If you haven’t tried Microsoft’s Bing Bar in any of its earlier iterations, it’s a toolbar with little app-like conveniences. The new Bing Bar 7 again brings that variety of applets to the top of your browser, where with one click you can indulge in its new claim to fame: checking your Facebook feed. It shows your newsfeed, friend requests and even gives you a pleasant-looking grid of your friends’ shared photos.
Still there and every bit as useful as its Bing Bar predecessors is the ability to check a weather report, multiple e-mail accounts, financial information, news and more.
After I installed the toolbar, it immediately determined my location, showing the correct weather report and map/traffic info for my locale. After configuring a couple of e-mail accounts, it showed headers and the first line of each message with a single click. Of course, right in the middle of the toolbar is the Bing search field, where you type in search terms and it autocompletes, guessing what you’re looking for just like Google search does.
I’m not a big toolbar fan, but I think this easily accessible applet setup is a cool idea. The new Facebook integration is surprisingly thorough, useful enough to justify adding the toolbar for that reason alone. Another nicety is the ability to customize the toolbar, getting rid of any of those applets you don’t want.
Even though I’m not too crazy about adding yet another item at the top of my browser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 keeps its top section simple and clean, so maybe this could be useful.
See what you think. Fire up Internet Explorer (try the almost-ready Release Candidate of IE9, it’s cool, too), download Bing Bar 7 and give it a try, and let us know in the comments if you think it’s worth the download.
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