Experiments with browsers etc

[bunn]

Since I got the new laptop, I've been experimenting with using Microsoft Edge, because it's been a long time since I used a Microsoft browser, and it seemed like an idea to spread the distribution of all my personal data across two evil empires rather than just handing over the lot to Google.  (I do have Firefox and Waterfox, but I use them for work, I'd been using Chrome for blogging, social media and random searches.)

Edge actually seems to be OK, although there are a couple of annoying niggles about it which keep surprising me.  Bing, however, the MS searchengine, is really pants compared to Google. I'd forgotten how annoying it was to run searches and find that the engine had misunderstood you and provided results that yes, are technically about The Thing, but not in the way I wanted. 

There is merit to the whole 'sell your soul to Google' thing. OK, it Knows Too Much, but on the other hand, that means that Google can work out that when I want to know when hares were considered inedible in Britain, the academia.edu paper is probably going to trump the hare recipe page.