Bing Tricks People Into Thinking They’re Using Google
In more than a decade of journalism, I’ve seen my fair share of copied designs, but I’ve never seen anything as egregious as Bing’s attempt to trick people into believing they’re using Google. Since time immemorial, people have used default apps to look for better alternatives and switch to them instead. In the past, Internet Explorer was often used to download Firefox or Chrome, but then it was forgotten forever. Now the same thing is happening with Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, and the company is clearly not happy with it.
If you haven’t changed the default settings in the Microsoft Edge browser, your search engine will be Bing. When you type the word “Google” into your browser’s address bar, you’ll see a page that you might think is a Google search, but it’s actually Bing tricking you into believing you’re using your preferred search engine. Bing will load a page that looks very similar to Google, with a fake Google graphic, search bar, results presented in Google design, and show other fake Google UI elements. This was first noticed by 9to5Google .
The worst part is that the fake page even completely hides the Microsoft Bing branding by hiding the top bar. You can see this by scrolling up a little. When you search for any term other than “Google”, Bing’s branding and search bar at the top become prominent.
It’s clear that Microsoft noticed that people were using Bing to search Google, their favorite search engine, and decided to try a clever way to avoid losing users to Google. Parisa Tabriz, vice president of Google Chrome, expressed dissatisfaction with the move on X (formerly Twitter). Her post said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft’s spoofing of Google’s home page is yet another tactic in its long history of ploys designed to confuse users and limit choice. New year, new low @Microsoft.” If you’re not comfortable with these kinds of tricks, you can easily switch your default browser in Windows 11 .
Editor’s note: We reached out to Microsoft for comment but have not yet received a response.