Mildly Infuriating

Unpopular opinion: dead internet is not only real, but GOOD. Once robots get good enough to autonomously sign up for websites and make convincing posts, this will force us humans to go actually outside, make friends, form deep social relationship, and build lasting, resilient communities. Meanwhile on the internet, websites that are willing to allow AI content for money will eventually die out due to lack of actual users. The only remaining websites will be run by individuals and organizations with non-profit motives, and a strict human-only policy with verification based on word-of-mouth / invite system.

With stuff like Tesla and Twitter, it can keep away the weird nerds who search those terms in hopes of white-knight-sealioning a conversation into oblivion. I think it just became part of the lexicon.

I like the classic Usenet “Micro$oft.” Producers of Microshaft Wind-blows.

It conveys "I have such a disdain for that thing that I'm asterisking its name like it was a slur or swear word".

I'm not a big fan either, even if you can find some secondary roles for that (as keeping someone from finding it, like ilinamorato exemplified). It distracts the reader from what is being said to the author's personal opinion about what is being said.

It's ironic, except for when we're talking about the Fr*nch. It's self aware humor that you're being ridiculous. The tone it's supposed to convey in situations like thisis that you're being hyperbolically obtuse.

I unknowingly downloaded some software from there when I was a kid, and, from what I remember, it came bundled with some sort of update manager or something. Even if it's not outright malware, I would wager most people who are looking to download logitech's utility don't want some irrelevant third-party garbage on their system. So AT BEST it's crapware / bloatware

My elderly dad fell for something similar trying to call HP support, he googled the number and the top result was some bullshit. They had him set up remote access and compromised all his data. Old man had to reset everything.

He called me saying what happened, I had him shut down and unplug. I recovered what I could but he lost a lot of data.

This shit should be illegal. Like, I'm sure it is technically but there shouldnt be unofficial sponsored results above legitimate sources.

Do you have uBlock or some similar ad blocker installed?

EDIT: I went and looked myself. I do have an ad-blocker installed. I don't see the ad. But I do see more noise than OP (desktop, Firefox):

• There's a set of steps at the top left telling me to download and install the software, which is what OP was complaining about.

• At the top right, there's a large, blue button with a link that guesses incorrectly that I want to know about Logitech Unifying Receiver Pairing, and just sends me to another Bing search.

• Beneath that, there are a list of several questions that Microsoft incorrectly thinks I might be wanting to task and their answers.

• Then there are two "Explore more" links linking me to pages describing how to pair with the software. One appears to link to "logi.com" with apparently is a Logitech business support page that links to the software, albeit only the Mac version, which I'd guess isn't what OP wanted.

• Back on the left, I have what appears to be an AI spam question-answer site at thewindowsclub.com and another page on "how to unify" at robots.net.

• Beneath that, I have a link to the Logitech download section. So it's in my top results and on my laptop, visible on the first screen of results, though beneath some not-really-desirable stuff.

Thanks for the tip! I use startpage already, it's pretty good. From what I understand, it uses Google's search index under the hood.

There's also Brave search which (claims to be) privacy friendly and (claims to) have their own independent search index, so you could give that a try as well. I wouldn't say it's better that startpage or google tho

Doesnt Duck use bing?

I wouldn't call bing mainstream

That's disgusting.