this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Microsoft's official "Bing Wallpaper app" does some nasty, malware-like things to Windows (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 month ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The app automatically installs Bing Visual Search and includes code to decrypt cookies saved in other browsers, Rivera said, and it also brings a "free" geolocation web API to the system.

The developer discovered "many" nasty tricks Microsoft integrated in Bing Wallpapers, which include trying to change the browser's settings and set Edge as the default system browser. If the default browser isn't Edge, the app will open the default browser after some time asking to enable the previously installed Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome extension.

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[–] TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah. On my work desktop, our IT people have told us to not use the Outlook program but rather to just go to the website. On my phone, I run it in Vivaldi instead of the app (which is a little jankie, but not as bad as it was running in Chrome or Firefox).