Bing Desktop

The search functionality you can expect to get on Bing.com is brought to your desktop by the free and appropriately named Bing Desktop. You can use this application to search for things on Bing, to view your Facebook feed, to see the current weather, to view trending topics, and more.

Bing Desktop provides support for any Windows edition from Windows XP up to Windows 8.1. A setup wizard will help you install Bing Desktop on your Windows-powered machine. Once the wizard is done with its job, you will be presented with a prompt that lists the following options: make the Bing homepage image your desktop background, set Internet Explorer as you default browser, set your homepage to MSN, set Bing as your default search provider, help improve your experience by sending usage info to Microsoft.

The Bing Desktop interface is a floating toolbar. By default, the theme color used by the toolbar is blue. From the Settings menu, you can change it to black, green or purple. From the same Settings menu you can choose what happens when you minimize the toolbar: place an icon in the taskbar, display a search box in the taskbar, show an icon in the notification area. When the Bing Desktop toolbar is minimized, you can bring up with a simple hotkey: Ctrl + Q.

From a functionality point of view, you can expect to get the following from Bing Desktop: perform Bing searches; see the current weather conditions and a forecast for the coming days; view news from around the world; see trending searches, images, and videos; connect to Facebook to view your news feed, read messages, view images; pick a Bing homepage image and use it as your desktop wallpaper.

All the functionality presented above is offered by Microsoft for free. Bing Desktop is freeware.

With Bing Desktop you can easily search for things on Bing, you can keep an eye on your Facebook feed, you can change your desktop wallpaper, and more.