The bing bang

For many have followed the process — clicking the internet options,hitting the general tab,selecting the address bar beside the home page and then finally punching the keyboard to type http://www.bing.com. Just a couple of weeks and the Bing bling is showing its effect. From students to IT professionals to researchers,a lot of intrigued individuals are switching over.

Whether it is the visually appealing black background against Google’s very professional white background or the user-friendly tabs popping up here and there,the Bing brigade has done it all—posing a serious threat to the unrivalled king and it is here to stay,as Bing brings along with it a wider domain,user-friendly tabs,comprehensive search options and visually appealing features.

There is a range of features that give bing an edge over Google,the first among them is the ‘table of contents’ that often appears in the upper left column and the easily accessible search history,which could likely be further developed in interesting ways. More obvious are the interface upgrades and changes. While many people are accustomed — even habituated — to the Google that habit can be given in for a toss to enjoy Bing’s often richer visual presentation and generally cleaner organisation.

“I have used Bing and I find it more intelligent than Google because if I type Orkut on Bing instead of getting hundreds of links related to the word Orkut,I just get one. It understands the content,” says Tarun Choudhary,IT professional,Infosys.

Supriya Nalwade who is tagged by her friends as a person most likely to Google everything says she could not imagine her day to get a headstart without punching the letters http://www.google.com on the keyboard. Today,however,it is http://www.bing.com that starts her day,the reason being the user-friendly tabs that according to Nalwade saves time. “It has shortcuts for videos,maps and other topics which often one tends to look for. This isn’t in Google.It saves time and is a relief. However,some still advocate for Google while some regard both as an equal match.

Pros and cons at a click
Bing shows a preview of the web pages in the search results if you place mouse pointer at the right side of the search results.

It displays fewer results if it is certain that it has understood your intent.

However in Bing some of Google’s features are missing,for example,Bing doesn’t seem to recognise misspellings and returns no results in these cases.

The search results also show images,videos and the popularity of the musician.

Wikipedia searches can be displayed online in the search results without leaving the Bing site by clicking the Enhanced view link.

Despite the background image,Bing’s homepage loads very quickly in your web browser because the search box and logo load first. You can turn off the background image.

Bing offers specific health,shopping and travel search engines,as well as instant answers to travel searches.