Microsoft Edge sets Yandex as default search engine in Moldova (opens in new tab)

I wonder how accurate those numbers are about Edge. As 79.48% of desktop users in Moldova are on Windows 10 and Windows 11. [1]

Microsoft Edge is the default web browser on Windows 10, Windows 11. [2]

Meaning at a huge amount of population will see Yandex when they search for something at least for the first time. Unless they install another browser immediately or change the default search engine.

And yes, I wasn't expecting to see my inquiry deleted on their forum. I'm posting again without the screenshot. In case they didn't like what Yandex returns as results (which is weird, as it is their "business partner").

I'm also very humbled by the support of the hacker news community. As a long time lurker, it warms my heart a lot to see so much support. I hope it reaches Microsoft.

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/d...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge#Features

It's bizarre that the nixed Project Dragonfly is a considered a bigger embarrassment than Bing working continuously to this day in China.

Edge is so irrelevant, that you have to wonder why everyone's obsessing with MS's recent moves with it.

It's <5% (and decreasing, still pretty quickly).

If I understand correctly, they can only spy on you if they have full access to your traffic, including the ability to modify it, in order to carry out a MITM attack.

Ukraine banned yandex in 2017 for mass data harvesting of Ukrainians, probably that's the main reason why gp did not find it in Ukrainian Bing. It's still possible and perfectly legal to access yandex or other data harvesting engines/disinfo websites over VPN or Tor, so the ban main objective is to protect non-tech-savvy users from the interference of hostile foreign criminals.

what aggression?

Unitedstatians from Google pay Unitedstatians from Apple to make Google default search engine for all of the world, without asking anyone, do you consider this a problem too?

Russian government != Yandex. They did business in Ukraine and worldwide. Don't see the reason why Microsoft or any other enterprise would need to consult the nation as a whole on which business decision to take.

It's the same thing as company being based on Cayman Islands, it's mostly on paper really. Most of their offices, and human force are located in russia, in 2009 they sold golden share for 1 eur to the russian goverment(which allows to temporarily suspend the head of Yandex among other "benefits"), yeah and CEO(was resigned in dec 2022) and several other people from the board members are sanctioned by the West.

> "As founder and CEO of Yandex, he is supporting, materially or financially, the Government of the Russian Federation and is responsible for supporting actions or policies which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine," the EU's listing states.

> The document also accuses Yandex of "promoting State media and narratives in its search results, and deranking and removing content critical of the Kremlin, such as content related to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine."

from: https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/06/yandex_ceo_arkady_vol...

Yeah and they are going to change the formals too - Yandex NV(based in Netherlands) is considering turning the main part of the business into a separate Russian group https://newsunrolled.com/economy/132317.html

Not after the war. Yandex had it's parent company which was headquartered in the Netherlands removed from operations and instead a new company headed by Aleksei Kudrin, a longtime confidant of President Vladimir Putin was put in charge.

They never released any official statements condemning the war or leaving russia, none of their services were shut down there, and they still actively hiring new people in russia. Yandex services is also widely known for spreading pro-war propaganda, disinformation and fakes while censoring opposition media: https://meduza.io/feature/2023/01/30/yandeks-blokiroval-izob...,

https://meduza.io/news/2022/03/01/yandeks-segodnya-klyuchevo...

Yandex used to pretend they are a global company (even had an office in Silicon Valley) but in 2022 this came to an end, as you cannot run business in both Russia and civilized world at the same time. So, Yandex is now Russian and thus controlled by the same thugs that control everything else there.

Yandex had it's parent company which was headquartered in the Netherlands removed from operations and instead a new company headed by Aleksei Kudrin, a longtime confidant of President Vladimir Putin was put in charge.

Yandex feels like a relatively simple text search with results from a large number of sources, kind of like Google from ~15 years ago. Modern Google instead feels like it gives you what it thinks you "actually" want, with an extreme preference to push you towards a very limited number of heavily weighted sources.

A simple example would be a search for 'russia usa war'. It's the sort of search that's REALLY annoying using something like Google for because, predictably, it gave me nothing but results about Ukraine from large US media outlets. Yandex gave me this [1] pretty informative Wiki entry as the #1 result, and then three pages describing a hypothetical Russia USA war including this [2] interesting looking video (and channel) on YouTube.

Continuing on further down the results you get ever more interesting things like this [3] that suggests Russia was involved in the US Civil War, on the side of the Union! As is always the case for anything, just because it's published - doesn't mean its true. But in this case it does seem to be, which is something I had no clue of even as a history fan! So I just had a TIL in "my" domain, while spending 5 minutes writing this post (and another 30 exploring Russian involvement in the US Civil War). That's why it rocks. Basically it kind of makes the internet feel like the internet again. And that's nice.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_during_the_Russo...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woD6RYptp58

[3] - https://www.stolenhistory.org/articles/1863-russian-involvem...

Also great for casual racism.

https://www.itpro.com/security/data-breaches/369966/yandex-d...

This is sadly probably a draw for a lot of 'Russian is the only country maintaining traditional western values' types.

> FSB having all your data probably doesn't matter

says who?

I've experienced more divisive content from western media itself than overt anti-west stuff from RT or yandex lmao.

Yandex is also a search engine, not just the now infamous Yandex News.

"Divisive" is a slur for dissent, so I'd avoid leaning on it too readily. That said, RT et al are a pile of state propaganda shit peppered on top with selected western dissenters to make it look like they are a legit alternative. Eating a pile of shit just to feel that peppery taste banned from PC media is not something I'd personally enjoy doing, but to each their own I guess.

Maybe in English, but you have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes. My Eastern European in-laws are hooked on Russian propaganda/disinfo and its all delivered to them in their language or Russian and its not coming from RT.

Having said that, I always chuckle at Americans who are so suspicious of RT given that they platform people like Cornell West and Chris Hedges who are absolutely blacklisted in western media.

I have no idea what the point of this comment is, other than everything sucks. :sigh:

> rus disinformation

Specifically Russian disinformation. 'Rus' is a much more neutral term which refers to the shared heritage of the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian people.

Oh no, a country we’re at war with produces content advancing their viewpoint and fomenting divisions!

The horror!

I know US media, like Voice of America, would never do something like that.

/s — the pearl clutching about things the US does because Russians is bigotry; the world isn’t a better place due to hating a certain ethnicity