Bing-vs-Google: Now you can try them side by side

Bing-vs-Google, a new website, lets users contrast and compare the two search engines side by side. (Click image above to see a snapshot of Bing-vs-Google.)
[ Image: screengrab ]

Google or Bing? Been wondering which search engine is right for you? Now, you can put them to the test yourself with Bing-vs-Google.

As the name implies, the site puts the two side-by-side for a real-time search engine showdown. Merely type in your query, and a split screen page (see image) with live results from both pages comes up, letting you simultaneously view the results of both searches and see which one is best for you.

Bing, Microsoft’s new search tool, claims it provides a context for searches, making results more pertinent to users. Bing also has a versatile taskbar that displays related searches and a search history (which can be turned off), and offers a no-click preview of the first few paragraphs on a page.

But do any of Bing’s additions make it better than the reigning search champ, Google whose name has become synonymous with Web searching? (“Let me Google that.”)? And will those features help Bing dethrone Google? Time will tell.

In the meantime, give Bing-vs-Google.com a try, and let us know which site’s search results you prefer and why. —Will Dilella

More movies from Internet-connected TVs

Vizio recently announced its first Internet-enabled LCD TVs which will be able to stream content from Netflix. (Click to enlarge.)
[ Photo courtesy of: Netflix.com ]

Internet-connected TVs were somewhat of a novelty last year, when the few sets available offered mostly basic news feeds, but they’ve rapidly become big news. Several major TV brands now have sets offering access to countless thousands of movies and videos on Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, and YouTube, plus weather, stock updates, financial news, photo-sharing sites, and other content accessible through Yahoo widgets.

Sony, which already had a deal making Amazon’s 40,000-plus videos instantly available through its Internet-enabled Bravia sets, just announced that viewers will be able to access Netflix content (some 12,000 titles strong) starting this fall. A few weeks ago, Vizio announced that its first Internet-enabled sets, due out this fall, will offer content from Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, and more. Panasonic added Amazon to its list of partners a few months back. Meanwhile, LG has deals with Netflix and YouTube, among others. Samsung has a number of partners, including YouTube, but as yet hasn’t announced a deal with a major movie provider for its Internet-connected TVs. (Samsung Blu-ray players, like those from LG, can stream Netflix movies.)

We’re getting more and more of these TVs in our labs and will be testing their connectivity and other features down the road. In the meantime, if you’ve been using any of these sets and services, let us know what you think about them. —Eileen McCooey

The Netbook Net Widens

The netbook market continues to get a boost from a variety of sources, not least of which was Google’s announcement that it will launch an operating system on netbooks in the second half of 2010. Google Chrome OS, says Google, will be a speedy and lightweight operating system, with little user interface, that will get people on the Web “in a few seconds.”

Meanwhile, Sony released its first family of netbooks, further swelling the number of brands. The W series’ pricing starts at $500, a premium price for a netbook, but typical of Sony’s laptop pricing. The 10.1-inch netbook uses an Atom 280 processor, and has 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. To see how Sony laptops fare compared to others, see our laptop Ratings (available to subscribers).

Is $500 out of your budget range? How about a 99-cent netbook? Sprint and Best Buy have announced that they’ll offer the Compaq Mini 110c-1040DX netbook to consumers, normally sold at Best Buy for $389, for that little. Of course, there’s a catch: You must sign up for a 2-year Sprint mobile broadband contract, the latest in a line of contract netbook offers. In our most recent Ratings of cell-phone providers (subscribers only), Sprint was among the lowest ranked in cell-phone service and among the worst for customer service.

BBB sees rise in Pay-to-Tweet scams

A warning to all you job hunters out there: The Better Business Bureau reports a spike in the work at home, get-rich-quick schemes being offered through the social-networking site Twitter.

The scams are similar to the classic Web and e-mail offers. Sites claim you can make loads of money, with little effort, and no experience, as long as you pay for an informative CD—as featured on the fill-in-the-blank nationally syndicated television show—that will reveal the mystery of making thousands of dollars a month.

According to the BBB, the purported offers being posted by companies on Twitter promise to pay users hundreds of dollars a day to be professional “Tweeters”—the name for a person who uses Twitter. “‘Make Money With Twitter’ schemes may sound risk-free but bear many red flags,” according to the BBB.

Online privacy: New tool makes it easier to hide your tracks

Here’s your chance to easily opt out of many of those ad-trackers that follow your every move as you surf the Internet. A new, free tool called TACO, or Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out, lets you do just that.

Developed by a student fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, TACO places cookies in your browser that prevent 84 online ad networks from tracking your browsing habits. Right now, the tool works only with the Firefox browser.

Without TACO, you’d have to visit a large number of Web sites individually and opt out of each network’s program. —Donna Tapellini

Adobe Flash to your TV: Let's get interactive!

Not content to remain tethered to the computer, Adobe’s Flash technology is about to make the jump to televisions and other consumer-electronics devices this fall, promising to deliver high-def video and other web-based content seamlessly to TV viewers. The technology, called Flash for the Digital Home, is an optimized version of Flash Lite—designed for mobile products—that can run on TVs, Blu-ray DVD players, and settop boxes.

As far as we know, Vizio is the only TV brand that's announced support for the specialized version of Flash, which will be available later this summer in XVT-series TVs that feature Vizio Internet Apps (VIA), the company's online TV platform. But Flash for the Digital Home has already garnered the support of some major players, including Atlantic Records, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Intel, Netflix, and The New York Times, among others.

This is part of the Open Screen Project, Adobe's plan to let you access Internet content from almost any kind of device without going through a computer or web browser. Flash for the Digital Home will give users the ability to combine traditional TV viewing with access to new types of Internet-delivered content, including streaming HD video and music, along with interaction with social-networking communities. Flash Lite is currently used to deliver multimedia content to mobile devices, including cell phones.

We'll be looking for additional product announcements from TV and Blu-ray player manufacturers to see how broadly this new technology will be adopted—and of course testing models when they become available to see if the technology lives up to its promise. —Will Dilella

Clever e-mail scam: Someone bought this in your name

An e-mail message purporting to be from PayPal warns the recipient that their PayPal account has automatically sent money to any unfamiliar person. But if the person clicks on "Cancel Transaction," that's when the real problems begin. (Click on the image above to see the complete "phishing" e-mail.)
[ Photo: J. Fox ]

I've been getting e-mail phishing scams for several years and thought I'd seen it all. But this week I received an e-mail that wasn't the usual "We're doing a security check and need your password" scam.

The e-mail appears to come from PayPal, a popular institution often imitated by scammers. What's unusual is that it seems to be a confirmation of a purchase, for more than $400, paid from my PayPal account. There's even a realistic-looking transaction, including the name and address of the person whom you're supposed to assume made the purchase.

I picked this up as a scam fairly quickly because I've trained myself to recognize such cons. But I suspect that a consumer fearful that their PayPal account had been incorrectly charged would hastily follow the scam's instructions to click on the “CANCEL TRANSACTION” link to sign into their account.

If that link were still active (it wasn't when I tried it), doing that would give the criminals the information they need to immediately access the account and drain its funds. (Based on our most recent State of the Net Survey, we estimate that, over the past two years, about 7 million American consumers gave such phishers personal information and that, nationally, phishers stole nearly half a billion dollars from online consumers.)

Here's how to avoid becoming a cybervictim:

Firefox 3.5 Ready for Download

The latest version of Mozilla's Firefox browser debuted yesterday.

Just released yesterday, Mozilla’s latest version of its Firefox browser for Mac and Windows is full of new features, from enhanced privacy to new video standards. We haven’t formally reviewed Firefox 3.5, but here are a few features that we think are interesting:

Private browsing mode. Enabling this feature is supposed to remove any trace of the Web sites you visit while in this mode. No cookies, history, or any other trace of your visit is saved. Other browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome, also have this option.

Location-aware browsing. This one seems like the opposite of private browsing. It tells Firefox where you are so it can provide more-targeted information. Fortunately, you can turn it off at will.

Open video and audio. No more plug-ins necessary for viewing video and listening to audio online.

Speed. Mozilla says Firefox 3.5 is twice as fast as Firefox 3, and 10 times faster than Firefox 2.

You can download the new browser here. —Donna Tapellini

In the CR test labs: New Blu-ray players

The latest batch of Blu-ray players are in our labs now. Check back in a few weeks for updated Ratings.

Things are once again cooking in CR’s DVD test labs, where we’re putting 11 new high-def Blu-ray players through their paces. All the new players we’re testing are BD-Live models that can access extra online content from the movie-studio’s servers, or download firmware updates from the manufacturer when new features are available.

Some of the models also offer access to additional Web-based content, such as movies from Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, videos from YouTube, or streaming music from services such as Pandora.

These models will be part of the latest Blu-ray player Ratings (available to subscribers), which should be posted in a few weeks.

Here are some comments on the models currently being tested:

JVC XV-BP1: JVC’s first Blu-ray player can play back high-def AVCHD video files shot with a camcorder, and can internally decode DolbyTrueHD and DTS-HD Master lossless audio formats.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8: You download, they donate

Download IE 8 for free, and Microsoft will donate food for the hungry until August 8th.
[ Photo courtesy of eyeliam ]

Perhaps Microsoft is tired of being on the receiving end of those hoaxes that promise to donate money to [fill in the cause] if you click on [fill in the Web address]. Or perhaps the company thought all those hoaxers actually had the germ of a good idea: People click when you promise to donate.

Whatever its motivation, Microsoft is encouraging users to download IE8, the latest version of Internet Explorer, and promising to help the hungry in return. For real.

With its “Browser for the Better” campaign, Microsoft is donating enough money to buy eight meals for Feeding America’s network of 206 local food banks for every one download of Internet Explorer 8. Feeding America gets food to more than 25 million Americans every year. To set the donation in motion, you’ve got to download IE8 from the official “Browser for the Better” Web site.

The promotion runs through Aug. 8, 2009.

Internet Explorer 8 was released in March. You should download it (or other new browser versions) for increased security, but be aware of possible compatibility issues. —Will Dilella