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.

... contd.