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Microsoft's Sneaky Plan to Switch Chrome Searches From Google to Bing

posted by martyb on Friday January 24 2020, @08:05PM   
from the don't-mess-with-the-duck dept.

Freeman writes:

Microsoft's sneaky plan to switch Chrome searches from Google to Bing:

Microsoft announced today that, beginning in February 2020, Office365 Pro Plus installs and updates will include a Chrome extension that forcibly changes the default search engine to Microsoft's own search engine, Bing.

[...] This new policy only takes places in specific geographic areas, as determined by a user's IP address. If you aren't in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, the UK, or the United States, you should be safe—for now

[...] Predictably, the unruly denizens of Reddit's r/sysadmin—arguably, the closest thing the modern Internet has to the scary devil monastery—are unhappy.

[...] Microsoft's actual stated reasoning for the change is to automatically enable Microsoft Search within the user's browser.

[...] Aside from the potential to enrage sysadmins and users alike, we question the wisdom of conditioning users to search for internal, likely confidential data in their Web browser's general-purpose search bar.

LibreOffice + Firefox anyone?

Additional coverage at: searchengineland

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Original Submission

• Ah, it's the helpful postman again (Score: 4, Touché) by sonamchauhan on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:50AM

  by sonamchauhan (6546) on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:50AM (#948321)

  The postman does not like your newspaper.

  So, next month he'll put a note on your porch telling the newsboy you've decided to read the 'The Daily Bing' instead.

  Postman's been planning this a long time. But if you don't want this, login to his website and ask nicely. You got a few days.

  Starting Score:	1		point
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  Interesting=1, Touché=1, Total=2
  Extra 'Touché' Modifier		0
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