal information to get you the most relevant search results. But really i dont see a problem with that. Its not like there is a google employee that is sitting there checking out your personal information and writing it down to blackmail you with it later.

Really all that happens is there is a computer program that looks through it, so whats the issue? Google has never flaunted private information. Why should they? What would they gain? Apart from a huge amount of people hating them and their image down the drain. I can understand some people are hesitant about the fact that google knows so much about you, but really, when is that actually going to matter? Apart from making your internet searches a lot more convenient.

>can someone give me a single example of an OS which doesn't bundle a browser
Yeah, Windows Seven EU release. :P
Sorry, I just had to. :D

My personal worst horror story regarding bundling, and it's a very common horror story, is the bundling of my laptop with Vista Home when I bought it two or three years ago. Vista was new, I didn't want it and I definitely didn't want Vista HOME, but I had absolutely no choice in the matter. Everything in the store had Vista on it so it wasn't like I could buy a different laptop. Vista, at that time, hadn't worked out the kinks yet to say the least. I couldn't install XP since there were and I think still are no drivers for it for this laptop. You don't get a Vista Home disk with the laptop. You get a System Restore disk, which is bundled with all of the Microsoft special offers, stuff like that, so you have to uninstall all that junk. You CAN'T uninstall Internet Explorer even if it's corrupted, I don't think, which mine is. Ditto with Windows Exlorer and Windows Media Player, I believe, which is constantly crashing. Etc., etc. I don't know if it's the fact that I don't have the plain old Vista disk but instead have the System Restore disk. End result is the laptop came bundled with a (at that time) new OS that I don't want to use and which was constantly crashing and I had no way to change to XP. I suppose I could have changed it to Linux. And I can't simply completely uninstall the programs I don't want.

I know I am not the only one who has had this bad experience. If I had wanted to volunteer to be a Vista beta tester, I would have done so.

Your example was more of an OEM bundling A LOT of other apps with Vista which you seem to be biased against (like a lot of people). What if your system had been bundled with XP instead? I'm sure you would have been satisfied with the product and performance despite the OEM bundling it's own software. Indeed, XP also would have been bundled with IE and WMP and you would simply have chosen to install FF/Opera/Safari and use that instead. How is that Microsoft's fault?

My personal worst horror story regarding bundling, and it's a very common horror story, is the bundling of my laptop with Vista Home when I bought it two or three years ago. Vista was new, I didn't want it and I definitely didn't want Vista HOME, but I had absolutely no choice in the matter. Everything in the store had Vista on it so it wasn't like I could buy a different laptop. Vista, at that time, hadn't worked out the kinks yet to say the least. I couldn't install XP since there were and I think still are no drivers for it for this laptop. You don't get a Vista Home disk with the laptop. You get a System Restore disk, which is bundled with all of the Microsoft special offers, stuff like that, so you have to uninstall all that junk. You CAN'T uninstall Internet Explorer even if it's corrupted, I don't think, which mine is. Ditto with Windows Exlorer and Windows Media Player, I believe, which is constantly crashing. Etc., etc. I don't know if it's the fact that I don't have the plain old Vista disk but instead have the System Restore disk. End result is the laptop came bundled with a (at that time) new OS that I don't want to use and which was constantly crashing and I had no way to change to XP. I suppose I could have changed it to Linux. And I can't simply completely uninstall the programs I don't want.

I know I am not the only one who has had this bad experience. If I had wanted to volunteer to be a Vista beta tester, I would have done so.

Your example was more of an OEM bundling A LOT of other apps with Vista which you seem to be biased against (like a lot of people). What if your system had been bundled with XP instead? I'm sure you would have been satisfied with the product and performancedespite the OEM bundling it's own software. Indeed, XP also would have been bundled with IE and WMP and you would simply have chosen to install FF/Opera/Safari and use that instead. How is that Microsoft's fault?

(Apologies for the double post)

Your example was more of an OEM bundling A LOT of other apps with Vista which you seem to be biased against (like a lot of people). What if your system had been bundled with XP instead? I'm sure you would have been satisfied with the product and performance despite the OEM bundling it's own software. Indeed, XP also would have been bundled with IE and WMP and you would simply have chosen to install FF/Opera/Safari and use that instead. How is that Microsoft's fault?

It's the lack of choice that bugs me. It takes a few Service Packs before an Operating System gets the kinks out, and it takes time. Vista was pretty new at the time, so it was buggy, and some of the software that worked just fine with XP had problems on Vista, largely with the UAC Control stuff. But there was other stuff too. I'm thinking particularly of programs that used MySQL. I remember having nothing but headaches doing stuff that worked just fine with XP.

XP was probably the exact same way when it first came out. Vista's probably stabilized much better by now. The point is that I think I should have been given a choice, and yes, I would have picked XP if given the choice and the bundled stuff wouldn't have bugged me as much. It's all about given the choice of Operating System and being given an actual Operating System disk so I can just install the Operating System if I want, with no Microsoft Money trials, etc., rather than Microsoft or anyone else making the choice FOR me. It's like buying a car and everyone being forced to have the same options. You get to pick and choose there. Why not when you buy a computer?

Everyone (kaninelupus) seems to getting quite annoyed at the fact that google looks at your personal information to get you the most relevant search results. But really i dont see a problem with that. Its not like there is a google employee that is sitting there checking out your personal information and writing it down to blackmail you with it later.

The issue is the poor security protocols in place to KEEP that data private. Given that they have already had leaks, what would stop the determined hacker went for that data in a serious fashion?

The other issue I have is that there is no "opt out" option. For example, when you sign up on almost any forum, or sign up for Hotmail, you get the option NOT to get newsletters, company adverts etc. When it comes to Google, thereis no opt out option... if you use their products, consent is automatically given, not only to accept the adverts, but also for them to mine and store any personal stats and info they can so they can specifically tailor what ads they hit you with.

I'm sorry, but I find that completely unacceptable. If I get a private/personal email, I don't like the thought that ANYONE (either a real person or some automated application) can just sift through that email.

>can someone give me a single example of an OS which doesn't bundle a browser Yeah, Windows Seven EU release. :P Sorry, I just had to. :D

Not anymore. Now the "pick-a-browser" panel just lets you choosewhich browser you get. And the OEM can bundle any browser in the "E" builds anyhow (funny how the OEM can, but MS can't!).

>The issue is the poor security protocols in place to KEEP that data private.
I don't see how Google is less secure than other online services. Not to mention the privacy data is processed offline, so protection is alot easer. How do you even know the privacy security protocols are unsecure?

>if you use their products, consent is automatically given, not only to accept the adverts
So your saying Google should stop their entire advertising campaign? How would they make money? What about the companies that advertize?

>I don't like the thought that ANYONE (either a real person or some automated application) can just sift through that email.
So, you don't like it when an email service has a built in antivirus which scan's through your mail? If you don't want a program to process your mail, I'd sugest snail mail. Even than, packages you send maybe put through x-ray machines, and looked at by real people, who also see your name and address.

Wow already 4 pages! And I'm glad that a large majority of the people replying have voted against MS. Keep it up!

Now this just sounds like the typical anitMS-bandwagoner tripe I come across in all the usual places. It's old-hat and am personally getting sick of it!>The issue is the poor security protocols in place to KEEP that data private.
I don't see how Google is less secure than other online services. Not to mention the privacy data is processed offline, so protection is alot easer. How do you even know the privacy security protocols are unsecure?

Well given that recentslips were not even the result of a hack attempt, but a fault at Google's end, that one seems pretty obvious!

>if you use their products, consent is automatically given, not only to accept the adverts So your saying Google should stop their entire advertising campaign? How would they make money? What about the companies that advertize?

Advertising is one thing... using ppl's private info to "tailor" said-advertising is another matter all together.>I don't like the thought that ANYONE (either a real person or some automated application) can just sift through that email.
So, you don't like it when an email service has a built in antivirus which scan's through your mail? If you don't want a program to process your mail, I'd sugest snail mail. Even than, packages you send maybe put through x-ray machines, and looked at by real people, who also see your name and address.

Now you are just being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic! AV scanning - fine. Scanning for details to then spam me with... F#CK OFF!

Let me put it this way. When it was shown that MS had built into Vista methods to scan any Vista installation to verify authenticity and topossibly shut-down pirated builds (I say possibly as never heard of an example where it actually happened), people screamed loudly over "privacy violations". But when Google scans people's private info with no more justification than customising their ad-ware spam on a user-by-user basis, you're like "hey, Google needs to make money"! WTF??

Nop,
I believe in GOD. (Google Oriented Development) :)