Although Bing has been slowly gaining popularity as an alternative to Google, it has remained the second-favorite search engine. New updates to Bing have made it a stronger competitor.

Bing has perfected its image search results, which it has been tweaking for some time, by offering an entirely new image search experience. The Bing team’s blog indicates that it took the needs of Internet users into account when it designed the new experience, promising, “Now when you click an image, we don’t waste your time loading a new page or force you to dig through a bunch of clutter.”

The new search method puts the image into the “spotlight” with a large display, but it didn’t just minimize white space, it completely eliminated it. The Bing team has “dimmed the lights” around the photo by using a black background that is “easier on the eyes and lets the results shine in high definition.”

Image via Bing

Searching through images is now a fast and simple process, facilitated by allowing users to use the right arrow and left arrow buttons to scroll through images or by manually clicking the arrow on the screen, as well as rebuilding the viewer to ensure lightning fast response rates. Bing also addressed the familiar frustration that users experience when they find an image that they like, but is not the right size or is close, but not quite right: Bing users can now click “more sizes” to find a larger picture or can click “similar images” to find images that are similar to the one they are looking at.

Image search is now one criterion that Bing clearly surpasses Google, showing a better understanding of searchers’ needs than Google image search. If Bing continues to refine its search engine in the manner that it has refined its image search, Google may actually have to start worrying about competition.