James Thigpen

So it’s been a 2 weeks since I switched Chrome’s default search engine from Google to Bing, and this is what I’ve got to say.

It’s not bad, but there’s nothing there that blows my socks off. The image search is way better than Google’s, but the regular search results are *slightly* less relevant sometimes than Google’s. I found myself at maybe once a day re-searching the same term on Google to find what I want. My searches typically have a very technical bent, so maybe that is relevant.

Oh and I don’t like the maps, but I think that may just be my fondness for Google Maps. The Bing maps aren’t bad either. I can’t quantify my distaste for the Bing Maps, but I don’t like them as much as Google’s. I think it may just be an aesthetic thing.

So the conclusion? I’m switching it back. It still feels foreign, and I think it’s a little less relevant to me than Google is for the things I search for.

Now I’m on the prowl for the next thing to jump into whole hog and test my preconceptions.

We are naturally biased towards the things we are most familiar with.  Learning something involves an investment in it, and often times there is an emotional investment as well. We become attached emotionally to the things we’re constantly exposed to.

This can be a good thing, but it can also lead to stagnation. We have to force ourselves to invest a little bit in alternatives so we can see what is new and what is out there, otherwise we just keep writing sprocs for our databases or writing assembly instead of using C “because it gets the job done”.

So in this vein, I set my default search engine in Chrome to bing.com last wednesday after listening in on the girldeveloper.com WAN. I’ll update soon with my experiences. I want to give myself enough time for my google-addicted self to unlearn and truly experience Bing to see if it’s worth its salt.