search engine

Android users in Europe will get to pick their search engine of choice, as Google complies with the antitrust ruling from the European Commission, though in doing so the company will be lining its own pockets. Google was found guilty last year of creating a monopoly situation in Europe, insisting that Android smartphones have the Chrome browser pre-installed, and its own search engine set as the default.

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After spending just a few minutes with Valve's new Interactive Recommender for Steam, I can already see the massive improvement. I've been using app stores and game stores since before they were digital, and I've never experienced such a smooth process. This is a positive, well-planned, thoughtful, non-intrusive way to use machine learning, and I'm glad it was a gaming company that had to be the first to make it happen.

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Mobile-First Indexing by default is the new way of things at Google Search. This won't come as a surprise to those that've been watching the throne - Google's been headed toward this day for a long time. But today's the day. Today is when the official Googlebot army begins indexing new webpages with a mobile-first approach.

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Google Search is getting a makeover, with results set to add recognizable brands and more in order to make finding your answer even quicker. The update will be showing up in mobile results first, Google says, though it coincidentally arrives in the midst of an indexing glitch that has left the search giant ignoring new content.

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The Chinese government seems to be working to further strengthen its notorious Great Firewall of censorship. Or at least that’s the growing suspicion behind the still unexplained outage of Microsoft Bing in China. While it’s not really unusual for the restrictive regime to block access to Internet services to “protect” its citizens from outside corruption, Bing’s exit could mean that Chinese users will no longer have access to non-Chinese search engines completely.

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DuckDuckGo, the search engine that revolves around user privacy, has brought users a combination of mapping and private searches via Apple's MapKit JS framework. The update enables DuckDuckGo users to search for locations and enjoy better map results, including enhanced satellite images, new visual features, better support for address searches, and more. Unlike now, DuckDuckGo's mapping results utilized OpenStreetMap and were fairly limited.

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Almost since birth, Google's done business with Apple - be it by listing ads, running GPS maps, or by being a default for search on a smartphone. Apple and Google understand that it's better for business that they collaborate and compete, rather than just one or the other. Today we're going to talk about how Google paid Apple one massive amount of money for one key bit of preferential treatment in their MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, and so forth.

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The internet is a huge place, and while there's a variety of search engines available, it's undeniable that Google is the top player: it handles roughly 77% of web searches around the world. But with that in mind, it's still an impressive feat when an underdog reaches a milestone, especially one with goals different from the entrenched leader. That's the case this week, as the anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo hit 30 million direct searches in a single day.

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Google's next step after Google Feed is "Google Discover" and it's all about News. Google's describing it a bit differently - they're offering this system up as a set of changes in the way they think about Search. "We're launching a major update to this experience," said Karen Corby, Google Search Group Product Manager, "including a new name, a fresh look, and a brand-new set of features."

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Today Microsoft Search was introduced - or re-introduced - with an eye on searching everywhere, in all things, at all times. This is Microsoft's biggest effort to take on Google and its all-in integration of services, but with Microsoft's strong points. That means search in Office 365 documents as well as on-machine and on the web. "Getting pages of results with hyperlinks to other information is simply not enough," said Jeff Teper, Corporate Vice President for OneDrive, SharePoint, and Office.

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Donald Trump was concerned this week that Google suppresses conservative news media in search results. He did so in two Tweets, one of which asked whether this practice was legal. Inside the United States, the FCC effectively ended Net Neutrality in December of 2017. Net Neutrality is not the same as Search Neutrality, and neither the FCC nor the FTC (nor any other government entity) has the legal power to tell Google that it needs to show "fair and balanced" search results - at least where politics are concerned.

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This week Google's Podcast app was revealed in detail, from audio search to indexing. As it turns out, Google already released their Podcast App in the form of an update to their already-in-play Google Search app. Getting to this Podcast interface is not entirely intuitive - but for a good reason. Google doesn't just want to run over your face with their Podcasting abilities, not when you might want to be searching for other Podcasting apps. That's not what Google is all about.

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