Do you know whether Microsoft is forcing to use Bing as the default search engine? I have received a new notification today. It says Assistance from Microsoft Edge. It’s asking the users of the Microsoft Edge browser to use the recommended settings.
NOTE! – I have not seen this behavior recently. So it seems the Microsoft Edge team is not forcing people to move the search engine from Google to Bing.
The wording on the pop-up is pretty interesting. It says Get world-class performance, privacy, and productivity as you browse with the latest Microsoft Edge – the best browser for Windows 10.
I have seen updated (the latest update on this doc is 25th Aug 2021) documentation related to Microsoft Search in Bing for Microsoft 365 Apps for the enterprise.
Well, this new popup comes with two options:
- Use Microsoft recommended browser settings
- Default search engine: Microsoft Bing
- Don’t update your browser settings (the option that I have selected)
NOTE! – I think this type of change is happening only for personal devices. I have not seen anything related to this in managed devices.
Force Change Default Search Engine to Bing
I don’t think Microsoft is forcefully changing the default search engine of Microsoft Edge to Bing. However, I don’t think this was a good idea to come up with a pop to change the default search engine from Google to Bing. In fact, that is only one setting that I changed in the Microsoft Edge Browser.
I have a post to understand the process of changing the default search engine. More details on how to change the default search engine to Google is available in the below section.
- Go to Settings – from Microsoft Edge Browser.
- Use the Search option to search “Search”.
- Open a new tab from edge and copy-paste the following edge://settings/search?search=search
Go to the Address bar -> search Engine used in the address bar option from the results. You can make sure that Google (Default) is the default search engine.
Author
Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about technologies like ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc.…
Microsoft tries a lot of tricks to get the user to revert back to defaults. Same happens on top of Settings page where Microsoft ask you to click to get more out of Windows. Like sign you into a Microsoft account and change settings to what Microsoft determines as default. Yeah, it’s frustrating to think you PC is not yours to decide what to use as default apps and services. Hey, I don’t have anything personally against Bing but if I want my search engine to be Google, DuckDuckGo or whatever I don’t expect Microsoft to try and make me switch back to Bing. That to me creates distrust in a company that tries trickery in order to benefit themselves not you the end user.
it still forces you to use bing in the search box.. even with google as default.. so annoying!