Microsoft is forcing Bing on Business Customers - and they are angry

Microsoft is forcing Bing on Business Customers - and they are angry

There is no dispute about browsers; Google is the best search engine and most people know it.

Except for Microsoft. Why? Because Microsoft has created a new Chrome extension for Office 365 ProPlus customers that forces Chrome to use Bing as the default search engine.

"By making Bing the default search engine, users in organizations that use Google Chrome will be able to take advantage of Microsoft Search, including accessing relevant information at work directly from the browser address bar," Microsoft wrote in a blog post.

Office 365 ProPlus is primarily used by businesses and is similar to regular Office, except for a few licensing differences. Also, unlike the consumer version, it is updated regularly; IT administrators should be aware that installing a new version of Office 365 ProPlus or updating the current version will lock users into Bing as a search engine.

Not surprisingly, IT administrators are not happy with Microsoft's restrictive new policy; Office 365 ProPlus customers are asking Microsoft on Reddit and Github to make browser locking an option.

Microsoft plans to release the extension in February in the US, UK, Germany, India, Australia, France, and Canada. Let's hope they change their minds by then.

This article originally appeared in Laptop Mag.

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