Bing or Google? And Why?

[[]V[]essenjah]

So here is the debate plain and simple. Bing or Google folks? And why do you think either one of these is better?

I prefer good ol' Google because it is tried and true but Bing claims that more people prefer Bing recently.

[Isaac]

Bing has no https option, so I risk getting in trouble on my school's wifi network, which is tied to my school ID, if pornography, by chance, pops up in my searches. Google's https features protects me from this.

Bing assumes I'm a ★■◆●ing facebook user. Bing assumes I'm on windows, where google actually acknowledges and developed for Linux, my OS of choice.

Microsoft failed once with a search engine so the decided to try again with a different branding, because putting Microsoft on anything makes it look shotty. [source needed]

Google is being developed by the same people that made the best browser in the world. Bing was made by the same assholes that made the worst browser of all time. Why the ★■◆● would you use their website?

[Spidey]

Google is evil, therefore Bing must be the better search engine.

(I read your other post, but I’m not sure what your teacher really wants from you)

[Isaac]

Google is evil, therefore Bing must be the better search engine.

(I read your other post, but I’m not sure what your teacher really wants from you)

Only ^--- OLD PEOPLE who don't know how to change their default search engine use Bing.

[Spidey]

I was using mosaic when you were in diapers.

[Isaac]

You and all the other ancient greeko-roman artisans

[TigerRaptor]

Been happy with Google since GOTO kick the bucket years ago.

[Top Gun]

I'm still convinced that no one actually intends to use Bing. They just wind up there by accident while trying to get to Google.

[Isaac]

That's kind of how people become Google Plus users... by accident.

still, ★■◆● bing

[sdfgeoff]

Google offers:
- Mail
- Searching
- File storage
- Storing searches/history across multiple computers
- Syncing entire browser bookmarks
- google calculator/currency converter/whatever else the top line has for some questions (I use this so often)
etc.

Bing offers:
- Searching
- Links to hotmail

So for one, google trumps in features.

Bing looks to fancy. It's page is more pretty than functional. When I go to a search engine, I want it to look good.
In terms of search results, they are about equivalent. I like the google also puts a link to their image page if they think it relevant.
They do return different ones, but both are relevant. If you use copernic agent, you can select multiple search engines and it will take collate which ones return which, and from that decide which to display for you. Unfortunately it is windows only, but it works under wine. I only use this when actually hunting for specific information.

I wouldn't dismiss bing out of hand if it wasn't for the years I spent on school computers, where the administrator had locked the windows explorer settings, so the only thing you could use was bing, to search for google. Yes, I ended up carrying a version of chrome on a flash drive. During that time the sheer colour of it was atrocious, the amount of wasted space at the top was infuriating, and the results were poor. This is better now, but the legacy remains.

[snoopy]

Google. I haven't tried bing... because I have no interest whatsoever in vendor lock-in.

By the way, that's also why I don't use chrome.

[Foil]

My answer: Depends.

For anything technical, Google. (Thus, my default search on my work machine and home servers is Google.)

For anything media (music / video / images / gaming), Bing. (Thus my default search on my HTPC and game rig are Bing.)

For everything else... still generally Google. Results are just a tad more accurate.

[Isaac]

[vision]

I like that Bing has pretty pictures. But, I still don't use it. And rarely use Google except for deep search on special topics, like when I'm debugging code.

[Alter-Fox]

Lol I think Issac has won.

[CDN_Merlin]

Google, tried, tested and true.

[Alter-Fox]

Bing needs to have ads on TV. Despite that sort of competition, google does not need TV commercials to get use.

[fliptw]

Microsoft's problem is they can't really fully commit to anything new.

[Top Gun]

Another way to think of it is that "Google" is now a verb. "Bing" isn't.

[roid]

google does not need TV commercials to get use.

google has TV ads in your country?

weeeeeird

[woodchip]

I'm still trying to find Netscape.

[Alter-Fox]

google does not need TV commercials to get use.

google has TV ads in your country?

No Bing does. But Google still gets more use despite not having them .

[Sirius]

[source needed]

Yeah, that pretty much sums that up.

I actually use them both for different things. Google usually seems to do a better job with highly-technical queries (though I'm not sure that's totally true any more, at least if you format them better than the screenshots above - though natural language queries is possibly going to be more important in future especially with speech/voice recognition). Bing has a lot of stuff built in if you're doing something more specific like shopping, looking for flights, etc.

Overall though, I would say most people can just use what they want to. There doesn't seem to be a substantial difference between the two.

Feature comparison seems out-of-date, or just inaccurate -
Mail: Yes, MS has that (Outlook, Hotmail)
File storage: Skydrive
Search history across multiple computers: I can confirm this works (requires an account but so would Google)
Syncing bookmarks: Not a search engine feature, but there are various ways to do this even in IE now (I don't use IE much so I don't really care though)
Special queries (calculator, currency converter, etc): also works in Bing

And... it works fine on non-Windows platforms as well. And you don't need to sign into Facebook for it to work well enough any more than you need to sign into Google+ to use Google.

It's okay to have your preferences, but it would be a lot nicer if people wouldn't make stuff up to support their position. It doesn't do anyone else a service.

[roid]

it bugs me because Google was the best of the best, it was the search engine that everyone chose to default to, it won quite fairly. Search engines were innovative at the time, it was a relatively new thing, every engine had their own algorithms, all competing. I'd say Google won because they put off ads for so long, because every other big search engine at the time was allowing companies to pay to be put at the top of search results from the get-go (Yahoo and Altavista, i m looking @ u). But Google didn't, and so everyone recommended them, and THAT'S why they became #1. They earned their trust, and word of mouth did it's job.

Microsoft comes in and starts up their search engine, completely void of innovation, simply because they want a piece of pie, "it's a good way to maintain our brand". And they use their monopoly position in other markets to steer people towards Bing by default.
I choose to use Google. Bing can't say the same, i only ever use it when i'm forced to, to search for a chrome download on a new OS installation (another forced choice, but i digress).
i mean... like most geeks i have a history of bad blood towards Microsoft. i see Bing and i just see same old same old. The only good blood i have towards them is the Kinect, that was a bold move, but it was merely a sideeffect of their XBOX piece of pie efforts, and they even tried to ★■◆● that up ("hack it and we will sue you!"), it had to have it's ass saved by Johnny Chung Lee, who apparently had to fight tooth and nail with the corporate culture at Microsoft so that they didn't hamstring the Kinect. After the kinect came out, he left MS and went to work at Google instead.
mmm, microsoft rant, feels good man

[Isaac]

[source needed]

Yeah, that pretty much sums that up.

Wrong.

[Sirius]

Yes, Google got where they were because they were so damn good compared to what was out there at the time - up until then I used AltaVista, and Google was something else - it actually found what you were looking for, usually at the top of the first page. That "I'm Feeling Lucky" button? That was nearly unthinkable at the time - the first result was so rarely the one you wanted, yet these guys nailed it.

That by itself was brilliant, but throw in AdWords, which was an advertising scheme that was not horribly annoying (also unthinkable at the time), and they built quite a legendary company without alienating users.

But then, at the same time, when you get big, things become different... companies have a tendency to lose their soul. Happened to IBM, happened to Microsoft, happened to Apple, happened to Google as well. They've fought against it and done pretty well at it, but there are still the things you look at and ask "is that really ethical?" and the antitrust lawsuits - often things that should be a good idea become no longer a good idea once you've cornered 95% of the global market and everything you do has seismic effects felt all around the world. It's actually really hard to avoid, so I don't blame them for it.

But, at the same time, I refuse to idolize any company - anyone can do wrong, doesn't matter who you are. It helps to fix it when it happens though, and the most frustrating cases occur where the offenders simply try to pretend there's nothing wrong.

And yes, the Kinect was mishandled. There's a mission statement that reads something like "enable people to realize their full potential" (awfully waffly but such is life), but then there are business managers who are loathe to approve anything if it doesn't have demonstrable monetary benefits, so it's kind of difficult to know who to believe. Not everybody is like that, but it's sufficiently entrenched it'll continue to result in a lot of cautious "we want to give as little control to customers as possible!" play. Sigh.

Also, I maintain that "innovation" is a buzzword that no longer means anything. If everything you release is "innovation", why bother to label it? Just say we added features and leave it at that... the customer can decide what they think is a big deal or not.