And you're delusional if you think someone actually cares to shill on slashdot. It's not like it isn't a common thing here though, I've been accused of shilling for very many companies just because I commented something positive about them. I must have shilled for Valve because I said Steam is really nice platform for PC games, as you can buy and download your games fast, friend lists work great (especially if you play coop games) and it is just much better done than any other platform. Obviously any sane person would think I was shilling and trying to promote DRM down their asses. Yes, because the way for happy life is to be negative about absolutely everything.

What part of this you don't understand?

Yes, let's lynch anyone who dares to say Microsoft actually does have some good products. WP7 is one of those, as is Bing and Windows 7. On the other hand, I absolutely hate Vista and Windows Mobile. The latter one, though, was good at it's time when you only had something like Symbian. iPhone changed a lot of that. And ultimately Vista wasn't a bad OS, it just sucked because MS had to change the driver and security model. But hardware manufacturers of course only would start working with it if Microsoft pushed Vista out. By the time Win7 came they had their drivers and software worked out.

Just like Google then. And actually Bing users tend to be from more wealthier demographics than most Google users, so it does make business sense to them.

No they haven't and that lie needs to stop. The reason why the tests Google did showed within Bing when Bing toolbar was installed because if users opt-in to it, it collects usage data on what links people click and their anchor texts. The reasoning for this being, if user thinks that the link is relevant, then it can be uses only one vector in Bing. It's only a really small part of it, but because Google used non-existing words within links they obviously didn't show any other results than Google's. And this behavior isn't limited to Bing only - Google uses tons of similar usage analysis to determine search page rankings and to gather information about new sites and pages.

Bing actually is a good service. It's nothing like Live search previously, and they really worked to make it good. And this against the fact that Google has access to great amount of usage statistics. Search engines isn't about just algorithm - it's mostly about using data against those algorithms. And when you have a monopoly in search, you have access to much more data than your competitors, ultimately requiring them to spend much more effort, money and power to compete than the position you are in. This is also why Google collects so much data, from the links you choose in search results. If you've done your research, you notice they use javascript to show the real url in your status bar, but the links still go via Google or do a request in the background to log that info. It helps them collect that info and it makes them have a major power over their competitors.

Now, Bing and Microsoft actually went out and started fighting them, from a seriously underpowered position. And it's great they do, because otherwise Google would be the only search provider in the western world.

This is also the reason why Google is struggling in non-western world like China and Russia. They didn't get there by the time internet got wider usage, so they cannot get market share now.

Firefox with Google as default is a "join project" too. Mozilla depends on almost completely on revenue coming from Google. And unlike Slashdotters think, it's not a "here, take some money and make a great open source browser!". Firefox has (or, had) the market share required and Google wanted to be the default engine so they get users. And they pay a share of revenue generated by those Firefox. Just like Ubuntu, Fedora and other free Linux distros to generate their revenue. Not that's there's anything wrong with that, but usually Slashdotters try to somehow glorify Google. It's business as usual.

Personally, I use StartPage / IXQUICK because it's European and values my privacy more.

Taking pictures of everything, analytics (on most of the internet), business practices that mostly were about targeting people with ads and monetarizing their services with that.

Google got really good at it too. Their own advertisement were always kind of soft, but still visible and used everywhere on their sites like YouTube. Their image of "do no evil" catched a lots of geeks and so on.

Well, eventually they got caught. And I wrote about their practices on Slashdot for a really, really long time. And was modded troll. Go figure :P

Does your kill threat apply if I fucked your 17 years old nephew? While she wanted to have sex with me when dating her? Btw, I am 22 years old, and guys my age date a lot of girls aged 17-19. Would you kill me? Would you kill me with your bare hands?

Yes, bring down the just because I dont accept people taking law to their own hands. Note that they didn't. Police does, and the ask court.

But since we went this route, what about if I said " SmallFurryCreature is interested in childporn", as you take part in this discussion. IN FACT your username suggests something similar too. There are no need for courts. You are a child molester. Kill him.

See what I did there?

So just because I like to use Visual Studio as my IDE you want to physically and violently hurt me? Really?

I approve of taking down all websites because everything is disgusting and wrong.

So if they were bringing down pirates or The Pirate Bay, would you support them as well? They're against the law too.

So vigilance actions are ok now?

I don't support them, but I sure as well don't support people who take it to their own hands to commit crimes like viruses and DDOS just because other people did wrong. They all should be taken to jail.

Which country has attacked more countries. US or China?

As long as you intend to only stay within your country, and as far as your own country doesn't extradite you for it. If you ever want to travel anywhere that has extradition treaty with UK (pretty much everywhere), they can get you. US has a long history of doing that, and afterwise enforcing their own laws to foreign nationals. Even with copyright infringers.