Cortana Update: Microsoft's Digital Assistant To Only Utilize Bing & Microsoft Edge? [VIDEO]
As the battle between digital assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana reaches yet another stage, software giant Microsoft Corp. announced that its popular and powerful voice-activated assistant for PCs would start displaying search results using Bing exclusively. Also, results from Cortana's searches would only be displayed in the company's native browser, Microsoft Edge.
The popular digital assistant actually ships to consumers with Bing and Edge as its default search engine and Internet browser. However, over the last few months, third-party developers have come up with several innovative browser extensions in order to allow users to utilize the search engine and browser of their choice.
Even Google's Chrome browser and Mozilla Foundation's Firefox allowed users to bypass Cortana's default settings. With the latest update to the digital assistant, all of these workarounds would cease to function.
In a blog post, Microsoft's GM of Search and Cortana, Ryan Gavin, stated that the company's decision to limit Cortana to Bing searches in Microsoft Edge is simply a matter of compatibility. Gavin further stated that third-party workarounds have developed a tendency to render Cortana's results somewhat unreliable.
"Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with Cortana. The result is a compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable," Gavin wrote.
Of course, such a decision from the tech giant has resulted in a number of criticisms from other tech companies. At the forefront of the decision's critics is Firefox Senior Vice President Mark Mayo, who stated that Microsoft's update constrains the ability of users to choose their browsing experience.
"Users should always have control over their Web experience, which is why we made sure Firefox would honor a user's choice of default search engine for Cortana searches on Windows 10. Unfortunately, it seems like the move by Microsoft to force Bing and Edge for all Cortana searches supports their business priorities at the expense of respecting user choice," Mayo said.
For now, at least, Cortana's update is here to stay. Thus, only time will tell if the update is the correct decision for Microsoft.
