Microsoft is again asking Chrome users to try Bing through unblockable pop-ups

Microsoft is pushing Bing pop-up ads to Chrome on Windows 10 and 11. The latest Windows and On the edge reported Friday that the ad encouraged Chrome users (in bold) to use Bing instead of Google search. “Chat with GPT-4 for free in Chrome! Get hundreds of daily calls with Bing Al,” the ad says. If you click Yes, the pop-up will install the Bing Search Chrome extension while making Microsoft your default search engine.

If you click “Yes” on the ad to switch to Bing, a Chrome popup will appear asking you to confirm that you want to change the browser’s default search engine. “Considering changing your search provider?” the popup asks. “The ‘Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome’ extension has changed the search to use bing.com,” Chrome’s warning says.

Directly below this alert, seemingly in anticipation of the Chrome popup, another Windows notification warns: “Wait – don’t change it back! Doing so will turn off Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and you will 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 pop-up war between one company trying to force you to use its AI assistant/search engine and another trying to keep you on default (which is probably what you wanted if you installed Chrome on first place) . Big Tech’s battles for AI and search supremacy are turning into nasty virtual shouting matches in front of users as they try to surf the web.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to prevent the ad from showing.

Microsoft has reportedly confirmed the authenticity of the pop-up in statements to The latest Windows and On the edge, painting the move as an opportunity for consumers. “This is a one-time notification that gives people the choice to set Bing as their default search engine in Chrome,” a company representative wrote. “For those who choose to set Bing as their default search engine in Chrome when signed in with MSA [Microsoft account] they also get more Copilot chats and chat history.”

As a reminder of how friendly its pushy ads are for user freedom, he added, “We value giving our customers choice, so there’s an option to decline the notification.” Engadget emailed Microsoft for independent verification, but the company didn’t answer right away. We will update this article if or when we receive a response.

The latest Windows describes the ad as coming from a “server-side update” and says the ad is not part of a Windows update. Instead, the outlet speculates that it is related to BCILauncher.EXE or BingChatInstaller.EXEtwo processes that Microsoft added to “some Windows systems” on March 13.