Turn off Bing in your start menu

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Was reading twitter posts this morning with someone complaining that they block outbound Bing searches on their network but that had a nasty side effe
[See the full post at: Turn off Bing in your start menu]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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E Pericoloso Sporgersi

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I saw that tweet earlier (and replied to it), but it seems to have been deleted now.

Perhaps some other reason for the pause was subsequently discovered?

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Swift annoyingly deletes many of his good tweets.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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b

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….or just use Winaero Tweaker “Disable Web Search” setting, which has been there for quite a while.

Windows 10 2004, 20H2 and above have a modified tweak – it works as I’m on 20H2 and do not get web searches.

 

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 Core Ultra 7 155H 32GB Win 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.5189)
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Location: UK

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E Pericoloso Sporgersi

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I block Bing at multiple levels, including DNS resolutions for anything.bing.anything, and have done so for a long time. Haven’t seen any stalls I don’t think. But then I don’t use the Windows Start panel either. I prefer hierarchy, and for that Open Shell still works just fine. Oh, and I disable Cortana as well.

Seems to me Windows kind of needs a “don’t run anything invented less than 10 years ago” setting for us grumpy old codgers, though I admit I’m forced to use services that rely on newer features because not everyone shares my disdain for immature recent developments.

-Noel

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AlexEiffel, lanceboil, wavy, Microfix, Mele20, EyesOnWindows, ClearThunder, David F, Cybertooth

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Noel Carboni wrote:

disdain for immature recent developments.

that could also apply here, there and everywhere these days. We reverted back to 8.1 on a few key seats given the slower speed by comparison a couple of years back. The auditors/IT crew were not amused but hey, no moans from them since as we pay them.

Digital time travel has it’s advantages on a productivity level

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See also Windows 10: Disable Bing in the search.
Posted on 2020-10-05 by guenni

So if you are doing this on Windows 10 Professional edition you can also do this via the instructions given there (repeated here):

Customization via group policy

In Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise the group policy editor gpedit.msc is available for customization. Please follow the steps below.

1. Launch the group policy editor gpedit.msc via Run as administrator.
2. In the Group Policy Editor, navigate to the following branch:
   User configuration -> Administrative templates -> Windows components -> File Explorer
3. Select the group policy entry Turn off display of recent search entries in the File Explorer search box by double-clicking on it and enable it in the dialog box that appears.

You can then close the Group Policy Editor and restart Windows 10. Then the customization should also be active.

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
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Don’t this entry on my system Win10 pro -2004

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Use the downloadable registry key.  The key won’t be there, you need to add it.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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[sheldon]

that’s what I did and it works.  Just saying that I don’t see what was mentioned in the group policy editor

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by sheldon.

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People still use Bing?

 

 

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> People still use Bing?

One of the ways to prove active censorship and bias in the current Google search engine is to compare BING and Google results from a search limited to a given domain e.g.:

Google site:[domain.name.here] Starlink performance in rural areas
-vs-
BING site:[domain.name.here] Starlink performance in rural areas

Depending on how “politically incorrect” the search results could be,
Google has been giving rank preferences to narratives that are “officially” sanctioned,
such as known side effects of certain FDA-approved drugs and vaccines.

A notorious example is this document available from http://www.fda.gov:

https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download (see .pdf Page 17 !)

For reasons such as the latter, BING results are useful to compare with demonstrably biased results produced by the same Google searches.

When we were deeply involved in legal research — before I retired — we frequently recommended that clients make a habit of doing the identical search using different search engines.

With so many different search engines available now, comparisons of results from the same query can be quite educational and entertaining too.

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Perturbance, Cybertooth

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Google site:fda.gov “Working list of possible adverse event outcomes”
finds 1 result today

BING site:fda.gov “Working list of possible adverse event outcomes”
finds 4,070 results today

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Cybertooth

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[Bob99]

On 20H2 build 746 Pro x64, and the registry key(s) mentioned in the articles on HowToGeek and on Born’s site don’t exist in my copy of Win 10! Hmmph, don’t know just what to think.

Yep, I even double checked. The “Explorer” key is missing, I only have the HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent, CurrentVersion and DataCollection keys listed.

I wonder if it might have something to do with a setting (or settings) I may have enabled/disabled in Group Policy?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Bob99.

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gpedit.msc creates the Explorer key and the DisableSearchBoxSuggestions dword value under it when you choose the Enable setting and then Apply it. If you Apply the Not Configured setting both will be removed again. Note that you need to refresh the registry editor (F5 key) if it is running when you apply the setting to see the change. I’m running Windows 10 version 20H2 (OS Build 19042.804).

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
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Bob99

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Oh, Ok, I get it now. Followed the procedure and violà, the entry now exists in the registry!

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I’ve got bing blocked too, Noel. And Edge … err…. credge.

"War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. And I say let us give them all they want" ----- William T. Sherman

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[sheldon]

sheldon wrote:

that’s what I did and it works.  Just saying that I don’t see what was mentioned in the group policy editor

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by sheldon.

It’s there in 2004.

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Bing ..Opops I mean Google is your friend. No need for Wikipedia because then too many people who should not be trying to modify the registry will be breaking their computer!

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John wrote:

just use Winaero Tweaker “Disable Web Search” setting

I tried (and trusted) Winaero Tweaker’s (version 0.19.1.0) tweak.

This appears to be the easiest way by far. WT inserted the necessary keys in the right places, without me opening nor editing the registry.

Afterwards regedit gracefully confirmed WT’s changes.

But I still have an optional button “Search the Internet“, though that starts DuckDuckGo’s search engine, totally disdaining Bing.

1 Desktop Win 11
1 Laptop Win 10
Both tweaked to look, behave and feel like Windows 95
(except for the marine blue desktop, rgb(0, 3, 98)

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Just use a free third party start menu app (open-shell, startmenu 8 etc..) and continue to block bing via aforementioned methods. Result: Aesthetically pleasing start GUI with no bing pinging online or dated Fisher Price look.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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I’d agree microfix, (a good) third party firewall with appropriate rules with dns resolver exclusions have worked here for many years on Windows. I’d recommend Classicshell  now openshell, to overcome that ghastly MS GUI on the current flogship OS (windows 8 was no better IMO)

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sheldon wrote:

Don’t this entry on my system Win10 pro -2004

I have this entry on my 20H2 Pro.

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Yes – I did find it after all

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( @ AskWoody Crew: I tried twice to ‘Reply’ on post #2346618 but that was not saved. )

@Alex5723, that workes on my v2004 Pro too. It make sure the annoying Quick Search suggestions are also disabled:

Disable Web Search in Taskbar in Windows 10 Version 2004 with Group Policy
1. Open the Local Group Policy editor app, or launch it for all users except Administrator, or for a specif user.
2. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer on the left.
3. On the right, find the policy setting Turn off display of recent search entries in the File Explorer search box.
4. Double-click on it and set the policy to Enabled. You are done.

Source https://winaero.com/disable-web-search-in-taskbar-in-windows-10-version-2004/

LMDE is my daily driver now. Old friend Win10 keeps spinning in the background

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Strange that the article that Susan pointed to didn’t mention this technique

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That group policy method only works for Windows 10 Pro, whereas the registry edit method does the same thing for both Home and Pro editions.

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I realize that,  but he should of described both methods like the other article did

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