I know your post was said in jest, but bing is ranked #22 on Alexa and #10 in the US. (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bing.com) and gets over 17% of search marketshare.
I think it ranks highly for the same reason that MSN.com used to rank highly (I think MSN was even the number 1 site for a time); I.E., It has nothing to do with actual hard-earned popularity, and everything to do with default settings in IE.
It may have to due with avoiding man-in-the-middle or redirect attack, but I am not too familiar with the logistics of redirecting from https to https.
You can still return any page data you'd like with a 404 status. They are returning with a Content-Length of 0, so no page is sent. So it is rendering properly, it's rendering nothing.
Technically, SSL is still working fine. The 404 page-not-found result is delivered over the secure channel :)
I know nothing about the Microsoft Bing servers, but my stab-in-the-dark guess would be that somebody changed something on the load-balancers that handle SSL termination, and now they're proxying to the wrong pool of back-end servers.
Recently, iOS7 shifted all Siri queries to Bing by default. Seems to work quite similarly, but I'm sure that's pushing accesses and usage quite a bit more now.
Thats the initial first load of IE causing that traffic, then the user goes to their next journey. You really need analysis on 'http://www.bing.com/search?q='
I find their translate tool better than Google. I sometimes get a garbled English translation from Google, Bing more often returns a more comprehensible English translation. Of course, I can't vouch for how accurate the translation is.
Also, the photos they showcase everday on their site are often quite awesome or beautiful.
Bing's video search with the SafeSearch turned off is probably the best porn search engine/browser on the internet. I'm guessing the OP was looking for porn. At least that's what I'm usually doing with it. Now why was he trying to access Bing via an HTTPS connection which lead him to this blank page? I'm guessing naughty porn.
I really like the new design, very good example of the new minimalist trend and "flat" look. It is really able to convey all the value I see in Bing in such a simple and minimalistic design.
Because everyone adores Microsoft, and is horrified and gutted that such a useful and loved addition to the internet ecosphere, backed by such an understaffed and money-starved corporation could be hindered by such a tragedy.
And because everyone is a sarcastic prick.
And on that note, does the fact that this is only occurring on HTTPS indicate that the only secure Bing is an empty Bing?
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 216 ms ] threadhttp://www.bing.com/
At first I thought the https dom rendering was locked, but it really is an ~empty tree (head with empty style, body).
The top sites, if people are curious: http://www.alexa.com/topsites
Problem solved.
I know nothing about the Microsoft Bing servers, but my stab-in-the-dark guess would be that somebody changed something on the load-balancers that handle SSL termination, and now they're proxying to the wrong pool of back-end servers.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bing.com
The number of time I had to fix that on people's computers...
Also, the photos they showcase everday on their site are often quite awesome or beautiful.
Best move Microsoft has made since Windows XP.
And because everyone is a sarcastic prick.
And on that note, does the fact that this is only occurring on HTTPS indicate that the only secure Bing is an empty Bing?
* How to defend yourself when your photo is ridiculed on Reddit (this has what to do with startups or technology?)
* Protesters charged with 'Terrorism Hoax' for too much glitter on their banner (same here)
* Amazon issues "Choking Hazard" warning for Testable JavaScript (the Daily WTF is that way →)
* this one (oh noes a 404 somewhere on teh interwebs, let's crack jokes)
all deserve flagging for being off-topic.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery