this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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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
111 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] irotsoma 1 points 3 weeks ago

Dual boot and encrypt your Linux drives so windows can't access them, or run windows in an isolated VM. Only use Windows when you absolutely need to and use Linux for everything else.

That's the best way to get yourself used to it. I did that with PC gaming. All my servers, my personal laptop, and my personal desktop all run Linux and just the personal desktop has windows dual boot. Now many games run on Linux, so I don't even boot Windows. It's been like a year or more since I last touched Windows outside of my work laptop.

And with KDE Plasma desktop, even my non-tech-savy partner had no problem switching. Fedora has a Plasma district that works really well for me.