Microsoft brings back nagging Bing alerts in Windows 10

Facepalm: Given its history with the Windows 10 upgrade nags, one might imagine Microsoft understands how much people hate nagging pop-up alerts. But that hasn’t stopped the company from bringing back one of its most hated campaigns that utilizes the irritating feature; prepare for ads advising you to switch to the Bing search engine.

Windows Latest reports that the nags returned as part of the Edge 91 update for Microsoft’s web browser. Those who haven’t set Edge as their default browser and users who manually changed to a different search engine will see the prompts.

There are reportedly two ads for Bing: one promoting the “latest trending news” on its homepage’s MSN newsfeed, and the engine’s secure/private results; the other claiming users can save money online by switching to Bing in countries where the Microsoft Rewards feature is available.

In typical Microsoft fashion, the prompts don’t come with a “No, thanks” option. You can either select “Yes, change settings” or hit “Maybe later,” suggesting that dismissing the prompt will only see it return in the future.

You might remember how, in 2016, the company’s Get Windows 10 (GWX) pop-up, which offered the choices of “Upgrade Now” or “Start Download, Upgrade later,” was changed so anyone selecting the box’s corner X unwittingly gave consent for the upgrade to take place at the scheduled time. Microsoft later admitted that these malware-like tactics “went too far.”

The good news is that there is a way to get rid of these Bing notifications permanently. Simply launch Edge and enter “edge://flags” in the URL bar to show the browser’s experimental features, then find “Show feature and workflow recommendations” and change the drop-down menu to “Disabled.”

Despite attracting praise and more users since switching to a Chromium-based version, Edge holds a mere 3.39% of the browser market, whereas Chrome boasts a 64.5% share. According to Statcounter, it’s an even grimmer picture for Bing, whose 2.9% search engine market share pales in comparison to Google’s 92.2%.