Bing
Ranked 11 of 38 search engines by recommenders
Free search engine that many people find gives better results than Google, with the main caveat being heavy push of AI answers, Microsoft products and ads.
Free search engine that many people find gives better results than Google, with the main caveat being heavy push of AI answers, Microsoft products and ads.
126 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 33
- criticize it
- 93
- approval share
- 26%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 33 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Better results than Google for many
“Bing is a better search engine than Google at this point and Bing isn't great.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “The next chapter of our AI momentum” “it's been providing better results than Google for sometime”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Google Search as you know it is over” “Bing is simply a better search engine at this point”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Google Removed 749M Anna's Archive URLs from Its Search Results” - Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Google Search as you know it is over”
- Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “When did Google get so weird?”
- Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Google is dead. Where do we go now?”
- Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026”
Alternative to Google for many
“duckduckgo and bing together are a perfect replacement instead”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore” “how much better DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Bing and Kagi is”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Google officially announces that ads will be included in AI Mode search results” “I did ditch Google/Chrome for Bing/Edge years ago.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “When did Google get so weird?” - Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Google AI Mode shows same products 21.6% more expensive than traditional search”
Works well for site searches
“I've found success with site: queries on Bing”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Anthropic acquires Bun” “Bing works like a charm for all my sites”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Pushes AI answers on users
“the AI replies that popular search engines, like Google and Bing, force upon their users have made Internet searches much worse not better”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Dario Amodei – "We are near the end of the exponential"” “I pity those who believe any of the AI answers that most search engines force now upon their users”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Parametron: 50s Japanese computer that uses neither transistors nor vacuum tubes” Forces Bing and Edge on users
“Why are local searches always sent to Bing with no easy way to switch it off or change the search provider?”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues” “it did all searches using Bing, and opened any websites using Edge, regardless of your default settings”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft abandons personal AI chatbot race with Copilot reboot” “Don't nag users to switch to Edge, Bing, sign in with a Microsoft account, or adopt Copilot.”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Microspeak: North Star – The Old New Thing (2015)” Smaller index, fewer relevant results
“since they can't make a normal website that works on Firefox their slightly inferior results made me use Google again”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Sam Altman says industry is wrong on OpenAI's competition, it is not from Google” “Bing's index is smaller than Google's, and anecdotally I get fewer relevant results when using it”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Google is ending full-web search for niche search engines” “with Google/Bing/DDG I quickly start getting results that don't follow my search criteria”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore” Returns fake or broken sites
“Bing is worse, since it shows 7zip.com on the 2nd page, but the site refuses to load.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “7zip.com Is Serving Malware” “DuckDuckGo and Bing linked to the fake domain first, followed by the official GitHub.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “I'm losing the SEO battle for my own open source project”
Other search engines people recommend
The four most recommended other search engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| BingThis page | 33 | 93 | 26% | 11 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 133 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Also, Microsoft Bing app. How do I remove from Windows 11?”
“Google and Bing, which by the way closed off their official search APIs”
“Bing doesn't suck just because Microsoft gimps the front end. Bing sucks because enormous indexes are hard.”
“I did ditch Google/Chrome for Bing/Edge years ago.”
“Bing has been better than google since 2019”
“bing is that very sad MS search that was terrible at everything”
“it did all searches using Bing, and opened any websites using Edge, regardless of your default settings”
“those haven’t been contributing much in terms of meaningful results”
“I have to go to Bing instead”
“Around that time Bing and DDG were actually better.”
“I pity those who believe any of the AI answers that most search engines force now upon their users”
“feed everything you do into Bing for ad money”
“Bing is a better search engine than Google at this point and Bing isn't great.”
“this might be the only place where a redirection to bing provides a much better UX than what was there previously”
“with Google/Bing/DDG I quickly start getting results that don't follow my search criteria”
“I've used Bing Search daily for more than 5 years”
“duckduckgo and bing together are a perfect replacement instead”
“how much better DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Bing and Kagi is”
“it's been providing better results than Google for sometime”
“Bing has been better than Google for some time.”
“Things people know that don’t need to be renamed: Bing”
“DuckDuckGo and Bing linked to the fake domain first, followed by the official GitHub.”
“in some areas Bing was better (e.g. some aerial imagery in maps)”
“Bing is worse, since it shows 7zip.com on the 2nd page, but the site refuses to load.”
“the AI replies that popular search engines, like Google and Bing, force upon their users have made Internet searches much worse not better”
“Why are local searches always sent to Bing with no easy way to switch it off or change the search provider?”
“Bing (very briefly) brought me out of that hell”
“Bing's index is smaller than Google's, and anecdotally I get fewer relevant results when using it”
“I get better results via Bing”
“Right now Bing is working better for me”
“Don't nag users to switch to Edge, Bing, sign in with a Microsoft account, or adopt Copilot.”
“It's crazy that you think there's only one search engine in the US.”
“lists Sci-Hub just fine though”
“since they can't make a normal website that works on Firefox their slightly inferior results made me use Google again”
“Bing works like a charm for all my sites”
“the move from "Bing" to "Copilot"”
“I've found success with site: queries on Bing”
“people are using Bing and Copilot”
“I couldn't find it on Google, DDG, Bing, Brave, etc.”
“Bing is simply a better search engine at this point”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.