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Microsoft’s Bing banner promotes Edge, recommends against downloading Chrome, Tor, or Vivaldi
It didn’t pop up for Firefox, Brave, or Opera
3 min. read
Published onApril 17, 2024
published onApril 17, 2024
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Microsoft’s promotional tactics have been under fire for the last few years, be it for Edge, Bing, or other native tools. But when it comes to the browsers, the Redmond-based tech giant takes things to another level. Microsoft shows banners promoting Edge on Bing whenever you try downloading another browser.
When I tried searching for Chrome on Bing, irrespective of the current browser, the banner read,
The same banner appeared when trying to search forSafari,Tor, andVivaldi. I didn’t find one forFirefox,Brave, orOpera. This is surprising because the latter are just as promising, especiallyBrave.
Remember, this isn’t new. Microsoft had tried such antics in the past, but none really yielded positive results.
For instance, last year, Microsoft displayed another banner on theThank Youpage when you downloadedChrome CanaryfromEdge. It basically highlighted that the two browsers run on the same technology, but Microsoft Edge is a more secure and trustworthy option.
Aresearch paper published by MozillainJanuary’24sheds more light on how Microsoft’s actions violate ethics and are unfair to users and other developers. Excerpts from the summary should give you a basic idea of the findings.
Chrome does pretty much the same thing
Seems like Microsoft is not the only one using unethical ways to promote the native browser. Google also uses its influence to increase Chrome’s user base!
Say, if you visit YouTube from a browser other than Chrome, there will be a popup promoting Google’s native browser.
A similar popup was observed on Gmail.
So, it is not just Microsoft. The two tech giants, Google and Microsoft, have similar tactics to keep users from switching browsers
In this wholeMicrosoft Edge vs Google Chromebattle, browsers like Opera, Firefox, and Brave are emerging as viable alternatives because they are much less intrusive and offer pretty much the same feature set, if not more.
Besides, we will have to wait another few years to find out if Microsoft Edge’s promotional banners on Bing help because, so far, thebrowser’s market sharehas been pretty much stagnant. At present, Chrome dominates the PC browser landscape with a65.77%market share while Edge stands second at just12.71%, as perStatcounter.
What do you think of Microsoft’s banners for Edge on Bing or Google following a similar approach? Share with our readers in the comments section.
More about the topics:bing,microsoft,microsoft edge
Kazim Ali Alvi
Windows Hardware Expert
Kazim has always been fond of technology, be it scrolling through the settings on his iPhone, Android device, or Windows PC. He’s specialized in hardware devices, always ready to remove a screw or two to find out the real cause of a problem.
Long-time Windows user, Kazim is ready to provide a solution for your every software & hardware error on Windows 11, Windows 10 and any previous iteration. He’s also one of our experts in Networking & Security.
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Kazim Ali Alvi
Windows Hardware Expert
Kazim is specialized in hardware devices, always ready to remove a screw or two to find out the real cause of a problem.
