Check out the New Bing Bar with Facebook Integration

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 23 Feb 2011

If you’re a fan of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, a fan of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, and you don’t have anything against toolbars (I know a lot of people nurture a deep hatred towards toolbars) you can check out the new Bing Bar, a toolbar that works with Internet Explorer or later (that would be IE8 and IE9 which is still in RC) on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

According to the Bing Team, the new Bing Bar is meant to provide you with easy and convenient access to “all the stuff you do online.” What would that be? You can use the toolbar to:

- Perform a quick search online for whatever you want. The search box in longer on the left, it is front and center. To help you search faster, things like search history (in purple), suggestions (in black) and deep links (at the top) are consolidated right into the search box.
- Keep an eye on your inbox. You will be notified when you get a new email; you can preview emails in your inbox.
- Check the immensely popular social networking site Facebook and see how your friends are doing. You have easy access the Facebook news feed, you can see what pictures your friends are sharing, you have easy access to friend requests, messages and Facebook notifications.
- Check the weather. You have easy access to weather reports.
- Easily get directions and maps.
- Find the most up-to-date financial information.
- Play games.
- View videos, find out what movies are playing at the cinema.
- Translate from one language to another. You can translate sites in foreign languages.
- Bing Bar users in the US can easily get the latest offers for Bing Rewards.

“We took a back to basics approach for this release, guided by one key principle: make the stuff you do every day online easier. We took a look at what makes our customers happy, how people use our products, and where they spend time online. The feedback was clear. People want an easy way to stay informed about the things they care about (such as Facebook, email, breaking news, weather and traffic),” explained the Bing Team.


Latest News


Sony's 'Attack of the Blockbusters Sale' Slashes Prices in Half for a Ton of PS4 Games

17 Aug 2017

How Samsung's New T5 Compares to the Old T3 Portable SSD (Infographic)

17 Aug 2017

See all