I just got this popup while playing New vegas. I don't even use chrome, i've switched to firefox. How can this be allowed? Also, this is Win10
If governments actually gave a fuck about antitrust anymore, it would be. 20-ish years ago, they dragged Microsoft to court over simply bundling IE with Windows. It didn't even constantly nag you to set as default; just the fact that it was bundled at all was enough to make it into the sights of regulators.
Microsoft clearly uses dark patterns and FUD to lure you into using Bing.
As long as they're using legal loopholes (or downright do not care because they have enough money to pay any fines) you cannot do anything against it except not using their OS.
I stopped using outlook entirely for this behaviour. Outlook would embed a bing search in your long press menu on android.
What kind of long press menu? I have it installed but don't have any such menu.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would this be illegal?
Anti consumer and anti competitive. Using their position as the OS to bug the living shit out of you to use their services
Anti consumer and anti competitive.
I'm not so sure how it's either of those things. I mean yeah, it's annoying (especially if it's popping up while you're playing a game), but I don't feel like it's crossing either of these lines. If you click "Don't switch", it goes away, and it's not changing anything without your permission. I've never seen it pop up again on my devices. I forget where in the settings it would be, but I seem to recall there being an option to disable suggestions like this, as well (although an argument could be made that this should be opt-in instead of opt-out).
I know this community has a (largely justified) hate-boner for big tech companies, but not every annoyance is a crime. If anything, I'm just glad to see that they're at least respecting the user's consent these days; in the before times, Microsoft would just revert all your shit to what they wanted, whether you liked it or not, permission be damned. I lost track of how many WinXP updates would reinstall that Bing Bar (or MSN or whatever they called it back then) without asking me.
Unless there's another angle that I'm not seeing, I don't see how this is that much of a problem. If anything, it's a good advertisement for Linux, though.
I'm not even remotely a legal expert and I don't know what type of popup that is but I think the anti-competitive piece is "could Google use the same technique to push the user to switch to google search on Edge or not?".
If this was an ad from a web page OP had opened or from the game and if clicking "Yes" only directed the user to a site with instructions on how to switch default search engine on Chrome, then yes, obnoxious but probably fair. Google could strike a deal with the game developers to push their search engine to Edge users or buy an ad. Someone writing a new browser or search engine will probably have considerably less money than Google but could reasonably do something similar to try and gain market share.
On the other hand, if that popup comes from Windows itself and especially if clicking "Yes" directly changes Chrome's settings, then this is Microsoft using their ubiquitous (on desktops) OS to nudge more users to switch a competitor's browser to their own search engine. Google, or even less a new competitor. would probably not have the same type of OS-level access to switch the settings of a different browser.
Using a dominant market position as leverage against competitors, is per definition Anti consumer and anti competitive.
Apart from that, they are basically hijacking a competitors product to show this, which I think if not already illegal, it absolutely should be.
I think this sentiment come from the long history of Microsoft repeatedly breaking and then failing to address antitrust requests. At this point people just assume bas faith.
I remember maybe a decade ago how it seemed a big deal anytime they used their OS monopoly to fuck with 3rd parties alternatives. But yeah, I don't think every popup and annoyance is a crime. There's a fine line they walk to still push their first-party garbage.
According to Rules of the Internet § 12 "if I find something to be annoying, objectionable, or wrong it surely must be illegal."
MS literally got in trouble for bundling IE with the OS 20 years ago... This is so much worse.
If you cannot understand why people are rightfully upset... LEARN YOUR FUCKING HISTORY.
It's getting REALLY difficult to tell normal operation and viruses apart.
I think you're confusing virus and malware. Windows is malware by definition. I think according to gnu philosophy any proprietary software is malware because features are designed to make profits and not to service the end user.
Because in all practical senses, windows is a virus.
Viruses at their core are programs which do things against your will on your own machine. Which is bad.
However, that is exactly what windows does. But like the boiling frog, people for some reason are okay with more bullshit from Microsoft and less control of their own devices with every passing update and year.
Complaining on ~~reddit~~ social media does nothing. Switching to Linux gives you back control and will be better for everyone in the long run.
One of the many reasons why I will never return to Windows.
I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it's a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
Since everybody on this comm seem to be circlejerking, let me how to tell you how to get rid of this POS. Shit's called BGAupsell and resides in Windows\Temp\MUBSTemp, set yourself as owner of the file via your admin account and then delete it and replace it with an an empty EXE file that you assign ownership to yourself with. Then you write protect it and you're done. If you just delete the dir or the file, it'll come back next major update.
NOW, to really give MS a punch in the dick, you're also going to want to disable the search menu ad as well:
https://www.howtogeek.com/826967/how-to-disable-bing-in-the-windows-11-start-menu/
And all of you fucking *nux newfargs, grow up. Also, don't fucking drink and root you lusers.
I still don't get how Microsoft got in trouble for bundling internet explorer but now they are completely fine doing this
Anti-trust regulation has gotten very toothless in recent years. The shit many corporations are pulling now is insane when you think back about what happened to ms then.
What company was it that lost an antitrust lawsuit again? It was something like Macrosoft? Microphone? idr
I really don't know why I bother reading the comments on any windows posts. It's just full of Linux users trying to convert people.
It's not going to happen. Most of us use our computers for leisure, not to have to find workarounds for most anything.
This is literally a post of someone trying to find a workaround for a problem that only exists on windows.... A question was asked and an appropriate answer given, if you refuse to accept the answer, thats on you, go read a different post
You are setting a stage where corporations can exploit people like you who're naive because they resist change. Change is good. Embrace it! I am not a linux user but I always keep my options open.
Why wouldn't it be legal? You are using their product and they put out a notification on it asking if you want to use one of their products. Why would that be illegal!?
Like I understand people not liking it, but illegal?
I am pretty sure they are insinuating that it is antitrust violation. It probably is but our current governance seems unwilling to do anything about anti-competitive practices.
It's shit like this that will eventually drive me away from windows. I was baffled when it appeared.
As someone who was recently driven, leave it. It’s never going to get better, only worse. And linux is only going to get better the more you understand it.
It is because you agreed to to the terms and conditions of the Windows operating system
They got in trouble for setting internet explorer as the default and had to pop a prompt when you installed windows a while ago.
I don't think asking if you want to is illegal though. But it could be as they are using their ownership of the operating system to push you towards their other products.
Everything is legal in the US if you can lobby enough
Not quite. You can also break the law, pay a fraction of what you grifted, say sorry and then continue.
“I will make it legal.”
-Darth CEOus
Run a debloat script for windows from christitustech. And if you want to start from fresh install w10/11 ltsb/ltsc and run the debloat script, that is the safest option, if you don't want to swap to Linux.
Lets just rename this community to MicrosoftTechSupport and be done with it.
In Europe it isn't. But I got it too. Even worse, my default browser was changed to Bing after an update.
This shit is why I stopped using windows altogether
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
