Mikhail Parakhin, executive director of advertising and web services at Microsoft, just revealed a new feature in Microsoft Edge. Users will now be able to search the Internet with two search engines at the same time, switching between search engines based on their default settings.
MSPoweruser gives us a great example to explain how this works. Let's say Bing is your default search engine. If you click on the highlighted search icon in the tweet below, you will also see results from your alternative search engine, such as Google. This also works in reverse, so you can browse the search results simultaneously and compare the two based on what you're looking for.
In Edge, you can search two engines simultaneously: if Bing is your default and you click the search icon, you'll see, for example, Google results (and vice versa). It will remain synchronized and updated with the new query. Have you ever tried? Is this useful? Asking for a friend đŸ™‚ pic.twitter.com/p016dF8Wc1January 13, 2024
Users expressed concern in the comments below the tweet about the potential for a lot of visual clutter when combining search results from two engines, possibly creating a rather overwhelming layout. Parakhin responded and hinted at the possibility of introducing an option to choose the default 'backup' search engine so that users can better understand what is being displayed.
Could I become… an Edge user?
The lack of options does leave a lot to be desired in terms of customization. Parakhin again clarified that the width of sidebars is determined by app and mobile display standards, so resizing might be unlikely, but he made sure to note an openness to exploring deeper customization options in The near future.
As an internet browser that exclusively uses Chrome (pun intended), this is probably one of the few Microsoft Edge features that would really draw me to Microsoft's browser, so I can only imagine how exciting this must be for regular users by Edge. This feature has the potential to make research much easier now that you can search for one thing on two different search engines and compare your results, hopefully eliminating false results in the process, since not even Google search is perfect. .
Its simplicity means you won't have to have two different windows open just to perform the search task, and as it continues to improve, I imagine it will only get better. Personally, I now hope Google catches up and implements something similar in Chrome.
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