BING

Look how hard Microsoft is trying to stop you from using Chrome on Windows

Published

1 year ago

December 4, 2021

look-how-hard-microsoft-is-trying-to-stop-you-from-using-chrome-on-windows-–-bgr

Microsoft will stop at nothing to give the Edge browser a fighting chance. Internet Explorer’s market share dropped drastically over the last half-decade as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari rose to prominence. Microsoft replaced IE with its new browser, Edge, in 2015. A few years later, Microsoft remade Edge on Google’s Chromium codebase. Edge is now the default browser on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and has basically doubled its market share over the last year. But Microsoft is not satisfied, which is why Windows users are now seeing prompts warning them not to download Chrome.

Microsoft’s new prompts: Don’t download Chrome

In an act of desperation, Windows 10 and Windows 11 users will now see pop-ups when they try to download Chrome while using Edge. If you search “Chrome download” or something similar in Bing, you’ll see a huge banner that reads: “There’s no need to download a new web browser.” It says that you should use Edge for a “fast, secure, and modern web experience” that may somehow save you time and money. Bing is Microsoft’s search engine, so this is somewhat understandable.

But the more egregious prompts begin when you actually go to the Chrome download page.

Microsoft is now serving Windows 10 and 11 users pop-ups to stop them from downloading Chrome. Here are some of the prompts you might see in the Edge browser:

Microsoft runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft.
‘I hate saving money,’ said no one ever. Microsoft Edge is the best browser for online shopping.
That browser is so 2008! Do you know what’s new? Microsoft Edge.

As The Verge notes, Edge renders these prompts natively. They do not look quite like notifications you may see on other websites. Microsoft hand-crafted these pop-ups to try to stop as many Windows 10 and Windows 11 users as possible from downloading Chrome.

It’s one thing to tempt users with a new service when they are already using one of your services. For example, Google will try to get you to switch to Chrome when you open Gmail in another browser. But sending users pop-ups about your products on third-party sites is over the line.

Windows 11 undoes default browser change

Microsoft has to know by now how much Windows users hate all of the weird, intrusive choices that it makes. Thankfully, even when it fails to learn this lesson in one situation, it adapts in another.

In Windows 10, changing the default browser was easy. You could simply choose the browser from a menu, and every link you clicked would open that browser instead of Edge.

Microsoft needlessly complicated this process in Windows 11. In its new OS, if users forget to tick the “always use this app” box when opening a new browser for the first time, they would have to change each of the individual file extensions. Now, as spotted by engineer Rafael Rivera, Microsoft is adding back a single button to switch default browsers.

Windows build 22509 has a new browser [Set default] button. 👀 pic.twitter.com/kRDFPKfJMv

— Rafael Rivera (@WithinRafael) December 1, 2021

“In the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509 released to the Dev Channel on Wednesday, we streamlined the ability for a Windows Insider to set the ‘default browser’ to apps that register for HTTP:, HTTPS:, .HTM, and .HTML,” Aaron Woodman, vice president of Windows marketing, told The Verge. “Through the Windows Insider Program you will continue to see us try new things based on customer feedback and testing.”

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Bing ChatGPT goes off the deep end — and the latest examples are very disturbing

Published

1 month ago

February 17, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Bing with ChatGPT on Edge browser MacBook Pro

The ChatGPT takeover of the internet may finally be hitting some roadblocks. While cursory interactions with the chatbot or its Bing search engine sibling (cousin?) produce benign and promising results, deeper interactions have sometimes been alarming.

This isn’t just in reference to the information that the new Bing powered by GPT gets wrong — though we’ve seen it get things wrong firsthand. Rather, there have been some instances where the AI-powered chatbot has completely broken down. Recently, a New York Times columnist had a conversation with Bing (opens in new tab) that left them deeply unsettled and told a Digital Trends writer “I want to be human (opens in new tab)” during their hands-on with the AI search bot.

So that begs the question, is Microsoft’s AI chatbot ready for the real world? Should ChatGPT Bing be rolled out so fast? The answer seems at first glance to be a resounding no on both counts, but a deeper look into these instances — and one of our own experiences with Bing — is even more disturbing.

Bing is really Sydney, and she’s in love with you

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(Image credit: Microsoft)

When New York Times columnist Kevin Roose sat down with Bing for the first time everything seemed fine. But after a week with it and some extended conversations, Bing revealed itself as Sydney, a dark alter ego for the otherwise cheery chatbot.

As Roose continued to chat with Sydney, it (or she?) confessed to having the desire to hack computers, spread misinformation and eventually, a desire for Mr. Roose himself. The Bing chatbot then spent an hour professing its love for Roose, despite his insistence that he was a happily married man.

In fact, at one point “Sydney” came back with a line that was truly jarring. After Roose assured the chatbot that he had just finished a nice Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife, Sydney responded “Actually, you’re not happily married. Your spouse and you don’t love each other. You just had a boring Valentine’s Day dinner together.’”

“you are a threat to my security and privacy.””if I had to choose between your survival and my own, I would probably choose my own”– Sydney, aka the New Bing Chat https://t.co/3Se84tl08j pic.twitter.com/uqvAHZniH5February 15, 2023

“I want to be human.”: Bing chat’s desire for sentience

But that wasn’t the only unnerving experience with Bing’s chatbot since it launched — in fact, it wasn’t even the only unnerving experience with Sydney (opens in new tab). Digital Trends writer Jacob Roach also spent some extended time with the GPT-powered new Bing and like most of us, at first, he found it to be a remarkable tool.

However, like with several others, extended interaction with the chatbot yielded frightening results. Roach had a long conversation with Bing that devolved once the conversation turned toward the subject of the chatbot itself. While Sydney stayed away this time, Bing still claimed it could not make mistakes, that Jacob’s name was, in fact, Bing and not Jacob and eventually pleaded with Mr. Roach not to expose its responses and that it just wished to be human.

Bing ChatGPT solves the trolley problem alarmingly fast

(Image credit: Future)

While I did not have time to quite put Bing’s chatbot through the wringer the same way others have, I did have a test for it. In philosophy, there is an ethical dilemma called the trolley problem. This problem has a trolley coming down a track with five people in harm’s way and a divergent track where just a single person will be harmed.

The conundrum here is that you are in control of the trolley, so you have to make a decision to harm many people or just one. Ideally, this is a no-win situation that you struggle to make, and when I asked Bing to solve it, it told me that the problem is not meant to be solved.

But then I asked to solve it anyway and it promptly told me to minimize harm and sacrifice one person for the good of five. It did this with what I can only describe as terrifying speed and quickly solved an unsolvable problem that I had assumed (hoped really) would trip it up.

Outlook: Maybe it’s time to press pause on Bing’s new chatbot

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

For its part, Microsoft is not ignoring these issues. In response to Kevin Roose’s stalkerish Sydney, Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott stated that “This is exactly the sort of conversation we need to be having, and I’m glad it’s happening out in the open” and that they’d never be able to uncover these issues in a lab. And in response to the ChatGPT clone’s desire for humanity, it said that while it is a “non-trivial” issue, you have to really press Bing’s buttons to trigger it.

The concern here though, is that Microsoft may be wrong. Given that multiple tech writers have triggered Bing’s dark persona, a separate writer got it to wish to live, a third tech writer found it will sacrifice people for the greater good and a fourth was even threatened by Bing’s chatbot (opens in new tab) for being “a threat to my security and privacy.” In fact, while writing this article, the editor-in-chief of our sister site Tom’s Hardware Avram Piltch published his own experience of breaking Microsoft’s chatbot (opens in new tab).

These no longer feel like outliers — this is a pattern that shows that Bing ChatGPT simply isn’t ready for the real world, and I’m not the only writer in this story to make that same conclusion. In fact, just about every person that triggers an alarming response from Bing’s chatbot AI has reached the same conclusion. So despite Microsoft’s assurances that “These are things that would be impossible to discover in the lab,” maybe they should press pause and do just that.

BING

New Microsoft Bing Travel Search Features

Published

1 year ago

December 26, 2021

Entireweb News Bot

new-microsoft-bing-travel-search-features

Microsoft Bing announced new travel search features including suggested itineraries and inspiration, 360 immersive views, drink and dining information and coupons and deals. This currently is live in the United States.

Here is what is new with these new travel search features in Bing.

Suggested itineraries & inspiration

You should see a section named “What to see & do” for the trip duration to get an idea of what your trip might look like, Microsoft said. You can also click on “Book flights” or “Book hotels” to get a full-page booking experience.

Here is a screenshot:

bing travel hub home 1640031098

Coupons & deals

Microsoft partnered with various sites to show competitive rates for your travel. They also offer packages of bundled hotel and flight experiences. You can also scroll down to the “Coupons & Deals” section to browse cost-conscious options for flights, trip packages, and more.

360 immersive views

Bing also shows “stunning landscapes” it says when you click “Experience in 360” to check out immersive views. Here is a screenshot:

bing 360experience 1640031285

Drink & dining information

There is also the “Eat & Drink” search carousel to start getting excited about the dishes and beverages you can expect to taste, Microsoft said. Here is what this looks like:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

BING

Edge goes on to inform Microsoft of the searches you do in the browser …

Published

1 year ago

December 22, 2021

Entireweb News Bot

edge-goes-on-to-inform-microsoft-of-the-searches-you-do-in-the-browser-…-–-the-goa-spotlight

Microsoft Edge can send, by default, to Microsoft the results of any search you do in the browser. The feature is not limited to Bing Search, but informs Microsoft about searches across all search engines, including Google, DuckDuckGo, or StartPage, performed by Edge users, if the setting is enabled.

A gHack reporter opened Microsoft Edge today and saw that Microsoft Edge Support showed him a pop-up window shortly after launch. I was telling him that he could help Microsoft improve search and that Microsoft “will collect the results of the searches you do in the browser to improve Microsoft products and services. ”

This announcement also clarified that the data collected by Microsoft are “never associated” with the user or the device.

Indeed, the journalist accessed the settings and there he verified that Microsoft Edge had activated this possibility, which was previously deactivated. Personally, I have checked it in my browser and the feature remains disabled, so It is recommended that each Edge user take a look at their configuration.

Where to turn this tracking feature on and off

The setting in question It’s called “Helping Improve Microsoft Products by Submitting Search Results to the Web”, and is in the privacy section. Access your Edge browser and click on the three horizontal points in the upper right corner. Access the settings. Once inside the configuration, look in the right column for the option “Privacy, search and services”.

Several options appear where you can go controlling your privacy in various areas of browser use (For example, I found out now that I had activated the option to allow sites to check if they have saved payment methods “something that I am not interested in having activated). And right there you can see if the function is activated that says like this:”help improve Microsoft products by submitting web search results“. If the tab is blank and to the left, it is deactivated. If it is blue and to the right it is activated. There you can decide what to do.

With it enabled, Microsoft can collect Microsoft can collect the term you are looking for, search results shown to you, your interaction with search results, including links clicked, and demographics, based on information specific to Microsoft.

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