Microsoft's digital assistant will only work with Bing and the Edge browser from now on.

In what may come as no surprise, Microsoft won't let you use Cortana to perform a Google search anymore. While the digital assistant was capable of using a third-party search engine on Windows 10, the company announced this week that the "result is a compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable." So, to ensure that everything works well, Microsoft will only allow Cortana to launch the new Edge browser and find answers via Bing.

"Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with Cortana," GM of search and Cortana Ryan Gavin explained in a blog post. "The continuity of these types of task completion scenarios is disrupted if Cortana can't depend on Bing as the search provider and Microsoft Edge as the browser." In other words, using other apps led to a less reliable experience.

This doesn't mean you can't continue to use Google search and Chrome as your primary browser on your Windows 10 machine. You can certainly still do that, and set those and other third-party apps as the default option to hop around the internet. However, you'll want to keep in mind that Cortana will only provide answers to questions and lend a hand with tasks through Microsoft Edge and Bing.

Source:
courtesy of ENGADGET

by Billy Steele

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