Several years in the past, I switched from Google search to Bing. There, I stated it. No longer do I Google one thing; I Bing it. And I haven’t regarded again since.
The transfer away from Google wasn’t straightforward. Sometime within the late 1990s, I used to be invited to check out Google’s search engine. I moved from poring although submitting cupboards to typing queries in a search field. If it was on the market on the internet, Google promised that it might discover it. Over the years, Google turned smarter and extra responsive. Google Instant auto-suggested search outcomes earlier than I completed typing them. “Google it” turned a part of my vernacular.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bing search engine was getting no respect. Bing it? Please.
But Bing doggedly continued to enhance. It added social connections and “cards” figuring out key subjects and associated searches. It improved pace and reliability. Then at some point, after I wished to dig up older tales I had written utilizing Google’s search engine, I discovered I had higher luck discovering them utilizing Bing.
So I switched. Bing is near, if not nearly as good, as Bing.
Switching from Google to Bing search is definitely finished in just some seconds. I present instructions on the backside of this story. But earlier than that, listed here are a few of my favourite (and sure, even weird) causes to change to Bing.
Number one? Because Microsoft pays you.
1. Search and generate profits with Microsoft Rewards
I’m low cost. I’ll usually cross up a $12 artisanal beef slider on the meals vans close to my workplace in favor of a inexpensive salad that would stuff a throw pillow. I usually put on the identical pants two days in a row to save lots of on my water invoice. I take advantage of coupons.
So if Microsoft needs to pay me about $5 a month to do what I usually do? Sign me up.
The idea behind Microsoft Rewards (previously Bing Rewards) is easy: As you search, Microsoft offers you factors, which you’ll spend on the whole lot from Starbucks to Microsoft Game Pass.
If you might have a Microsoft account (you do have a free Microsoft account, proper?) you possibly can earn 5 factors per Bing search on a desktop PC, as much as 150 factors per day. In the identical means, you possibly can earn as much as 100 factors per day on cellular, with 5 factors credited to you per search. (Don’t fear if these numbers don’t fairly match as much as what you see, as Microsoft tends to differ the values now and again.) Bing searches are robotically triggered by way of Cortana on a Windows Phone, or the Bing Search app for Android or iOS.
If that isn’t sufficient, you’ll robotically accumulate factors through the use of the Windows 10 Edge browser, as much as 900 factors monthly. And if that isn’t sufficient, you’ll get a degree for each greenback you spend on the Microsoft Windows and Xbox on-line shops, or in a brick-and-mortar Microsoft Store location.
The better part? The factors might be redeemed for stuff you’ll truly use.
If you need much more factors, take 5 minutes out of your day to take a look at the rewards and quizzes Microsoft Rewards provides.
For roughly 475 credit—once more, the worth varies—Microsoft offers you $5 to spend at Amazon, or Target, Burger King, Starbucks, or different retailers. You may also redeem your rewards for a pleasant 5% coupon on the Microsoft Store, reductions on Windows apps, or perhaps a free month of Xbox Live Gold. Use Bing incessantly sufficient, and you may climb your means as much as Silver or Gold standing, which confers a “discount” on factors redemptions.
And that is all for merely utilizing Bing in the course of the course of your day. And in order for you even extra factors, you possibly can go to Bing.com or click on the Microsoft Rewards “medallion” icon for fast quizzes and prompt searches. It all provides up shortly.
2. Search outcomes: As good or higher than Google’s
I wouldn’t even point out Bing Rewards if Bing itself wasn’t worthwhile. But it’s. My private perception is that Bing delivers barely extra helpful info than Google on the whole search. (To be truthful, I’ll emphasize normal: Sometimes I’ll strive a search in Google if I can’t discover what I’m on the lookout for in Bing. As of August 2017, I’d say Bing’s potential to seek out an outdated information story of mine is barely worse than it was, although it’s nonetheless superb.)
And don’t fear: Using Bing doesn’t stop you from utilizing different Google providers, like Gmail, as usually as you’d like.
Context is vital, and Microsoft has made this a precedence with Bing.
If I seek for a time period like “Notre Dame football,” Bing makes higher use of that huge, white area on the suitable facet, displaying contextual details about the varsity, its historical past, information, and extra. (Both engines present me the latest scores, however Google’s card shows a extra full upcoming schedule.)
Bing’s lead widens once you seek for celebrities, because it contains movies in addition to photographs and biographical info. And although Microsoft might do a greater job of highlighting this info, Bing gives one-click hyperlinks to a celeb’s social media pages for what they’re excited about, proper now.
Bing contains social media hyperlinks, too.
There are exceptions, after all. But, on the whole, Bing performs in addition to Google on most of my frequent, day-to-day searches.
3. Bing has picture chops
That goes for picture searches, too. Bing was first to implement the “infinite scroll” in Bing Images, the place customers might merely scroll and scroll and by no means attain the “end” of their search outcomes. Today, Bing’s picture search provides an additional layer of search filters that Google customers should drill down to seek out, together with choices to present solely footage with faces, for instance, or show photographs in a specific structure. And if that you must discover a licensed photograph as an instance a publication, Bing makes that info extra simply accessible than Google does.
Bing’s Image Search web page is attractively formatted, with plenty of jumping-off factors for additional exploration.
About the one motive to make use of Google’s picture search is when you’re searching down animated GIF photographs, as that is an possibility Bing has but to supply.
Keep studying to see how Bing offers you extra video search outcomes than Google.
4. Bing reveals extra video, when you can bear to look
For no matter motive, the standard knowledge is that Bing is the porn search engine of alternative. Wander by a few of Reddit’s Microsoft boards, and it’ll ultimately come up. Heck, The Daily Dot even devoted an entire article to it.
Part of the reason being that, even with filtering turned off, Google now takes a slightly puritanical angle towards filtering copyrighted videos, whereas Microsoft has adopted a extra libertarian method. Bing merely reveals you movies about your search matter from across the internet, whether or not or not it’s “baseball” or “boobs.”
That’s to not say that Bing is a shadowy nook of the online stuffed with smut and depravity. Thumbnail photographs of something Bing thinks is for adults solely are literally blurred out by default. But when you’re looking for one thing tagged Not Safe for Work, bear in mind that Microsoft will present it to you (assuming your search filtering choices enable for it, after all).
Microsoft’s Bing treats you want an grownup, if that’s what you’re looking for. (Note which you can filter out X-rated searches on each Bing and Google.)
Oddly sufficient, neither Google nor Microsoft shrinks a lot from violence. Both turned up what I assume to be full movies of assorted hostage beheadings from the Middle East, none of which I cared to observe.
Make the change
If you’re a lifelong Googler and Bing’s benefits intrigue you, nice. Here’s learn how to change.
As you most likely know, Microsoft and Google every supply their very own browsers to associate with their very own search engines like google and yahoo. With Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Edge and Google’s Chrome, the browsers are preconfigured to make use of their respective search engines like google and yahoo by default, accessible by way of the search bar on the prime of the display screen. (Of course, you possibly can go to Bing.com or Google.com and search there anytime you’d like.)
Switching Chrome’s search supplier to Bing is comparatively easy: In the upper-right nook of the browser, you’ll see a tiny menu icon that appears like three horizontal traces on prime of one another. Click it. Near the underside of the drop-down menu, you’ll see Settings. About midway down the Settings web page, you’ll see a field for choosing your Search engine.
To change your search supplier in Chrome, click on the vertical ellipsis (the three vertical dots) icon within the prime proper, then scroll right down to Settings. Then go right down to this part, right here.
Microsoft hides its search engine configurations as effectively. If you might have Internet Explorer configured to make use of Google, go to the URL bar and click on the magnifying-glass (search) icon. At the underside proper of the drop-down menu, click on Add. Click the tiny Bing icon on the backside left to set Microsoft’s search engine as soon as once more as your default.
Edge ought to be preconfigured to Bing. (It can be locked to Bing when you use Windows 10 S on the Surface Laptop or an academic machine.)
About the one change that Bing at the moment foists upon you is sending you to Bing Maps, not Google Maps. And when you’re looking for movies, guess what: Google’s YouTube isn’t precisely Bing’s first alternative.
Bing provides as-good-as-Google search capabilities, plus many little added conveniences and rewards to entice you to change. Doing so takes simply seconds. Are these sufficient to make you check out Bing your self? It’s price a couple of minutes of your day to examine.
Updated on February 14, 2022. with up to date info.
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft information and chip expertise, amongst different beats. He has previously written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.