Windows Live search

Windows Live search went 'live' today. Now, OK, it's only a beta, but it is released to the public, it's on display, and easily accessible. It's also accompanied by words from Microsoft that are give the idea that google should be quaking.

So off I trot, and what do I find? So much JavaScript and extra rubbish the page takes 2 minutes to load! Remember this is a search engine, and is directly in competition with google. When was the last time Google's homepage didn't open quickly for you?

I sat there looking at 'Loading' (with a lovely spinning logo) for a good minute and a half before the search page finally loaded something that looks like a bad rip of Google's gateway idea. ( www.google.com/ig for those that haven't been there is a great way to collect RSS feeds together with your gmail account, and the links you use frequently, and present them to you in an easily accessible manner).


Finally I get to search for something. Now what should I search for? It's a Microsoft search engine, so the obvious things were Linux and Google. What did I get? Well, more 'Loading' initially! Then some results. First thing that strikes me is the locality of the results. (well, actually it was the slow speed of the page, but I think you're getting the idea about the speed of the service!) The first 2 or 3 results are all .uk pages. Whilst this is admirable, no one is going to say that the most authoritative pages on Linux or Google are in the UK! If I was searching for an item I wanted to buy, then nationalized results are what I want, but not in every case. Direct comparison is with google of course. They re-direct me to google.co.uk on load, but give me the option of 'pages from the UK', and default me to 'the web'. Exactly what I want.

Second thing that strikes me is the way of displaying the results. There are 8 results a page, but those pages aren't real, I have a weird JavaScript scroll bar next to them, clicking (or dragging) this brings the next 8 results up further click brings more. As I flick through I get the third thing (and possibly the most annoying). The ads at the side of the search results (looking suspiciously like Google's!) change as I scroll, but unlike the results they don't do this is a 'nice' visual transfer way, they just change. I don't know why this annoys me, but it does.

So, down to results themselves. I've already mentioned the locality, so for the majority of my searches google is more accurate for the first hit. Google also provides more results in the main, but I find that pointless as a statistic. Who cares if one returns 800000 and one 10000000 I'm not going to search through more than 20 before I re-try my search, and I already know which is quicker to manage that!

Restricting searches with site: works as expected, but other google tricks like definition and maths problems don't. Currency conversion isn't there either. Obviously there is no local results at the top of the page for businesses. There is obviously no image, news, group (newsgroup) search. In short, it's just not there as a competitor.

So, Windows Live? Windows Terminally Ill more like! I don't think google will be quaking any time soon. And I for one won't be moving away from google!