I'm happy to see Microsoft digging their own grave. They don't see this as different from how it went down in the late 90s and early 2000s. They don't have the same moat they used to, but they think they do.
So sketchy -- I actually like Chromium Edge, but I stopped using it because of Microsoft's increasingly slimy tactics they're using to push it and Bing.
The problem is that OOTB Chrome, the market leader, comes with search set to Google. Even if they were required to present a choice on first startup after install, most people wouldn't bother changing it. This makes controlling the browser table stakes for operating a successful search engine (Brave now has its own search engine, Brave Search, set to the default; the beta MacOS-only Webkit browser Orion has its search set to its parent company's search, Kaagi Search).
MS is certainly cheating by using OS updates to pull a switcharoo but I imagine the alternative to possibly converting a Windows user, a fairly large demographic of computer user, to Bing is further entrenchment of Google's dominance, so in a weird way I'm somewhat sympathetic. Google's control of Chromium and its search dominance gets criticized but barring legal separation of the browser from the search engine, what else should MS do? Saying "well, make Bing better" can only be a partial answer when the larger demographic of browser users never see your search engine. Techie Evangelism hasn't saved Firefox, Google's leveraging an existing monopoly to push Chrome has seen to that angle no longer being enough.
Its right to read the situation as "M$FT gonna M$FT", but in terms of the browser/search markets and their synergetic leveraging, this also speaks to the scope of the problem of Google's dominion.
I am no fan of ms, but you make a good point. I usually use safari on my mac, and dl chrome for work (create a profile for each client, have gmail separated, etc). Never has google asked me to set the search engine and every time asked me to set chrome as default. It also does some ‘magic’ when i login to gmail and makes my session ‘identifiable’ to chrome.
I don’t use windows so am not a user, but can see how google uses chrome to make google the default and ms using windows to make bing the default (yes brwser vs os, but i would guess 90% of peope ha e no clue of the difference)
