IE vs Chrome Bing vs Google

[Daniel Lang]

Hi everyone, I've had my SP3 for about two weeks now and I honestly can't imagine having any other kind of laptop, it really does everything! Anyways, the title says it all.

I've been using IE and Bing and its really just inconvenient and inefficient for my taste.
Is the power saving and touch screen sensitivity THAT much better with IE and Bing?

Also: (really unrelated question) but has anyone found some good free apps for music software for making/mashing songs together?

Thanks

 

[ptrkhh]

Just try installing Chrome. You can always uninstall it later.
Its the second best (read: only other) browser in the metro environment

 

[sharpuser]

... has anyone found some good free apps for music software for making/mashing songs together?...

Goldwave. Still the best.
http://www.goldwave.com/

 

[TeknoBlast]

When I'm in desktop mode, I use Chrome. HOwever, when I'm using it in tablet mode, then IE Modern is what I use.

I use Bing 99% of the time and every now and then I'll use Google. Just never understand the whole "this search engine has better results than the other" debate. I pretty much get the same results no matter which engine I use.....I just prefer Bing more.

 

[zhenya]

I have been a pretty serious Chrome convert for years, but honestly Chrome is a battery pig on this device, and further, I think Google is going out of their way to sabotage Microsoft by making Chrome behave badly on Windows 8.1

After a month of using Chrome on the desktop and IE Touch at home when undocked, I just yesterday have tried switching over to IE as my primary browser again. It's tough, as there are many modern websites and services that work much better in Chrome than IE. For some of those I will continue to use Chrome. Otherwise, we'll see if I can make the switch.

Issues I have with Chrome on the SP3.

Poor/no scaling of UI elements.

Poor battery life. When Chrome is active it intentionally circumvents one of the Windows battery saving features in order to remain more responsive. This is especially noticeable in Connected Standby where I have significant battery drain as Chrome may keep the device from going into low power state. I often saw battery drain of 10% or more during the 4 hours of CS with Chrome in memory. Last night with my same collection of tabs in memory in IE I saw 0-1% drain during those 4 hours.

Pros for Chrome besides above - some pinch to zoom actually works better in Chrome than IE.

You can change the search provider in IE to Google. Since I've been on a bit of an anti-Google kick lately I have been giving Bing an honest try (again, I've done it many times in the past) but honestly Bing just doesn't give me what I'm looking for the majority of the time so I end up going to Google.

 

[hughlle]

On my desktop pc chrome is my browser of choice. But on the surface I like internet explorer. Especially the mui version. But mui has ad on problems, and desktop IEs history function is awful. Swings and roundabouts. Whatever works best for the inindividual.


And it is simply my experience, but I'be never had anything but a crap experience using Bing.

 

[daniielrp]

Like @zhenya I am a pretty huge Chrome user, used it ever since version 1 oh so long ago...
But on the SP3 I try to avoid it when I can - it just simply does work as well with touch. So for general browsing I try and stick with IE, however for work (we rely on Gdocs and our site CMS is coded for Webkit primarily) I have to use Chrome.

However, I cannot use Bing, I just simply can't. There are far too many times I search for something and the results are so outlandish it is ridiculous. I also appreciate Google's search tools like translating, maths, conversions, stocks, time etc. Also, it has no consistent "news" as such, if I type in something new say from CES that was announced today, Google's top results are all about it. On bing, I might get something, or I might get nothing. For me personally, and the job I do, I NEED to be able to find fresh info fast, and bing just cannot do this reliably.

 

[lhauser]

I use DuckDuckGo about 99% of the time. It gives me the results I expect without the ads. If I think I'm lacking some results I'll go to Google, which is pretty simple with DDG's !g search prefix.