Mat Honan:
I just switched the default search engine in my browser from Google to Bing. And if you care about working efficiently, or getting the right results when you search, then maybe you should too.
The fallout continues.
Ditching Google for Bing
Google actually ranked pages with content stolen from my blog higher than the original post. Bing does not have that problem.
I actually had not tried Bing for a long time and was surprised that it looks and works pretty well. I switched all of my computers / devices to use Bing as well. I’ll switch back if I run into problems, but so far Bing seems as good or better than Google.
Another option: http://duckduckgo.com/
They have a great explanation of why Google’s push to tailor searches to the user is wrong if you want the widest possible hits so you can decide what is relevant to your needs.
Bing used to be touting it was your decision maker, which I thought meant it was also tailoring to you based on previous searches and clicks. Has that changed?
I gave up on Bing about a month ago. The results for web searching were almost as good, but the “hub” wasn’t; Bing’s maps are quite terrible at interpreting queries. If Google+ impacts search much, I’ll try Bing again.
The first of Microsoft and Google to link to the other’s search as part of their results will earn a position as my default search engine.
I use Bing as my default search on my iPhone – works pretty well. But I have to say that if I’m searching for location based data, I tend to go right to a map application – not to a generic search system.
It should be interesting to see what happens when Siri really takes off (on all iOS devices and on the Mac and when they include more search engines). I’m thinking that the way Siri aggregates multiple search engines might be the best approach. Apple just needs to add more engines. For example, getting with Realtor.com to provide real estate results.