Microsoft is once again injecting pop-up ads into Google Chrome on Windows in a bid to get people to switch to Bing
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.
Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
Isn’t that a textbook antitrust violation?
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.
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)
BWAHAHAhahahahaaaaaa! Aiiigh! Oh! Oh man. snif. Haha ha. Ahhhhhh fuck.
Yes. But micro$oft was declared a monopoly 20+ years ago and . . gestures to everything
what, you want reform? It didn’t have the votes.
Microsoft and the government:
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.
Except it's Google with the monopoly now.
I looked at the links in the source and they’re Windows popups, not Chrome injections. Shitty reporting from the verge.
almost just as scummy though
I don’t disagree but damn, can we get some accurate reporting? No need to lie about how shitty Microsoft can be.
Yeah agreed, that title is literally a lie.
You expected better from the verge?
The headline says "stuffing". This archive 15 minutes before this post was made also says "stuffing". Stop blaming The Verge for everything, they've moved on from that PC fiasco long ago.
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 control your OS. Instead of just running the program you told it to, it's checking what program you are running and then displaying a pop-up intended to make them more profit. Functionally, there isn't really a difference when the OS can already do whatever injected code might want to do.
It's like if your bank is inserting flyers for their investment services into any safe deposit boxes that include stock certificates and arguing about whether they are picking your lock to get in or just opening a door in the back that gives them access to each box.
Hmm, to me stuffing doesn't sound like they're changing Chrome, but I get your point.
Edit: oh shoot it's the first sentence
It absolutely does?
Stuffing means cramming something into another thing.
That's a blatant lie. Nothing is getting injected/stuffed/whatever synonym-ed into Chrome. It's a Windows popup.
It's still a textbook abuse of dominant market position, and therefore illegal, so there's no need for the article to lie and hand MS and their fans the opportunity to dismiss this reporting as being fake news, which it essentially is.
*Laughs in Firefox*
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.
Well I'm glad I switched to Linux, its only going to get worse.
I hope more users will do the same
Microsoft convinced me to switch... to Linux
Nearing 6mo since I booted into my windows drive (been a daily user since 98)
Easy Solution: Linux, Firefox/LibreWolf, DuckDuckGo
Fuck Microsoft!
Ddg has content bubbles and tracking that you can stop.
Turn off location and you will still get results relevant to your area filling the page.
Duckduckgo once allowed trackers from Microsoft
Source: www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N3792HE
Ublock Origin does not block "malicious Javascript" reliably. You need NoScript for that, and a opt-in approach. Block everything, unblock what you need, hope its not malicious.
uBO can be set up to block all JS by default, allowing you to manually whitelist each script. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-hard-mode
I also run disabling addons for java script and flash as well as an overlay remover in Firefox
Flash should be possible to disable about:config as its legacy technology.
Could you explain the overlay remover?
Noscript is the only good addon for blocking javascript and allowing only some parts for specific origins.
Those pop up pages that prevent you from seeing the underlying page. It doesn't happen as often anymore but it's nice to have a way to remove them
That probably is a Ublock origin filterlist. Did you ever open UBOs settings? Try to not use too many, too many lists increase RAM and CPU usage and are all using badness enumeration so they will be 80% duplicates.
I dont know if UBO deduplicates them (removes duplicates), that would make sense.
While I actually do that, you cannot seriously recommend it to anyone. Hardly any site works without Javascript nowadays.
Yes thats why you have the button to click on. I also need to allowlist basically every site I visit.
There should be some way to share such a list, to reduce the manual work.
I highly recommend manually enabling Javascript.
Sometimes it's great. If people complain about paywalls, for example, and you didn't even see the pop-up.
And sometimes it prevents sites from working, because paywalls that are avoidable by blocking the cover are deprecated and nowadays real solutions are used. This means such size will just break.
Ublock can also remove overlays, and I am sure it you add more lists they will be blocked by default.
Having less code run in your browser is always recommended.
I have nothing to do with Librewolf at all. Don't confuse the two. I just said what Duckduckgo did with trackers based on a search agreement with Microsoft. BTW, this issue was initially exposed by others, not Duckduckgo itself.
Are malware.
The constant stream of this horseshit is why I abandoned Windows nonsense again.
If I continue to break the law with my car they will take it away.
MS should be forced to sell Bing+Edge as a separate entity.
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.)
Before my PC died, my Index was working under Arch FWIW. Can't speak for other hardware though
😍
I still think it's wild that they just stole the name and bullied their way into keeping it and nothing bad happened.
laughs in Linux desktop
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.
Yeah, I was talking about perception more than reality
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.
“wE VAlue prOviDING oUR CuStomERs With CHOice, So THerE IS An OPtIoN to DisMiss tHE NOTiFiCATiON” - Microsoft responding to Windows Latest regarding this
I don't understand why anyone uses Windows.
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.
Work, proprietary software runs shit on linux.
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do." 😉
Because some people don't want to screw around with bash commands that look like Cthulhu incantations, and they can't afford a Mac.
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.
Good, let these two horrible browsers fill eachother with bloat until they both fall out.
First of all fuck Bing and Microsoft. That's it, comment complete.
Exactly I'm a tech guy and I don't give a fuck how many other tech guys say "bing is really good now", I'm never fucking using it.
Bing is not good now.
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.
"Bing Is Not Good" 😆
Bing was never good. Not back then, and certainly not now.
Which hole do I fuck this corporation in?
That's the spirit!
“We value providing our customers with choice, so there is an option to dismiss the notification.”
Thank you daddy Microsoft for still letting me click "no" on your invasive popup ad with a dark pattern to make me change my system settings.
I wonder what would happen if Chrome asked the user to replace Onedrive with Google Drive on startup.
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.
Which means us Firefox users can have some popcorn 🍿
That is until they reach us. I hope they don't.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-13/firefox-maker-mozilla-is-cutting-60-jobs-after-naming-new-ceo
Someone from Airbnb and Ebay is running the show now. There is gonna be an enshitification speedrun on firefox coming.
I guess it's time to panic
Firefox users were too smug. This is the universe knocking them down a peg.
Kinda sad that they don't want us to be unique from them.
Well fuck.
Years ago I would have been pissed. But Google has gotten so bad that I don't have a problem with MS annoying people to get off of Google.
Chrome is worse now? What did you experience?
My main browser is Firefox. My secondary is Chrome. I'm still :) with Chrome as a secondary.
Chrome is great if you stay in Google's ecosystem. But Google has been adding extensions for their own services at such a rate that it was the reason MS gave up and had to adopt Chromium for Edge.
Google has been doing embrace, extend and extinguish for years now.
What the difference between a virus and window? A virus is well maintained by its creator.
Strangely, I have not seen this on Firefox with Unlock Origin.
they don't do it on firefox
That's the point, my friend!
Microsoft continues to make me thankful for switching to Linux. It is refreshing to be able to control your computer experience.
Haven't seen this in the EU. Anyone knows if this is prevented here?
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.
I've seen it in the UK. Another Brexit bonus.
But technically it would be legal, since the DMA came after Brexit
Use Windows on the daily and still have never seen these at all, on multiple computers as well.
Generally I'd agree it's shitty behaviour though.
If Apple injected Safari ads into Chrome on macOS...
They would block Chrome entirely if they could get away with it. macOS is so small compared to iOS which already did, so not worth the backlash.
the only thing Bing is good for is for finding porn.
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.
duckduckgo just uses bing on the backend doesnt it?
Duckduckgo –
I use Duckduckgo for pic searches. I can easily go to the link of the pic. On the other hand, Google takes me to the site containing the pic.
Another concern of mine re Google is –
Say I'm searching re a car. The search results are riddled with carmechanic.com, carexpert.com, moderncar.com, carstoday.com and others. Idk if those are legit. There's been a lot of misinformation on the Net so I've been careful.
It does. I use yandex in my Firefox porn container now.
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 have noticed that recently...meaning a few minutes before I typed this.
Google has sucked for a long time now and now bing isn't even good for finding porn anymore.
mullvad leta and brave search are pretty good about being private
Mullvad leta is only accessible by using the mullvad browser extension with mullvad VPN on the same device.
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
What makes you think Windows wasn't hit by the DMA? Search it up
cough install Linux
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
The original article contains 436 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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.
I also use that when I'm overwhelmed by the amount of materials I have to write down. Indeed, it's rather good for that purpose.
Laughs in Brave and Librewolf
librefox???
Sorry, my bad. LibreWolf.