The software giant first introduced malware-like pop-up ads last year with a prompt that appeared over the top of other apps and windows. After pausing that notification to address “unintended behavior,” the pop-ups have returned again on Windows 10 and 11.
Windows users have reported seeing the new pop-up in recent days, advertising Bing AI and Microsoft’s Bing search engine inside Google Chrome. If you click yes to this prompt, then Microsoft will set Bing as the default search engine for Chrome. These latest prompts look like malware, and once again have Windows users asking if they are legit or nefarious. Microsoft has confirmed to The Verge that the pop-ups are genuine and should only appear once.
USA companies don't give a shit about antitrust anymore. Look at Amazon and Apple, the only places they get bit for their behavior are the European countries.
the only places they get bit for their behavior are the European countries.
Even then Apple has been barely bothered. The DMA is the first big test, Apple has clearly not complied in spirit, lets see if that’s allowed and nothing changes.
Yeah, but when they get fined 0.004% of their revenue with each violation then it's hardly even worth worrying about. Legal penalties are basically minor business expenses to these companies - like buying toilet paper for the office bathrooms.
Apparently not. Google is nagging Edge users who visit Google services since years to switch to their "secure web browser with frequent updates" (implying that Edge doesn't get any, despite being the same Chromium thing as Chrome). (Firefox is exempt because FF defaults to Google Search)
Trust is when two or more companies secretly collude against the interest of customers. That is what you would find in a textbook anyway. This is more an abuse of monopoly.
Still incorrect, I believe. The pop ups are from Windows. They’re not doing anything to Chrome. Maybe that’s a pedantic technicality but it matters to me, and probably in a legal sense as well.
Microsoft has plenty of shitty practices to report on, including the browser pop ups in windows. There’s no need to lie for clicks. I dunno what the commotion about The Verge is you’re referring to, I’m just commenting on the headline.
They're doing this at the OS level, so Firefox can't protect you from that, the issue is with Windows. They could do the same to Firefox, they just don't bother.
Legitimately the only reason I still have a Windows 10 ISO and key sitting on my long term storage drive is because I fear that I may have to install it to use VR whenever I get a new kit.
Please Valve. Pretty please....
Actually, didn't Facebook buy the lens company Valve was donating to and working with to develop their new VR lens tech? I forgot about that. Another reason to hate Facebook. (I refuse to call it the M word.)
Why do people continue to put up with this? I don’t get any ads or bloatware like “Paint 3D” or “X Box” on Linux Mint. And Linux desktops are so easy to use now! Blows my mind that people tolerate these antics from Microsoft.
Because Linux has a terrible reputation and has no PR or advertising. People think Linux is overly complicated, has WAY too many distributions to choose from, and there’s absolutely no tech support besides what you can find geeks arguing about on a forum.
Community support is a thing, it's not the lack of support that's to blame here - have you ever used Microsoft support? Linux support is much more accessible even.
A lot of the blame here, is Microsoft's clever marketing campaign providing windows to educational institutions - with support - for far below cost, in the early days when pc adoption was on the rise.
Distribution saturation is a barrier to entry and focused support, and it is sometimes more complicated to install and repair. Sometimes it's easier to repair, because windows is too busy trying to hide its internals from you.
It's usually easier to support a remote IT-illiterate person using Linux, by comparison to windows, today.
e: I guess to be fair, if you factored in community support for windows, your options open up quite a lot. I was more thinking about my own interactions with their support. But enterprise support/problems are not the same as personal ones.
People think Linux is overly complicated, has WAY too many distributions to choose from, and there’s absolutely no tech support besides what you can find geeks arguing about on a forum.
As someone who has always used windows since troubleshooting doesn’t sound like a good time for me, you have perfectly hit the nail on the head
It’s the “I’m in this photo and I don’t like it” meme
Only reason I still have windows is for Geforce now. Unfortunately the web browser version doesn't support 1440p 120fps and it's stuck using h.264 on Linux with AMD. The good thing is that once it's setup I don't really need to interact with Windows much since I literally open GFN and discord and that's pretty much it.
Because it's the most used system in the world and most programs run on Windows? Why wouldn't the average user use it when it comes with the machine and it's rather easy to set up.
Nothing turns me off of a product or service like the maker begging and trying to trick me into using their wares. Once they start doing that I will usually end up using technically inferior things to avoid them a lot of the time.
I jump search engines regularly trying to find my happy place, and though I never use Bing directly, I do use DDG (which in turn uses Bing), and I'd say about 50% of the time on DDG I have to !bang swap to other platforms because the results just aren't helpful.
Good, let them fight each other to the death. In the meantime, we need to make sure we're all on the same page for reviving anti-monopoly laws in the USA.
It might be blocked by the DMA, or at least, make Microsoft hesitate about it, since they're meant to treat all browsers equally, which would also mean not advertising their browser in another browser.
Not so much anymore. Bing and google are pretty shit nowadays (for most any searches). I've been getting more accurate search results with duckduckgo, but I'm still looking for a search engine with better results.
Kagi is pretty good, but expensive. I like that listicles are put in their own small section so you can ignore them. You can boost, pin, demote, or block results from certain domains. You can create and quickly switch between domain list presets to search only specific sets of sites. The only thing I don't like is the exerpts below results don't bold what you're looking for like Google does.
I gotta hand it to Apple for taking one for the team and soaking up all of the EU’s anti-trust efforts. Lets other American tech companies do egregious shit like this. /s
The software giant first introduced malware-like pop-up ads last year with a prompt that appeared over the top of other apps and windows.
“This is a one-time notification giving people the choice to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome,” says Caitlin Roulston, director of communications, in a statement to The Verge.
There are a variety of ways that Microsoft attempts to prompt Windows users into switching to Bing and Edge, making it difficult to avoid them through tweaking settings.
I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with Microsoft’s attempts to aggressively push pop-up ads on Chrome users in recent years.
Earlier this year, Microsoft even had to fix an issue where its Edge browser was automatically importing browsing data and tabs from Chrome without consent.
I’m still hoping Microsoft will eventually give up with these annoying pop-ups and respect Windows users’ choice to pick whichever search engine and browser they wish to use.
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Their tactics aside, copilot is very useful. It's helped me a ton on my education journey. Free and easy access to it on the desktop has been game changing for me.
It is good but don't abuse it, they're adding it to office as well. Ai generated content is properly marked but it should come with a warning: use with caution. Actually gemini has that warning and google has a natural fear for the digital beast they helped build. Microsoft looked at it, instead, and decided that everyone needed to get all the ai in the world by the means of their products.
I use it because I have learning difficulties and it's nice to be able to ask question after question until I nail down the exact detail that I needed to be able to understand the concept I'm trying to learn. I'll take all the downvotes in the world for this because the benefit I've got from using the service far outweighs anything else.