Bing is continuing its campaign for feature parity with Google, now adding a filter to search for GIFs. After you have entered a search query, you will have a chance to filter by ‘Animated GIF.’ This option is located in the toolbar under the search bar and suggestions option, right over the image results. Clock on ‘Type’ and then select ‘Animated GIF’ from the dropdown.
Enabling ‘Animated GIF’ sorting will only show image results that are of the GIF file type. Hovering over a result will animate the gif, as well as clicking on it. This features was a ‘must have,’ as having to visit the page to view the entire GIF would make the search results much more cumbersome to look through.
Personally, I find the functionality better than on Google Images, which doesn’t always animate the GIF properly, forcing you to navigate to the source. Also, while this functionality will not affect mainstream users, we definitely see a significant amount of people appreciating Bing for it.
Further reading: Bing, Bing Images, GIFs, Microsoft
