Feb 20 2024 01:54 PM
I don't know if there's any way around this but BING converts every search result URL into a BING.COM redirect URL. While this may seem like a good idea to Microsoft since it records click-throughs, it falls apart on direct linked documents such as PDF, images, etc. The redirect prevents you from actually copying the real link and pasting it elsewhere. For example, something as simple as xyz.com/mydoc.pdf turns into bing.com/search=?q=blahblahblahblah and on for 50+ more random characters. And you can't simply click on the link and get it from the address bar because Edge will open the document in whatever external program handles that document type (like Acrobat Reader or MS Excel).
I do a fair amount of online research and this behavior is really annoying when I want to capture and reference a link directly to a document.
Note that Google does NOT do this as it preserves the actual destination link in the search results. And some of the other search engines I've tried (eg Freespoke, DuckDuckGo) don't do it either.
Apr 01 2024 02:16 PM