I hope the EU fines them and forces Microsoft to stop such actions (as they forced them to stop bundling IE with Windows a couple of years ago).
It's time these big corporations get broken up. It really is. Stop f*cking with my hardware and the web.
Now, your comment is popular because of the hype train but nobody complains when a linux distro has a non-google default search for chrome or firefox. Microsoft(or any OS maker) has a competitive advantage also by dominating the desktop OS market like Chrome dominates the browser market,the installer gets to configure the browser.
Anyone has the right to bundle 3rd party software and make n installer that configures the software a certain way,even if the config gives them a competitive advantage.
I don't disagree with your comment about corps getting broken up but I disagree with this being your reason. Think of it the other way "It is now illegal to make installers that change default settings of the publisher" that would sound as more of a reason to get worked up over to me.
I'd say it's customer expectation. The slogan in the Chrome website is: Now more simple, secure, and faster than ever - with help from Google built‑in [0]
So, if I install Chrome I expect Google search to be built-in, and I am okay with that because it was clearly stated on the product page.
Now, when I install Office, which is not a browser to begin with, I don't expect it to change my default search provider.
Nobody complains when a Linux distro bundles a browser with a default search engine set. People would 100% complain if the next Ubuntu update changed the default search engine on an already installed browser from a 3rd-party source. That would not be OK.
You're looking at this from a pure business perspective and skipping over the more basic problems, which are:
- Software in general shouldn't change/reset user preferences without permission.
- Software updates should be consistent and predictable. Updating one program should not change settings in an unrelated program. Updates should not conditionally decide whether or not to install unrelated programs based on non-transparent reasoning.[0]
- Browser extensions should not sneakily change the mechanisms for how preferences are set.[1] Sneakily forcing the user to know that they need to update the extension settings instead of their browser settings is a user-hostile UX antipattern.
It's not about Microsoft or Google's rights, it's about the users' rights, and about building a sensible UX that works for real users. As a user, I believe strongly that my word processor should not be messing with my browser settings. I would feel the exact same way if a Linux install of LibreOffice changed my default search in Chrome to DuckDuckGo.
[0]: > New installations of Office 365 ProPlus and updated installs will include the extension, as long as the default search engine in Chrome is not set to Bing.
[1]: > Office users will also be able to disable Bing as the default search engine through the extension’s settings.
If as a user, you change back to DuckDuckGo, your next Office patch cycle will “re-Bing” you in a month.
Google Chrome does not do that. If you express your intent to use another search provider, it sticks. Likewise, there is a clear and reliable way to make that choice via policy. This Bing thing has a convoluted and unreliable workaround.
Microsoft has a notorious penchant for disrespecting user preferences in favour of market share. They were known for steamrolling IE as the default after every patch of windows, so im anticipating the "bing" default to get applied every time a windows patch is rolled out as well.
Users will probably (rightly) see this behavior as an error and go back to using Chrome. Heck, it was part of a litany of chicanery that spurred the exodus from IE.
I tremendously disagree with software being allowed to modify other software installed by me. A proper app sandbox model would never ever allow this. This is one of the things I really love about iOS, no app from wherever it came from can ever modify other software on the system without my permission. (iOS is not perfect either, this is just one area where I would wish desktop OSes would catch up with.)
Your argument makes no sense, Chrome can set it's own default configuration and I think it asks if you want to make it the default browser. I think it is correct to call the practice of changing user or other apps configuration without asking for user permission. A prompt with a nice text and a catchy image that explains why the user should accept the change would be enough for me.
Now if you think this is fine then you would also think that would be fine that Google will do the same and change the search engine back to Google in all browser, change the windows search to Google search , maybe change the settings so your word,pdf and other files open in Chrome.
That should read their software. MS is free to set the default search in edge when I am installing edge. If I install something unrelated like office and it goes and touches my chrome config that is something else entirely. Don't touch other people's stuff without asking first.
The difference here is that Microsoft is overriding the user choice without consent initially AND doing it again every time to patch Office 365, which your license agreement requires you to do every 90-120 days.
As with several recent Microsoft behaviors with Windows and Office, it is fundamentally disrespectful of the customer. As someone who has run a big End User Computing organization, having Uncle Microsoft modifying other vendors software undermines my ability to do my job and hold those vendors accountable for their product.
It’s a shame because Office 365 is an incredibly positive thing. But with about a decade in, you have the next generation of managers in the company aspiring to make the 2020s equivalent of the 2000s triple play cable bundle. Unfortunately cable company aspirations nurture cable company customer focus.
Once I have changed it I don’t want something changing it without me requesting it.
This is my position, I’m unlikely to change.
Yeah, but the solution to that is regulation and not an arms race! Google should (and does) allow the user/installer/organization to change the search engine, precisely to allow for competition in the industry.
Browser vendors need to respect that choice. It would be equally bad for Google to be surreptitiously change the Chrome (or Edge) search engine to Google from Bing! It's just bad. Respect user preferences, period.
If Chrome did that it would be objectionable too.
Or you can create and enforce laws that apply when they abuse their monopolies. Breaking up a company because it's above an arbitrary size threshold is a dangerous precedent, and most likely it won't even address the problem at hand.
Don't get me wrong, it's trashy behavior. But it's hardly a new one.
They did a similar thing with Teams (to what seems like some success) and like Teams they are offering IT admins some tools to stop this change for their users (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/microsoft-sear...).
Personally, I think the change will be positive here only because it might help introduce some people to a web that is not google.com. So many people cannot conceive of a web search or address that isn’t done through google.com that I’m continually surprised by it.
This will be a test for enterprise IT admins: can they control this change’s level of disruption for their users, will they communicate it to their users, and will they stick with Microsoft?
https://i.imgur.com/hNZLbmL.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Uldw6X3.png
I've seen some installers that didn't even use a dark pattern, just installed it.
So it's not just a way to force users to use bing, it's also a way to push this feature in front of them.
> By making Bing the default search engine, users in your organization with Google Chrome will be able to take advantage of Microsoft Search, including being able to access relevant workplace information directly from the browser address bar. Microsoft Search is part of Microsoft 365 and is turned on by default for all Microsoft apps that support it.
[1] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/find-what-you-need-...
[2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/microsoft-sear...
It's also not mixed in, last I remember using this feature it was displayed in a banner section and made it really obvious these results came from a different sources.
It was so great in search quality, number of formats it could index and performance that at one day I index the whole company file share. People showed up next to me and I rediscovered files which would have been lost otherwise.
This tool also integrated after configuration with the browser which issued an invocation to localhost to integrate local search results. As this was widely regarded as a terrible security feature to potentially tell google all about local files, reception of that feature was poor. This feature was the only incentive for google to provide the tool and therefore the tool got quickly axed.
They had a similar tool to make some sites load faster. I suspect they embedded some of that to Chrome at some point.
Edit:
It was Google Web Accelerator.
Most of the time I knew exactly where the file was saved, but it provided an extremely quick way to open it without navigating folders
Microsoft needs to really do a better job with these sort of decisions to make sure they arent stepping on a landmine.
0: https://9to5google.com/2019/12/02/chrome-google-drive-search...
If Microsoft was adding Bing as a search provider this wouldn't be nearly as controversial. Instead they're removing the user's preference and replacing it with their own, without consent, during a regular update of an unrelated product.
It is basically adware behaviour. Microsoft's self-rationalisation isn't relevant.
[1] Assuming it provides legitimate business value in the first case
Also, if you are not doing that, they will still be able to, just not directly from the browser address bar.
Searching 0365 when I try to do a search in the browser.
Searching with Bing when I want to search the web.
Searching in 0365 is useful; but this particular move is a doubly-negative way of surfacing the feature.
Ploys like these tend to be a symptom from companies about to become obsoleted by innovators who actually understand and give a shit about their target audience.
What eventually hurt their market space wasn't some trendy hippie customer oriented startup but other "lesser evil" big companies with bigger pockets.
The stuff that many people find perfectly acceptable today would have been absolutely outrageous 10-15 years ago.
In some ways Google is just as sinister as Microsoft ever was. It's not any sort of intentional master plan, it's simply what happens when you lose sight of the user. Some of the crap being pulled by today's incumbents... They might as well put a little imp in the box that beats you with a whip to drive the behavior they want from you.
All of them began as tiny startups with a couple of smart people and disruptive tech... take a long enough view and I'm still optimistic the cycle will continue.
A caring innovator is very easily crushed by a platform monopolist. And building your own platform and securing mass adoption is incredibly hard. Microsoft didn't manage it in phones.
That's been a common suggestion in tech for years, but I'm not sure it stands up to scrutiny.
Right now, we do most of our graphics work with "young upstarts" like the Affinity suite, because Adobe went all user-hostile and subscription-based. Previously we'd been Creative Suite users.
Every service used to collect payments by every business I have is from the newer generation, not the big banks or PayPals of the world.
We didn't move to Windows 10 but instead we've been experimenting with various other desktop platforms and other devices according to our needs. Previously we were mostly using Windows 7 PCs.
We don't do a lot of "traditional" office document preparation ourselves any more, and the various OSS packages are fine for the occasional spreadsheet or whatever. But among our professional network, there is a lot of use of online collaboration and documentation tools now, and I can hardly think of anyone we work with regularly who is still using MS Office as their main tool for this kind of work.
Basically, at this point, we typically keep a single machine around with a genuine copy of whatever big name software we used to use, for guaranteed compatibility and/or testing purposes, but the 800lb gorillas of the software world have mostly been eliminated from our day-to-day workflows now. Smaller, more flexible businesses like ours certainly are moving away from the traditional monopolies, even if the huge enterprise deployments are slower to do so.
I did that, but now there is no simple way anymore to have compartmentalized logins with different licenses on the same system. At least I didn't find one. I'm used to setup directories, servers etc. but this kind of bullshit is extremely off-putting to me.
If this happens by default, in a user hostile way, Google could respond by having their installers set the default search engine in Edge to Google.
You must exclude the extension before you install or update to a version of Office 365 ProPlus that installs the extension for Microsoft Search in Bing. Implementing the exclusion after the extension has been installed will not remove the extension.
• For new installations of Office 365 ProPlus, the Office Deployment Tool may be the best method, as outlined in this support document
• For existing installations of Office 365 ProPlus, modifying the Group Policy may be best. Enable the policy setting Don't install extension for Microsoft Search in Bing, which makes Bing the default the search engine.
• If you use Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch), from the Features section, set Microsoft Search as default to the Off position.
• If you use Microsoft Intune to deploy Office 365 ProPlus, clear the check box Microsoft Search as default on the Configure App Suite pane.
Just to guarantee that every user has a reason to be pissed off?
Pity the poor help desks that missed this announcement and get swamped with tickets next month
Shit like this literally undoes every bit of goodwill you earn. Much like replacing user's wallpaper for Win7 EOL (why you didn't just put notification text like "Windows $VERSION - End Of Life - Unsupported" in the bottom corner instead is beyond me).
I mean, I WANT to see the new MS, which is really present on the developer tools and azure side of the business. Windows and Office teams seem to be bent on destroying that at every chance... it's time to fire some upper and mid-level managers that have these attitudes and make these decisions.
Things like Visual Studio Online, GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, etc. worry me. Once everything's a subscription and you're paying to spin your mouse wheel, you lose the ability to spend time in lieu of spending money.
I think it'll happen slowly, but it'll happen. Eventually they'll have a complete, online only development solution that's charged based on usage. Development on local tools will get de-emphasized so they lag behind and suck by comparison and there will be "donations" of subscriptions to educational institutions to ensure no one ever learns to deal with, or even think of, a local development environment.
I think it's ok to have ongoing costs like IntelliJ's products. I don't like the way they screw you with an outdated perpetual license if you drop your subscription, but it's a hell of a lot better than something like Visual Studio Online which is literally pay per hour.
Based on the willingness to pay astronomical markup on CI minutes, I wouldn't be shocked to see people paying $1000 / year (no joke) to use VSO.
Aside: I actually do appreciate some of MS's efforts regarding open source, devtools, .Net Core, VS Code and even most of what Azure does.
If you're a team in a big company and you're trying to optimize for long-term success, you better have the power to stop other teams that try to drive short-term success with campaigns that hurt you.
https://bonkersworld.net/img/2011.06.27_organizational_chart...
Disclaimer: I work at msft, nothing related and no knowledge of this besides the article. Opinions are my own.
"Once this feature has rolled out, your end users can change their search engine preferences only via the toggle in the extension; they cannot modify the default search engine in browser preferences."
Have you heard of "other browsers" on iOS and how Apple forces them to use Safari specs?
This is more of you folks having an issue with Microsoft itself, not what they have done. Because your favorite company is doing it already and you just choose to look away.
I install Office because I need it, not because I think it and everything else Microsoft has made is the best thing ever.
Software has changed the start page, search providers, and installed plugins into browsers for a very long time, this is nothing new.
"Once this feature has rolled out, your end users can change their search engine preferences only via the toggle in the extension; they cannot modify the default search engine in browser preferences."
Considering Chrome's market share, it's only a matter of time until Google will be required to show a search engine choice screen in the browser, they were already ordered by the EU to do it for the default Android browser and search engine.
Both companies behave inappropriately, but then again, actions like these are needed to highlight how choices are made for us, and to shake us out of complatence.
https://www.labnol.org/software/chrome-with-adobe-reader/201...
Microsoft pulls a consumer-hostile move, and the first thought of a lot of commenters on here (not just you) is, "what is the impact on Google?"
Who cares about the company? Stop messing with my computer behind my back.
200 years from now, someone on Mars will be reading the headline "Google Drones Lethally Injecting iPhone Owners On Sight", and there'll still be people on HN who's first reaction is to wonder whether or not that counts as anti-competitive towards Apple.
I certainly am not shedding any tears for Google, who relentlessly funnels people into their tools, automatically logs them in in chrome, pushes their products into schools to get young people into their data-vacuum as soon as possible. Not to mention shady practices like AMP trying to force developers to use their own version of HTML & serve their content on google.com, "or else say goodbye to your search ranking."
MSFT is definitely "picking on someone their own size" and certainly not doing anything more underhanded than what google routinely engages in, so I don't see the issue.
They've both been bad actors for years now, and the excuses people come up with to keep using them anyway have worn very thin.
Honestly the worst part about Bing is coworkers seeing I use it. It's kind of embarrasing, but it's stupid that it is because it's actually a good search engine.
I guess that Microsoft uses that method in the Office 365 ProPlus installer (also targeted at businesses).
As every HN reader knowns, there is no good technical reason for this. It's anti-competitive bullshit, pure and simple.
They talked about this in the reddit article that was linked,but I feel it warrants further discussion.
But, it takes a fire to feed a forest sometimes. Let them
I use Firefox with duckduckgo search engine, no pages full of ad results like with google nowadays. I cannot think of 1 single reason to install Windows 10 and use Chrome browser, you just bite yourself with that choice.
It's really a shame, because the core OS underneath Windows 10 is fairly solid. It's specifically the user interface and Microsoft's behavior around telemetry and advertising their own products at the expense of the end user that turns me off Windows as a platform. Like, I feel like if they focused on making Windows a solid and boring OS that was so stable and reliable that no other choice made sense, their overall brand image would improve so much. Experiment elsewhere, the OS is not the place to tarnish your users' good will.
Presumably a product decision by the same people who though inserting 200% additional whitespace into Outlook would go down well.
PS: Just for experimenting I switched to Edge (new) & Bing to see what's different. And I really liked Edge, it's faster than chrome and has some privacy controls like cross domain cookie handling. Tried firefox before edge. But did not liked it, because It's ui is crap also some functionalities may not work because devs are optimizing the websites mostly for chrome.
But Bing as a search engine is not powerful like google because of lack of data.
I think if the OS, browser and the search engine belongs to the same company, its perfectly fine to set it as the default. As long as on first launch they give a clear option to choose something else.
With that, personally I don't trust any company with a closed source OS these days and will treat all closed source programs as malware.
and let me just get this out of the way now by saying, no, i will not use duckduckgo as my search engine cause it has given me nothing but _the_ most irrelevant search results i have ever seen.
I'd love to see them fight it out.
