I've always been pretty happy with google.  I can say, however, that bing cashback does offer some sweet deals.  When i see those, I become a Bing'er for a day while shopping. 

I like competetion that way google does not monopolize the market and walk over privacy concerns.  Just for that reason I certainly want someone other than google to have some decent market share.  Also, I think MS is doing some things that are in the right direction.  Firstly doing Bing right that makes it compeling for people to try it out.  Secondly marketing Bing and raise awareness among people so people would Google using Bing.  Lastly for people like me, I use bing for shopping so I can get cashback (ofcourse I buy only when the final price is cheaper than elsewhere), but getting some green bucks, cant go wrong with that...

Siavash, I agree that Google is a verb/adjective in the industry, so was Xerox (a very innovative company) which is even today used as a verb for photocopying - last time I checked they dont have 80% of market share and thats what is keeping them innovative. 

That has brought the prices down for all of us and it is a good thing for consumers, IMHO :)

BING? Not yet for me....still use Google. I was thinking back how several years ago you'd search & search online for anything....and you'd get frustrated and it would take forever. Now it's a breeze...snap...brrrdding...bippity boppity BACON (you can find something pert near instantly)!

DrowLord, yes, IE8 IS sluggish from what I have personally seen (on XP anyway, not to mention the dozen or so other factors that can cause slowness). IE7 runs faster than IE8, BUT, IE8 is more secure. This little IE8 fix seemed to help me: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/272 

RE: Browser Marketshare, I don’t think the majority of end users really know any better since IE is bundled in with the OS. H3ll, they don’t even know about the TABS in IE7 & 8! I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to their PC, opened up IE, clicked the next tab over, only to see that the Tabs aren’t set up. Then I show them how the Tabs work, they go OOooo, AHhhhhh (Huh? Geez, how long have they been using a TABBED IE w/o Tabs?). I often tell people about FireFox, Chrome, Opera etc...and they’re all like huhhh, whahhh, HUHhhhh, other browsers?

IMHO, I use (& test them) many browsers, I still come back to IE for ease of use, functionality, scrolling ability (on laptops etc). One thing that really irritates me about FireFox/Chrome – whenever there’s an Adobe Flash Update, I have to update it EACH browser separately (more Adobe crap to deal with!).

A few weeks ago my wife started complaining about web pages freezing, input not working (keyboard and mouse clicks), and a myriad of other intermittent problems.  I was surprised to find Bing installed on both of our computers -- What is it?  Where did it come from?  I assumed it was some malware and disabled it.  Her web browser resumed it's sluggish but operable perforamnce as soon as it was gone.

I advised her not to use IE at all when she could avoid it.  I was once a big fan of IE, but I think Microsoft has put too much effort into developing IE as some form of network smart client, rather than keeping "web browsing" in their sites.  I guess the extra features are nice in the correct context, but for "normal" use, it's sluggish, inconsistent, and prone to crashes.

I'm not really sure how IE retains market share.  IE7 and IE8 compete poorly against older versions of IE, and utterly flounder against Firefox.

Honestly, bing has potential and looks promising; however, Google is so ubiquitous and integrated into everything. I've used Google for years and don't have any plans on changing anytime soon. Google's products, although not always completely polished offer much more in terms of innovation than Microsoft's.

     I have been a Microsoft user for many years and was quite content to use Google as my search engine.  I experimented with Google’s tools to make web pages easier to find when searching etc.  When Google came out with Chrome I have used that also but not to the extent I have used Google.  Google has some nice features ‘Define: <word>’ in the window and so on.

     Now there is Bing and to be fair I have started to use it as my primary search engine to see what it can and cannot do.  At this stage I am using Bing exclusively and have been for about 4 months and I am still learning more about it each day.  I am not yet comfortable that I know all there is to know about it yet.  There are some blog features and other items I need to explore more.  Will it be the final tool, I don’t think so since I like to experiment and just turn the knobs and kick the tires of what ever comes along.

Microsoft has brought quite interesting features into their new search tool though I believe for some reasons it will struggle, at least short to medium term, to compete against kinds of google. Google has had a first mover's advantage in innovative search utility market. Google is not a noun, but an adjective and a verb in this industry. Google's share of the search market has grown exponentially and even the consolidation of competitors has not paid considerable divident in the recent years. Google's focus on web and embracing an open social pull model to achieve commercial objectives has gone down well in contrast to common perception of the Miscosoft push strategy. Another factor is perhaps google's pace of technology innovation where it leads. Microsoft in contrast comes across as a follower trying to play "innovation catch". Having said this MS would require time to prove its feature packed newcomer. Perhaps focusing on the enterprise search capability combined with operating system and mobile platform advantage would gain them some competitive advantage.