Google: Probably Just Better

I converted to a new Windows 10 ThinkPad workstation from an older, Windows 7 ThinkPad workstation back in 2015.

Not being prone to evaluating nuances or figuring out how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin, I took Edge as my browser and accepted the easy default dictated by that choice of Bing as my search engine.

In the intervening years my life has neither been improved, nor impaired by that choice.

Most of what a search engine dishes up is a starting point, not an answer.

But, on occasion, Bing gave me starting points that really were ending points.

And a few times the answer that was on offer was not only not the one I wanted, but it also ran against every intuitive instinct that I possess.

So I cross checked with Google on those few occasions.

And on those few occasions my intuition was correct.

On those occasions there was an obvious and easy answer to my question that Bing had completely missed.

Most recently - I have just upgraded to a Windows 11 ThinkPad workstation - Bing assured me that my HP P1006 printer had no Windows 11 support.

That seemed unlikely.

So I asked Google.

Google served up an array of links to people that had worked around Bing's certainty of no Windows 11 support for the HP P1006.

I chose at random one of the myriad You Tube videos telling me how to make Windows 11 use the P1006.

This one featured an English speaker with a Hindi accent.

Incomprehensible? 

Yes.

But unusable? 

No (we have all fixed things speaking on the phone to Hindi/English speakers, after all, so we all know to be slow and listen for consonants).

Everything jibed on my step-by-step reproduction of the video on my machine - until it didn't.

That was far enough in that it was possible to indulge in open field running and take some wild guesses.

My guesses worked, and so does my P1006.

My point here is that Bing works just fine (and with its new GPT front end it's fun to talk to) but it is no Google.

It seems really hard for me to imagine how Google can be found to be guilty of anti-trust malfeasance due to dodgy contracts with unindicted co-conspirators, rather than just because it is clearly better.

I AM unsettled in my soul by that viewpoint, however.