
Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default search engine - ecaron
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/microsoft-search-bing?chrome
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Lammy
This seems like it will just start a cat-and-mouse game with Google releasing
Chrome updates to break their extension, like Firefox's
"extensions.installDistroAddons" toggle.

Also I assume "Version 2002" means "2020, February", but that seems
unnecessarily confusing in a way the Windows 10 "20H1"-style versioning isn't.
Doubly so considering Office XP was co-branded "Version 2002" eighteen years
ago! [https://i.imgur.com/4814T6a.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4814T6a.jpg)

~~~
rchaud
Your assumption is probably correct, but it also seems like an unusual
coincidence, as 2002 was when Microsoft reached a final judgment on the case
that DOJ brought against them in 1998 [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Settlement)

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mike_d
I remember the great lengths Microsoft went to cleaning up Browser Helper
Objects, toolbars, and extentions that kept changing the IE default search
engine and homepage.

Chrome will need to add similar enforcement, and will likely end up removing
the ability for addons to change these settings like Microsoft eventually did.

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greycol
It might be a bit of a stretch but I wonder what standing someone has to sue
when search results are noticeably worse and changed in this way.

e.g. I just searched "<my town name> emergency" in google and bing. Bing came
up with a travel site and several news articles. Google came up with a map
with the local emergency department as the highlighted pin and urgent care as
subsequent pins.

Google's little blurbs are also very handy in this case with instructions
popping up as the first result when I search snake bite treatment and seizure
care. (Actually I went through a few more emergencies after that and was
pleasantly suprised how good google was at turning up instructions for
emergency care)

It wouldn't surprise me if the monetary pressure associated with medical care
in the US and the deep pockets of microsoft made them a tempting target.

~~~
falcolas
> search results are noticeably worse

This is not an endorsement of this article's allegations, or even of of Bing.
But.

DDG uses Bing as one of its primary sources of data, and IMO DDG results are
better than Google's for me both professionally and personally today. Maybe
DDG is doing some special sauce behind the scenes, or maybe they're blending
results from multiple sources, but that quality of search means I'm not at a
point where I can unilaterally dismiss Bing and promote Google. Google's
search results have just slid backwards too much lately.

~~~
greycol
I don't disagree that Bing can give great results and is better than google in
at least a few areas and use cases. So I probably painted with a broad brush
in that subjective statement. I do think the point that the bing results (at
least for my location) are objectively worse (considering why most would make
such a search) compared to google when looking for emergency healthcare
information.

Primarily I use duck duck even if I occasionally fall back to the !g command.
But I think anyone who is able to change their default search engine in chrome
could not then argue that microsoft changing the default impeded them from
easily searching for information (which would be important in any legal
action). So while ddg is a great search engine I don't think it needs to be
considered in the thought experiment of reasons you could sue microsoft for
this change.

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Someone1234
If you want to prevent this without installing the Office ADMX January update,
you can set the following registry entry:

    
    
          [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate]
          "preventbinginstall"=dword:00000001
    

Save the above in a .Reg file and execute.

~~~
jlgaddis
FWIW, the (untested) PowerShell equivalent would be:

    
    
      New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate" -Name "preventbinginstall" -PropertyType DWord -Value 1

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ecaron
The comments on the bottom, plus the UserVoice
([https://odinsiders.uservoice.com/forums/920533-distribution-...](https://odinsiders.uservoice.com/forums/920533-distribution-
upgrades-servicing/suggestions/39494872-do-not-force-push-bing-as-the-default-
search-engin)) really emphasize how this change is impacting customers.

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lorenzfx
Isn't this behaviour making use of their market power and should be looked at
by the antitrust authorities?

Overriding user's preferences with a forced installation of an extension
reminds me very much of the old Microsoft I had hoped was gone for good.

~~~
justinclift
Co-incidentally, they've started using their Windows monopoly to push Office
via adverts (eg in Wordpad) now too.

Hopefully the anti-trust / monopoly authorities do decide to pick this up, as
it'll be the _2nd_ time around for MS.

They obviously didn't learn from the first, so the measures this time around
will need to be much, much stronger. :)

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mtarnovan
> Office 365 to begin setting Bing as Chrome's default browser

shouldn't that read "...Chrome's default search engine"?

~~~
ecaron
Good catch. Corrected.

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93po
Looking forward to the day that windows apps run in a container that prevents
access to anything but itself and requested permissions

~~~
jodrellblank
Microsoft App-V has been a thing since 2006.

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JohnFen
At least they're warning us! Sadly, we're forced to use O365 where I work, so
this makes me doubly glad that I don't use Chrome.

~~~
anotheryou
> Support for the Firefox web browser is planned for a later date.

~~~
tinus_hn
I strongly doubt Chrome is going to support this and Firefox seems even less
likely.

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jbob2000
Read the post before you get your knickers in a twist. The purpose of this
change is so a special type of business client can allow their employees to
search not just the web, but also their company’s internal resources.

Considering that most businesses provide their employees with company laptops,
this isn’t something that is going to affect consumers.

~~~
jabberwik
If I'm that special type of business client that is actually using Microsoft
Search, cool, maybe I want an easy option to change the default engine. But
that should be opt-in. Because Microsoft Search is also opt-in. They are
deploying this to all O365 customers, regardless.

~~~
jbob2000
No they aren’t, read the post. It’s for ProPlus subscribers only, which is a
plan that includes Microsoft search.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Pro plus is pretty much every business and university. It’s not like you buy
pro plus for the amazing Bing integrations.

