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

  • spraynpray@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    Startpage is owned by an advertising company

    Yes, if the choice is between DDG and that, I’d choose DDG.

    Mullvad Leta is only available to Mullvad VPN customers

    Never heard of it.

    Brave does a whole bunch of shady stuff, e.g. installing VPN services on people’s computers, although they never asked for it

    They installed a Windows service that was needed to run their VPN. That service on its own does nothing. That what I heard at least. I didn’t look to much into it since I don’t really care. Brave sucks and I wouldn’t trust it, so I agree on principle. Also worse than DDG.

    The other options aren’t good either

    SearXNG and 4get is what I recommend for privacy. They get their results from other search engines but those won’t be able to trace the query back to you. Also, it’s open source and everyone can set up their own instance so there is no incentive to generate profit from your data.