M icrosoft has a suite of software services that aim to steal a slice of the pie from their Google counterparts. However, sometimes the Redmond giant resorts to potentially dishon

Microsoft has a habit of using a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults of Bing and Microsoft Edge in Windows, including modifying Chrome download sites and using malware-like popups to get people to ditch Google. Microsoft has even previously had to reverse pop-up ads inside Google Chrome to address “unintended behavior.”

Microsoft Bing is displaying what is being categorized as a misleading Google-esque search page when users search for Google, making it look you are on the competing search engine.

Google has suddenly hit back hard after Microsoft was seemingly caught capturing and diverting Google users within its Windows ecosystem. “New year, new low,” one Google exec posted on X, accusing the Windows-maker of “a long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice.”

In well over a decade of journalism, I've seen a fair amount of copied designs, but I've never seen anything as blatant as Bing's attempt to hoodwink people into believing they're using Google. Since time immemorial,