Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google

I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it’s ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge.

This isn’t a normal notification, either. It didn’t appear in the notification center in Windows 11, nor is it connected to the part of Windows 11 that suggests new features to you. It’s quite literally a rogue executable file that has somehow appeared in c:\windows\temp\mubstemp and is digitally signed by Microsoft.

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