Microsoft has unveiled a new version of its Bing search engine. It makes easier for users to go to their Facebook, Twitter and other social networks accounts and attempts to demonstrate users that it’s better than rival and leading Google.

Photo: the new Bing features a social sidebar, from searchengineland.com

The new design features three-columns including a traditional search bar, a column called Snapshot that adds information such as maps and reviews, and Sidebar, which pulls comments, photos and links offered up your social platforms friends. Users can add Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare and other networks to the search engine. The redesigned Bing will go live in the coming weeks.

According to Forbes, Bing that is in its third year of existence now, is part of the money-losing online services division at Microsoft, which racked up $4.1 billion in losses in the last seven quarters alone. Collaboration with such social media giants as Facebook, doubles forces of Bing in a competition with Google as Facebook also fights for amount of users with Google+. Microsoft started to promote Bing actively in the beginning of 2012.

“Bing is leading us down an interesting and exciting path,” said Ethan Beard,  director of platform partnerships at Facebook.

“What I do know is that Bing’s results do feel comparable to Google. I even spent the past day using them exclusively instead of Google. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t feel I couldn’t find stuff. A part of me kept feeling like I should run back ‘home’ to  Google, but the more I used Bing, the less that became,” search engine expert Danny Sullivan, author of the influential Search Engine Land blog, wrote in his review of the new Bing. “I’d say that Bing is even more competitive with Google than ever before. It’s definitely worth another look by anyone, and the competition between the two benefits everyone.”