Binging Google - Which one do you use, Bing or Google ?

I was never a fan of either the Yahoo or Microsoft Live search options. I loved AltaVista until it was replaced by Google as my homepage, my one-stop-shop for all answers. I must confess I have used other search engines in between, but when I learnt how to use Google to get the results I wanted, I was happy with the G option.

This is when Yahoo and Microsoft tied-up to create Bing, touted as the answer to Google’s monopoly over Internet search. But a couple of months later, it doesn’t appear as if Google has lost an inch. I thought it was time we put Bing to the test to see how the challenger compares with the real thing.

MAPS: I fired up Google Maps and Bing Maps to search for Nehru Place, New Delhi. The map results from Bing were cleaner and sharper. There is a lot of information on Google Maps, but the clean look and the meaningful information on the Bing results were more useful. Zooming in gave more detail on the Google Map, and there were a few photos that popped up with a link saying “Explore this area”. By default, Google uses a hybrid view—satellite plus map—while Bing does not have a satellite view. Bing shows an “explore collections in this map” icon, but it is not clear what that means.

I then decided to ask both engines for directions from New Delhi to Mumbai. Google immediately brought up a map of India and showed two routes, one using NH8 and the other using NH3. Bing was completely lost.

IMAGES: I tried an “India Independence Day celebrations” search on both. Google searched through the recent images first before listing the older ones. Bing’s results were more confusing, though it gave me the option to change the layout from small to large images with details. Google, on the other hand, gave me the option to choose the tint or hue of the image. I think both perform equally well here.

VIDEO: I did a video search with the same terms. Google took me to the YouTube website and threw up a lovely video rendition of our National Anthem, the one we used to hear a lot on DD a few years back. But Bing definitely has a better way of showing video results. I was able to preview videos by just taking the mouse pointer over the icons in the results page—you will need high speed Internet for this—and I could mute each video separately in the preview. I also liked the Bing filter to select if you wanted short videos or longer ones, resolution, screen type and source.

NEWS: For some time Google News has been my first option to read up what is happening around the world without going to multiple websites. Bing did search for news, but it took some work to get it to display top stories and I could not figure out how to see today’s stories. I searched for ‘Chandrayaan launch’ on both engines. Google showed 93 results while Bing had none. I will just stick to Google for my news.


Bing is a good option with a welcome look and feel. I like Google’s clean look, but love the image background in Bing. But since Microsoft and Yahoo are still learning the ropes of search and prefer to call Bing a Beta version, I will stick to Google for most of my work for now.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, Dated Sunday, August 23, 2009