Comments on: Microsoft Bing: Much better than expected

A test drive of the new Bing search engine reveals a solid and enjoyable product.

[t8]

Unless Microsoft can bundle Bing, I don't think they will get the masses to change their Google habit.

[eccles1214]

I don't think Microsoft is out to change every to Bing all at once.
They don't need to dominate Search like Google or like they did with Office and Windoze.

But Google doesn't need to try to do the reverse and dominate the cloud or desktop either.

That being said, I do like Bing. It's not for everybody, but I find the results on par with my other search engines, and a few features I like better. So it is something I'll try for now.

[dtpape]

"I planned to write this story with the headline, "Bing isn't Better," but the new engine won me over."

...

[sciontcya]

Bing - at least it doesn't suck!

[w0000992]

I just read another article on bing - it sounds to me like they're not even trying to compete with google on searching - microsoft is trying to attract customers through services and features - like restaurant ratings etc.

I'm not interested in such crap. I use an internet search engine to search the internet. If I want a restaurant review, I'll search for that.
Google already integrates maps in the searching. I think it's the wrong way to go. If I wanted a map I'd have mentioned that in my search.

So google will retain its search engine kingdom, but microsoft might join the competition for the less technical that want "everything" when they hit search.

[Vegaman_Dan]

That's not a bad market to be in, and one that Google isn't addressing currently.

[Aaron Kempf]

thank goodness that we have someone to stand up against google. their abuse of their power is abundantly clear.

googles lack of FOCUS is abundantly clear.

just a couple of kids with napoleon complex-- run around attacking everything until they lost a long drawn out war on the steppes of russia

[knowles2]

I am sure there planet of people in DOJ who would love your evidence of abuse of power the EU court love to take American companies to court about abuses of power.
And person I would love to hear your google does not lack focus.

There goal is to organise and search information and help us do it, everything they do in someday relate to that. Plus the diversifying there business to include other areas to make the company less vulnerable to advertisement market. All smart decision/

[knute6]

Hooray - all the web site owners should be happy for the new search engine, it isn't just the first page of google we have to fight over anymore.

[manojlds]

Ha ha..yeah more options for the webmasters

[miaminica]

I will give Bing a spin. It's the rage to comment on something Microsoft by saying "It sucks" or "M$ sucks" or "GOOGLE FOREVER" but I'll wait to use the search engine before I can say where it's good or not.

I use Google as my default search engine in IE8 (Yes. I use IE8) and Chrome but if Bing better suits my searches, I'll switch.

[fgfgVCV]

Microsoft is evil and deserves to go extinct.

Really. It is. And it should.

[eltoro2827]

sort of like you and all of your offspring.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Here's the way you can fix it.

Build a better product.

Get people to use it.

Put Microsoft out of business.

Until you, yes you personally, are going to do that, then... your comments are pointless.

[pithenumber]

I'm giving Bing a try
finally MS gets something right in the search market

[shellcodes_coder]

will give it a try

[ppgreat]

Microsoft Bing: Much better than expected

Or is it that we've just come to expect so little from Microsoft that we're pleasantly surprised when something kinda sorta works?

[manojlds]

Live more than "kinda sorta" worked. It just wasnt popular enough. So the baseline was, at the least, Live.

[jcao219]

Google Forever

down with microsoft!

[Vegaman_Dan]

Please send your social security number, bank account information and personal information about your friends and family now to Google. Then you will know you are safe.

[republofascist]

Bing is is the GOOGLE KILLER ...

Just as Zune was the iPod killer.

Microsoft = losers.

[monkeyfun14]

Zune is a iPod killer I wouldn't trade my 8gig Zune for a iPod.

[mdarmocida]

if you wouldn't trade your Zune for an ipod then you never used an ipod.

[robotaholic]

everyone is going to call it BLING and you know it-

[BIGELLOW]

I'm surprised that one of the features that somehow makes Bing better are the "related searches." This might be great for someone who is using a search engine for the very first time... but these types of training wheels aren't needed after a while. You just know what to type. Search suggestions also often take care of this for you, as well. Google also has "related searches" but they put them at the bottom of the page where they belong... after all, why should you consider trying yet another search if you haven't even bothered checking the first page results of your first query?

I'm also a huge fan of screen real estate. Is there a way to turn off "related searches" on Bing so that I don't have to see them every time? I don't like seeing stuff that I don't want to see, because it's only a distraction. This is why I moved from Yahoo's home page, because it was nothing but a distraction. I go to a search engine to search, not to see a page full of miscellaneous things to read.

I was really really hoping Kumo was going to knock our socks off. Now that it has been unveiled, it just looks like Microsoft's version of Google's Universal Search. At this point, Wolfram Alpha is more impressive than Bing, and Wolfram Alpha isn't even meant to be a search engine.

Oh well, at least Microsoft now has a search engine worthy of being considered as competition to Yahoo and at least they can now justify why they get more use than ask.com. Let's hope they find ways to truly improve search rather than just high tech innovations like "related searches" which have been around since Google's SearchMash.com days.

[ppgreat]

I definitely agree with the screen real estate issue. I just don't understand why MS insists on chewing up so much of the screen for toolbars, ribbons, etc. I don't like having to spend so much time scrolling around my screen just to accommodate these 'features'.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Feature creep has been happening to Google as well as they take up more and more screen real estate for ads and other promotions. The once clean and sleek interface keeps getting more bloated and harder to find your real results on.

More than once I have accidentally clicked on a sponsored link instead of the first link in the results because they moved the results down and put the sponsored links at the top. It's annoying as hell.

[mrcockrell]

i have a habit of simply typing my searches into the address bar when im online so depending where i am at the time i usually get different search engine results

at home i get Google

but when i am other places like work i get Microsoft Live results and other places i get Yahoo results

their results all look so similar that initially i just read the results and look for what i need without thinking about it

but one thing i have noticed is about 75% of the time if its not Google i can't find what im looking for and i end up going to Google.com to search again

its pretty undisputable who is best in my eyes

but with that said i really hope Bing is an improvement, we should all hope so... but it seems an overwheling number of people just want thier favorite companies to have the best and refuse to try anything new

its really quite ignorant

[eccles1214]

I had a paralle situation with Yahoo. I'd would find myself going back to Yahoo to find what I needed, so I started using Yahoo more and more and Google less and less. Then I stopped using Google for all but translation and a few image searches. I am doing a trial run on Bing this week and next. So far, it's better than Yahoo for me, but maybe not for you.

[beej90]

I'll give this a try, but I highly doubt It's anything near what Google Is.

[blobbles32]

Wow, is this article written by a microsoft employee or someone microsoft paid a lot of money to write good things about? It sure seems like it...

[paulimusmaximus]

We will see. All I ever use is google, and I have never even tried microsoft search. Ever. Maybe if I remember on June 3rd I'll give it a try. I doubt it will beat out google for me, but then again, when I used to use yahoo all the time before google, I thought that's all I'd ever need.

[stevicus]

I'd like to give bing a try, but right now I get much better results with google than live.com for this search:

list of office 2008 bugs

with live.com, first two its are microsoft.com service pack description pages (which only describes the fixed bugs, not the many many more unfixed bugs), third hit is wikipedia for office 2008, and the fourth is...

"List of Barack Obama presidential campaign endorsements, 2008 - Wikipedia, the free ..."

Bahahaha ROFLMAO