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Microsoft's official "Bing Wallpaper app" does some nasty, malware-like things to Windows (www.techspot.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by ForgottenFlux to c/technology

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The app automatically installs Bing Visual Search and includes code to decrypt cookies saved in other browsers, Rivera said, and it also brings a "free" geolocation web API to the system.

The developer discovered "many" nasty tricks Microsoft integrated in Bing Wallpapers, which include trying to change the browser's settings and set Edge as the default system browser. If the default browser isn't Edge, the app will open the default browser after some time asking to enable the previously installed Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome extension.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm always surprised at how devious this windows spyware is. 99% of people would probably just accept to share all their data but that's not good enough; MS has to try and squeeze out every last drop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

A wallpaper app is already targeting the most vulnerable. Nobody who knows how to remove the spyware that's already in Windows is installing a wallpaper app.