Is this even legal?

If governments actually gave a fuck about antitrust anymore, it would be. 20-ish years ago, they dragged Microsoft to court over simply bundling IE with Windows. It didn't even constantly nag you to set as default; just the fact that it was bundled at all was enough to make it into the sights of regulators.
- Dumb question but how would you get your browser of choice if they didn’t include one from the jump?
  
  At the time, you'd get a disk from a store or order it from a magazine or whatever. I don't really know what the solution would be now since those aren't things though. I guess get one from a friend or another device?
  
  Cd or usb

Microsoft clearly uses dark patterns and FUD to lure you into using Bing.
As long as they're using legal loopholes (or downright do not care because they have enough money to pay any fines) you cannot do anything against it except not using their OS.
- I stopped using outlook entirely for this behaviour. Outlook would embed a bing search in your long press menu on android.
  
  What kind of long press menu? I have it installed but don't have any such menu.
  
  Oh God, that was so annoying! Once I realized which app had added that, I uninstalled it with alacrity. I have to use Outlook for my job, but that doesn't mean I'll use the mobile version ever again. And the web-based one actually works fine on mobile devices.
- MS is a spam company and it's turned me into a daily Linux user.
- Ironic, because I used to use Bing (over Google) and all this kind of bullshit - especially aggressively pushing their chat bot - pushed me away (to DDG).
- I mean, it depends on your design of the fines. If you ask for a days revenue per day of violation, this stuff will never happen again (since this is no mistake, it is totally fair price). A month of this and their yearly profit is in the government hand.

It's getting REALLY difficult to tell normal operation and viruses apart.
- I think you're confusing virus and malware. Windows is malware by definition. I think according to gnu philosophy any proprietary software is malware because features are designed to make profits and not to service the end user.
  
  thanks again Richard
- Because in all practical senses, windows is a virus.
  Viruses at their core are programs which do things against your will on your own machine. Which is bad.
  However, that is exactly what windows does. But like the boiling frog, people for some reason are okay with more bullshit from Microsoft and less control of their own devices with every passing update and year.
  Complaining on ~~reddit~~ social media does nothing. Switching to Linux gives you back control and will be better for everyone in the long run.
  
  Who’s complaining on Reddit?
- Is this an attack or a Windows update?

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would this be illegal?
- Anti consumer and anti competitive. Using their position as the OS to bug the living shit out of you to use their services
  
  Anti consumer and anti competitive.
  I'm not so sure how it's either of those things. I mean yeah, it's annoying (especially if it's popping up while you're playing a game), but I don't feel like it's crossing either of these lines. If you click "Don't switch", it goes away, and it's not changing anything without your permission. I've never seen it pop up again on my devices. I forget where in the settings it would be, but I seem to recall there being an option to disable suggestions like this, as well (although an argument could be made that this should be opt-in instead of opt-out).
  I know this community has a (largely justified) hate-boner for big tech companies, but not every annoyance is a crime. If anything, I'm just glad to see that they're at least respecting the user's consent these days; in the before times, Microsoft would just revert all your shit to what they wanted, whether you liked it or not, permission be damned. I lost track of how many WinXP updates would reinstall that Bing Bar (or MSN or whatever they called it back then) without asking me.
  Unless there's another angle that I'm not seeing, I don't see how this is that much of a problem. If anything, it's a good advertisement for Linux, though.
  
  Anticompetitive is a matter of antitrust law. Microsoft doesn’t currently have a monopoly on operating systems in the way they did 25 years ago.
- According to Rules of the Internet § 12 "if I find something to be annoying, objectionable, or wrong it surely must be illegal."
  
  MS literally got in trouble for bundling IE with the OS 20 years ago... This is so much worse.
  If you cannot understand why people are rightfully upset... LEARN YOUR FUCKING HISTORY.
  
  yes officer, this comment right here.
- Because OP is a crybaby.
- It’s not, that’s why they’re doing it.
  
  It is illegal - they've already been taken to court and lost over similar practices 20 years ago.
  It's just not enforced anymore - and that's why they're doing it.

One of the many reasons why I will never return to Windows.
- I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it's a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
  
  In the same boat. and recently of all the issues that could pop up, Teams has decided to become a buggy mess. Their own software on their own OS just stops working after just one year of using the machine.
  Not to speak of all the other slowdowns and child-diseases that the thing has developed.
  Meanwhile my desktop install of Linux is nearing its 10th birthday, has all sorts of legacy configs that I never bothered to clean up, has moved drives 3 times and to a different filesystem+partitioning scheme, changed bootloader... Yet still is way less of a pain than Windows at work.
  
  I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it’s a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
  What do you use the rest of the time that you prefer? Serious question, because I've been looking at Windows alternatives for a while and I like to hear what's working better for others.
- Agreed

I still don't get how Microsoft got in trouble for bundling internet explorer but now they are completely fine doing this
- Anti-trust regulation has gotten very toothless in recent years. The shit many corporations are pulling now is insane when you think back about what happened to ms then.
- Because that haven't cause any harm I guess? Google was punished for pulling the same stunt with Chrome, but they actually succeeded. Meanwhile, few people i know use Edge right now. My cousin used to advocate for Edge until a Windows update wiped his browser clean
- Frustratingly, the rulings preventing them from bundling software with an operating system stopped them from building in anti-virus measures. For years when Windows was synonymous with malware, they had their hands tied. 20 years later, they started including Windows defender / Security Essentials. The unnecessary global economic losses caused were immense.
- They will be fine doing this for 5 years, then a new antitrust ruling will tell them to stop, and so on.

- Or you just install Linux and be done with it.
  Yes, I am THAT guy. It looks and feels like windows, but prettier, nicer, and better. No more corporate rules bullshit, no more anti virus bullshit, no more bullshit.
  Yes, most games do work now.
  Yes, most windows software has equal or better alternatives, or run natively through wine.
  You don't have to put up with Microsoft bullshit.
  Get rid of office, Hotmail and teams while you're at it and get working software.
- And then again, next update. Cat. And. Mouse.
  
  Meaning? That you need to update software? Of course you do. Even on Linux. But when you do you don't have to reboot, for example. Minor difference caused by a smart filesystem versus whatever the fuck windows uses these days.
- The internet needs more people like you.
  Excellent instructions, nice clear and to the point.
  
  Nah it doesn’t. He is being a dick. You probably can Google that. He missed the point of the entire topic. Nobody was positing how to remove it because this topic wasn’t about that. If someone would have asked about it in the first place people would probably have provided solutions.

What company was it that lost an antitrust lawsuit again? It was something like Macrosoft? Microphone? idr
- Lost is a strong word. Shure they lost the suit. But in reality they were just forced to start playing the politics game.
  
  I remember them feeling pretty Blue about it.
- Microsuck??

It's shit like this that will eventually drive me away from windows. I was baffled when it appeared.
- As someone who was recently driven, leave it. It’s never going to get better, only worse. And linux is only going to get better the more you understand it.
- will eventually
  no time like the present, eh ;)
  
  Idk man I'm pretty busy... With... Something less tedious than installing an operating system lol

Why wouldn't it be legal? You are using their product and they put out a notification on it asking if you want to use one of their products. Why would that be illegal!?
Like I understand people not liking it, but illegal?
- I am pretty sure they are insinuating that it is antitrust violation. It probably is but our current governance seems unwilling to do anything about anti-competitive practices.
- Creating a monopoly with a competitive advantage is illegal in Europe.
- These posts are just getting insane at this point.
- It is illegal in Europe.
  
  What is illegal? Asking you if you want to change your default search engine? That doesn't sound illegal to me so I wonder what law is causing it to be illegal.

It is because you agreed to to the terms and conditions of the Windows operating system
- Those are likely mostly unenforceable.

“I will make it legal.”
-Darth CEOus

They got in trouble for setting internet explorer as the default and had to pop a prompt when you installed windows a while ago.
I don't think asking if you want to is illegal though. But it could be as they are using their ownership of the operating system to push you towards their other products.

Run a debloat script for windows from christitustech. And if you want to start from fresh install w10/11 ltsb/ltsc and run the debloat script, that is the safest option, if you don't want to swap to Linux.
- I especially love that it was blurry. I shit you not, a blurry popup telling me to switch the search engine like some 2010 malware.

It's only illegal if it's enforced

Everything is legal in the US if you can lobby enough
- Not quite. You can also break the law, pay a fraction of what you grifted, say sorry and then continue.

"Microsoft rewards points" wtf?
- I'm not entirely sure how I'm earning Microsoft reward points, but they keep sending me $10 Amazon gift cards for them so.. that's cool anyway.
- Those are one of the few Microsoft offerings that are actually good. I've been rolling free Game Pass Ultimate for years (with 2+ more in the bank) thanks to MS Rewards.
  
  Wait what? That's pretty cool!

They lost a trial in this allnd paid a flick on the wrist.
They just so this because they know it will get them more than it will cost.
Install Linux, make the switch. Yes you can.
- I've been looking into that recently. The last time I ran Linux was in the early 90s, I don't think there was even much of a GUI then, most or all command line, so I have no idea what it's like now. I've been hearing about Mint and Zorin as good distros for Mac/Windows users, but I have been reluctant to ask anywhere because the many conversations I've seen in various forums about which distro is best for a specific scenario have seemed . . . to put it extremely diplomatically, less than constructive.
  I've seen it so often that now I am starting to think Linux is the cocaine of all operating systems: great stuff, but with personal side effects. Risk of personal transformation might be worth more than warranted by situation calling for its use. Mention with caution, if at all. And yes, I fully expect to get flamed for this, lol.
  
  I've used Mint for a couple of years now. Gaming has never been better on Linux. It's not perfect and there are still a lot of issues with games that use intrusive anti cheat. It depends on what you like to play. COD type games you may have issues with but almost every single player game works these days. Some times it will require a little fiddling to be fair but generally it only takes 10 min to check what's required. Protondb is your friend if you want a good idea of whether it will work before buying
  
  Get kubuntu or fedora. The desktop is KDE which feels a lot like windows but nicer and prettier.
- If you game on PC, you're going to have a bad time.
  
  Gaming on Linux has never been easier OR better and it’s constantly improving.
  
  No you're not. That was 5-10 years ago.
  
  Valve has pretty much solved this issue for 99% of games. It used to be true, but not anymore.

In Europe it isn't. But I got it too. Even worse, my default browser was changed to Bing after an update.
- Even worse, my default browser was changed to Bing after an update.
  Is this not literally quite almost what their first big antitrust case was all about (shipping their OS together with Internet Explorer, back then) that almost got them broken up by the state?
  
  In a light version, yes.
- European here. Which law is this breaking, exactly? Pretty sure advertising is legal
  
  It's no ad, it's nudging. Without being asked even. They don't show you a list of search engines to set as default, they ask you to switch to Bing. My system just switched to Bing without asking.
  
  It's no ad, it's nudging. Without being asked even. They don't show you a list of search engines to set as default, they ask you to switch to Bing. My system just switched to Bing without asking.

The people at Microsoft who remember the ftc action have retired I guess

This shit is why I stopped using windows altogether

Lets just rename this community to MicrosoftTechSupport and be done with it.

Since the antitrust laws don’t exist any more, it’s legal, yes. If you don’t want that, you have to switch to Linux.
- The only way to fight them is to ignore their existance. Vote with your money and feet

not in Europe
- ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃ ┃ Is this even legal? ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ╭┈┈┈┈┈┈╮ ╔════════╗ ┃ ┃ ┊europe┊ ║YESYESYE║ ┃ ┃ ╰┈┈┈┈┈┈╯ ╚════════╝ ┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
- The funniest thing is that I'm from Europe, my system language isn't English, but this popup still appeard like this.

You are allowed to send ads to your own customers. A bit questionable if that then have to include unsubscribe and doing it when you dont want it. Think if TV makers did the same.
- The trick is to slowly add minor amounts of anti-features so users get used to it. Those upset will calm down after a while.
  Advertising to customers is one thing but using their own computer they paid for to try and make more money crosses a line. A good dev trys to avoid abusung the power they have over users of their software.

Use Linux and quit worrying about this kind of shit.
- And worry about other shit that you have to deal with
  
  Sure. I'd rather deal with Linux's quirks and be spared the spam, spyware, nagware, etc. Also, the operating system itself is a joy to use. It's so lean and configurable, unlike Windows. Whenever I have to use Windows, it's so clunky I feel like a caveman.
  
  I'd rather spend my time learning how computer and operating systems works instead of spending time learning how to avoid Windows roadblocks.
- That's like telling a smoker "just stop smoking and you'll be healthier".
  A joke will at least get more positive reactions. It may convey the same message. -sad penguin noises-
  
  Did you just tell someone to smile more but in text form?

It is perfectly legal. That's what you get for using and choosing a shitty corporation's useless operating system while harassing GNU/Linux users for decades. Frankly, all of you Microsoft bootlickers are getting what you deserve.
- No one but MS wants this. Stop strawmanning people, you dolt. No one hates on Linux for its lack of ads.
  
  But you enable MS's bad behavior. They know you all have no backbone.
  There's no strawmanning, just the consequences of endorsing abusive behavior done by parasites.
- If Linux didn't manage to somehow be worse than Windows then this would be a problem.
  To use Linux is to jog on the highway.
  
  No, you juat nees to pick the correct distro from lile 5 distros. This is as simple as beig able to predict what software you will be running or what will you be doing on what software.
  You see, super simple.
  Full disclosure, I'm linux user for about 7 years. Only this year I finally switched to only Linux when buying my new PC. And running Ubuntu cuz everyone makes stuff for it and fuck Arch

In the US and never got this popup, not sure if I did something different?
- They usually choose a subset of customers to try UI changes on before rolling it out to everyone. This way they can estimate the general reaction before committing to it. They probably also have a dozen different layouts and text for this dialog that they are testing to see what makes people most likely to click yes. Its all just statistics to them.
- I am in the EU
- That's what I've been wondering too. I keep seeing people complaining about ads, but I use Edge (and Firefox) with Bing regularly on an up-to-date Win 11 system and I'm not seeing anything like that.
  Maybe they've got demographic targeting that I don't fit into or something.

I really don't know why I bother reading the comments on any windows posts. It's just full of Linux users trying to convert people.
It's not going to happen. Most of us use our computers for leisure, not to have to find workarounds for most anything.
- This is literally a post of someone trying to find a workaround for a problem that only exists on windows.... A question was asked and an appropriate answer given, if you refuse to accept the answer, thats on you, go read a different post
  
  Yes exactly it's a question about Windows. Saying "use Linux" is not relevant to this post, which is about Windows.
  It's also terrible advice.
  
  You're part of the problem. If someone using Windows bugs you so much, go read a different post.
- You are setting a stage where corporations can exploit people like you who're naive because they resist change. Change is good. Embrace it! I am not a linux user but I always keep my options open.
- That's an odd way of saying "I don't like Arch users"
- I don't know why lemmy bothers having a specific instance for PC and Linux if the communities for everything from technology to mildly infuriating is just going to be people bitching about Windows.
  Really feels like the quality of lemmy has gone down tbh, you can't go anywhere without someone posting "Windows Bad." The population grew but it was only the ones who cared about the API changes which just so happened to be the Linux community apparently.
  I use Linux on everything that's not my main desktop and it still pisses me off to see it just flooding everywhere.

The audacity to even ask! I ain't even bothered by installing genuine versions of Windows anymore. All I'll ever run is AME Windows. It's basically Microsoft Windows but without Microsoft services. They recently changed a lot as they went from distributing ISO files to playbooks. You should definately check it out! https://ameliorated.io/
- I don't use windows but I was curious and checked out the website, their proposition looks really interesting
  
  Right? I've loved ever since they starting debloating ISOs and currently am on their last released ISO. Now though, with playbooks, it's a bit more manual and also legal. Despite being in beta, it already looks and works quote well!
- I've been curious about this, but I am unsure what to use in place of Defender.
  
  In mind of the developer it's about using your brain rather than relying on a anti-virus. Basically you don't want to download shady stuff or cracks with no verification or testing, and never open a pdf that came in the mail. But yeah, just me on my own I guess.

Perfectly legal... it's just advertising. If they switch you without your consent then yes it's illegal.
- Well...even then it's probably legal. Assuming you're using Windows OS. You've agreed to a long list of bs in terms and conditions. You paid like $200 for a license to rent out an operating system that spies on you and can change anything to it at will.
  
  Some 90s judges don't agree with that

It should not be ... but it seems to be tolerated/ignored by most people ... so it continues.

" Microsoft Service Agreement"
/shudder

hack Microsoft simply

I hate this so much but I want to call out the Google and Apple are just as bad. I used edge for a while and I constantly got popups on every Google owned website telling me how great Chrome is and that I should switch, it was even worse than what you get from Windows telling you to use Edge. And don't even get me started about Safari on iPhones....

Omg this is completely illegal. You need to lawyer up right now!!! Your freedom and liberty is being taken away from you! How can you possibly survive this?

Government, please save me from this popup!!

Get Firefox. Problem solved!
- This also shows if you have Firefox, source: someone that only uses Firefox and got this message today.

Sorry but I only use brave
Edit: OP is about search engines and not browsers. Can't you guys read?
- Which is Chrome under the hood.
  
  How can a search engine be "Chrome under the hood"?
- 😬