Bing

 Review

Common Sense Media says

Excellent search engine with really poor protections.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

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Quality
 
Sometimes media can be age appropriate but a real waste of time. Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

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Parents say

Kids say

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that Bing, an excellent search tool, makes it too easy to find and watch Internet sex videos. All a child has to do is hover a mouse over a sex video thumbnail and it starts playing. Unless you set your preferences to "Strict" we actually don't recommend kids use Bing. (Shortly after launch, Microsoft came up with a fix that involves pasting the url www.explicit.bing.net into Internet Explorer's list of sites to block. While this works, most parents either won't know about this fix or actually sit down and block the porn access.)

  • Not applicable.
  • Not applicable.
  • Bing's easy-to-disable adult-content filter combined with its smart-motion video
    feature makes previewing porn a snap. Just hover the mouse over a preview
    thumbnail and it plays the clip without even launching the porn site.
  • Not applicable.
  • One of Bing's stated goals is to make it easier to make a purchasing decision. Keep an eye out as it develops for more and more targeted advertising based on personal behavior. As with Google, ads take the form of search results labeled as sponsored links. These paid listings are not obtrusive and sometimes useful.

What's it about?

Microsoft claims its new search engine, Bing, is better than market leader Google because it uses a "decision engine" to help people make more informed choices. For instance, rather than display results according to popularity, Bing divides them into categories. Search on "laptop" or "digital camera" and results come back under six headings: Shopping, Brands, Top 10, Repair, Accessories and Images. Search on "HIV" and the categories include Treatment and Symptoms. Bing's best-known feature so far, though, is "smart motion," a preview mode for video search results. Simply hovering a mouse lets users see and hear videos inside thumbnails without leaving Bing.


Is it any good?

 

Bing is fast and boasts some whiz-bang features, such as a search history. (Why has this taken so long? I'll probably dump Google and use Bing for this feature alone.) Bing really does make some decisions easier. However, some parents will think Bing is a tad too good at searching the Internet. Unlike other search engines, Bing pops up a dialog box whenever it finds adult content and asks if the user would like to turn off the Safe Search feature. (Google and Yahoo bury this setting on a preferences page.) The result? Even computer novices can easily disable the built-in filter and get an eyeful by passing the cursor over Bing's live video thumbnails. Bing is so new that filtering tools like Symantec's OnlineFamily Norton might not work with it. Until software updates are available – or Microsoft changes Bing – parents might want to monitor kids' Internet research.


Explore, discuss, enjoy

Families can talk about sex before kids see it in action on the Web, which has for some time now been rife with free, hard-core porn; Bing just makes it easier to find. Respect for oneself and others, disease, pregnancy and parents’ personal beliefs can all be a part of the discussion.


This review of Bing was written by
Kid, 11 years old
May 28, 2010
 
really? commonsense really?
commonsense you over rated again its just another search engine its good and helps

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Teen, 14 years old
June 21, 2009
 
It's a search engine!
It SEARCHES the internet, and shows what it finds. Don't blame the website. Your review is horrendously stupid.

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Teen, 14 years old
December 3, 2009
 
So I use google and stuff, but it's the same! I know those commercials make it look like easy to use and stuff, but really? It's the same. And honestly, CSM. No kids? Unless you consider us kids BLOD or something (Thats german, for stupid lol). We know what we want and if its porn your searching for, its porn you're gonna get. Same goes for any search website. Enough said. :o
What other families should know:

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Kid, 8 years old
February 4, 2010
 
THERE'S NO BIG DEAL ABOUT IT

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Adult
July 4, 2009
 
Hey Guys, lets rate a search engine 17+ because you can find porn on the interent! (Horrible Idea)
Really? Why not rate Google 17+ then? Common sense media, you've done it again, in a bad way. This is just another search engine, i like the video preview features, but it's not much different from google. If you parents can't give your kids the simple talk about sex being natural if they do come across porn (and if your gasping to sue or blame Microsoft for exposing their "innocent" eyes to what you call "Horrible perversion" when its probably something as simple as sex), then you shouldn't have kids in the first place, their gonna see sex, and want to see it (as teens) anyway. No big deal as long as they know the risks with sex.
What other families should know:

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Kid, 12 years old
June 12, 2009
 
I'm Surprised I'm Not Dumber Than I Am Using This Website!!!
Okay, I have never used Bing in my life and I probably never will, but I just want to tell you what I think of your review, CSM. It's total crap! How can you say that a search engine is NOT FOR KIDS just because you can find sexual videos on that site! So? It's a freakin' search engine! If you searched "man getting torn to pieces" you would find pictures of a man getting torn to pieces, if you searched "full episode of Barney," you would find a full episode of Barney! It's the same thing for Google and YouTube: a search engine is too broad to give a content rating because it has so much different content in it. Believe me, my parents saw inappropriate material on Google once and they thought nothing of it. They didn't BAN me from using Google! For this review, CSM isn't talking common sense!

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Parent
August 1, 2010
 
BING IS BETTER THAN GOOGLE!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE BING!

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Teen, 13 years old
August 1, 2010
 
BING IS BETTER THAN GOOGLE!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE BING!

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Kid, 11 years old
June 11, 2009
 
What aree you talking about?
WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT? YOU GODDA BE KIDDING ME. YOU MARK A MICROSOFT SEARCH ENGINE AS NOT FOR KIDS! THATS RIDICULUS! I GO ON BING ALMOST ALL THE TIME WHEN I GET ON THE COMPUTER. YOUR TELLING KIDS TO NOT GO ON THIS WEBSITE JUST BECAUSE IT ALLOWS YOU TO TYPE IN WHAT YOU WANT? THATS CRAZY AND STUPENDOUS!

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Kid, 10 years old
June 28, 2009
 
OK.
Nothing wrong with this site.
What other families should know:

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This review of Bing was written by
Genre:Educational

This review of Bing was written by

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