Microsoft is up to some shady old tricks again with the new Bing Wallpaper app

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Bing Wallpaper should be what it says on the label, but it seems Microsoft is doing more than just giving us sweet background images with it.

The Bing Wallpaper app in the Microsoft Store on Windows 11
Wallpapers, or something more than that? 🤔 (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft recently released a new Bing Wallpapers app into the Microsoft Store to give us, you guessed it, wallpapers from Bing.
  • However, despite its description, it looks like Microsoft is doing more than just serving up wallpapers using the app.
  • Bing Search, Bing Visual Search, and a 'helpful' reminder in your non-Microsoft Edge default browser are all 'features.'

Recently, Microsoft launched its Bing Wallpaper app into the Store, which, on the face of it, should be a pretty good thing. Bing serves up some of the best looking images on the web every day, and setting them as wallpapers is definitely something worth doing.

The app itself, however, seems to be concealing some shady tricks, with Microsoft trying its best to shovel its services on potentially unsuspecting users. It's described as:

"Bing Wallpaper includes a collection of beautiful images from around the world that have been featured on the Bing homepage. Not only will you see a new image on your desktop each day, but you can also browse images and learn where they're from."

However, Rafael Rivera (@withinrafael) has been poking around inside the app and found it's doing much more than that.

There's a whole thread below that initial post which details (in quite technical detail, no less), what's going on, and it doesn't make for great reading. It's bad enough that it's diving into your cookies, but this is my personal favorite.

I'm far from a developer, but I'm not sure that Microsoft would appreciate Google, or Opera, going inside the Edge browser and trying to divert users away from it. It does feel like something of an abuse of power, because you'd like to hope an app behaving this way from someone else wouldn't be allowed into the Store.

On one hand, I get it. We're the product, and our eyeballs (and our data) is the payment. Microsoft wants it, just like Google wants it. But yet again we're talking about underhanded tactics to force Bing/Edge on users, rather than selling the products on their merits. I use Bing primarily because it's integrated with Microsoft Rewards, for example. And Copilot is a pretty good AI tool, even if I wish Microsoft would make up its mind on what exactly it wants it to be.

But above all, nobody should install an innocent sounding wallpaper app and have all kinds of other crap shoved on them. Do better, Microsoft.

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Richard Devine
Richard Devine
Managing Editor - Tech, Reviews

Richard Devine is a Managing Editor at Windows Central with over a decade of experience. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been found on Android Central and iMore as well as Windows Central. Currently, you'll find him steering the site's coverage of all manner of PC hardware and reviews. Find him on Mastodon at mstdn.social/@richdevine