Microsoft is again using pop-ups to persuade users of its Edge browser to set its own Bing Search search engine as default. This is in an attempt to boost the market share of this unpopular search engine.
Users of Microsoft’s own Edge browser who do not have the Bing Search search engine set as default are once again being besieged with pop-ups. This is evident from posts on X, among others.
With this, the tech giant wants to try to convince Edge users that its own search engine is much better than alternatives. It is not the first time Microsoft has used these tricks. Fortunately, this time, it happens in a reasonably friendly way, whereas earlier attempts were made to make switching search engines in Edge on Windows 11 systems as difficult as possible. For example, by having Windows 11 updates remove settings for alternative search engines in users’ Edge browsers.
More market share
Microsoft has long wanted to increase the market share of its Bing Search search engine. In April this year, that market share stood at a paltry 3 percent, and it hasn’t really increased in the rest of 2023. That’s according to figures from Statcounter. Google is still the most popular search engine worldwide.
New functionality for Bing Search
The tech giant is, however, adding new functionality to the Bing Search search engine to make it more attractive to use. Think of Bing’s integrations with the generative AI tool ChatGPT, among others.
Whether these new features will help is still unknown. Especially since OpenAI’s LLMs used for these applications are coming under increasing pressure from alternative models. Consider, for example, Google’s recently launched Gemini model.
Also read: Why Microsoft keeps pushing the limit by forcing its software on you
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