Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/50960187
Microsoft has apparently found the free time to build a standalone app whose only job is switching your default search engine to Bing across every browser on your PC. It is not force-installed through Windows Update yet, and it is not available in the Microsoft Store either. It is a standalone executable hosted on Microsoft’s official download servers, and we wonder why it even exists.
The app is called Microsoft Recommended Search Settings, and once installed, it prompts you to add extensions to all your installed browsers, which does the job of switching to the Bing homepage experience. After finishing installation, you also get redirected to the Microsoft Rewards page, which is basically a bribe for switching.
Remember the days when microsoft would get slapped with an antitrust lawsuit for simply preinstalling a browser? Pepperidge farm remembers.
As I recall, a big part of the problem was that they integrated IE throughout the OS so they could claim it was a necessary component of Windows. Thankfully, that didn’t fly. Well, for a while, at least…