Microsoft forces Bing on Chrome for Windows 11 users excessively. Again

Microsoft forces Bing on several users on Windows 11 devices, as always. This nasty tactic has been going on for quite some time, but in a recent discovery, an internet user said that Redmond officials have stooped that low by sending customers junk notifications to switch their default search engine to Bing on Google Chrome. Some even appeared while playing a video game!

In a long Twitter thread, Maarten Balliauw said that Microsoft is sending a machine fingerprint to a remote server every time a user opens a new tab in Edge. This machine fingerprint can be used to track users across websites.

Hey @bing @microsoft, can you folks please stop shoving ads for your tools into every single update to my machine? This is just obnoxious. #windows11 pic.twitter.com/MkYqx2AFuK

— Maarten Balliauw @[email protected] (@maartenballiauw) August 25, 2023

Balliauw also said that Microsoft is checking a user’s public IP address through a non-Microsoft service. This could be used to identify the user’s location. 

He also reported the issue to Microsoft, but his report was rejected because it did not meet the company’s criteria. He said that the tool’s behavior “definitely matches” the definition of malware for being an obfuscator, its lack of control, advertising, and more as defined by the MITRE ATT&CK framework. 

This wasn’t the first dirty attempt made by Microsoft to lure people to use Edge and Bing. Earlier in May, we reported that the Redmond-based tech giant slaps a big desktop notification below the Search bar with Edge update on Windows 10 users. 

It didn’t stop there. In July, Windows 11 users started spotting a new pop-up window to “try the new AI powered Bing in Chrome.” Once clicked, you’ll be asked to install the Bing extension and switch your default search engine.