Microsoft has been pushing Bing pop-up ads in Chrome on Windows 10 and 11. Windows Latest and The Verge reported on Friday that the ad encourages Chrome users (in bold lettering) to use Bing instead of Google search. “Chat with GPT-4 for free on Chrome! Get hundreds of daily chat turns with Bing Al”, the ad reads. If you click “Yes,” the pop-up will install the “Bing Search” Chrome extension while making Microsoft’s search engine the default.
If you click “Yes” on the ad to switch to Bing, a Chrome pop-up will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to change the browser’s default search engine. “Did you mean to change your search provider?” the pop-up asks. “The ‘Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome’ extension changed search to use bing.com,’” Chrome’s warning states.
Directly beneath that alert, seemingly in anticipation of Chrome’s pop-up, another Windows notification warns, “Wait — don’t change it back! If you do, you’ll turn off Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and lose access to Bing Al with GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Select Keep it to stay with Microsoft Bing.”
Essentially, users are caught in a war of pop-ups between one company trying to pressure you into using its AI assistant / search engine and another trying to keep you on its default (which you probably wanted if you installed Chrome in the first place). Big Tech’s battles for AI and search supremacy are turning into obnoxious virtual shouting matches in front of users’ eyeballs as they try to browse the web.
There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to prevent the ad from appearing.
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Source: Microsoft is once again asking Chrome users to try Bing through unblockable pop-ups
And just when you’d thought you’d lived through the first browser wars, there’s this and Apple’s browser tantrums as well! (Apple stamps feet but now to let EU developers distribute apps from the web, Apple reverses hissy fit decision to remove Home Screen web apps in EU, Shameless Insult, Malicious Compliance, Junk Fees, Extortion Regime: Industry Reacts To Apple’s Proposed Changes Over Digital Markets Act, Mozilla says Apple’s new browser rules are ‘as painful as possible’ for Firefox)
Robin Edgar
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