That Microsoft Bing Pop-up Probably Isn’t Malware, Just a Tacky Ad

Microsoft is trying anything to get an edge.

If you thought that Microsoft’s bad history of pushing its own products onto Windows users with bad attempts at advertising was a thing of the past, then I’ve got news for you. Multiple users around the world have started to notice new Microsoft Bing pop-up ads that look a lot like malware. In fact, someone I know actually asked me if the pop-up was malware, and after some research into the matter, I had to tell them that no, it most likely wasn’t. It’s just Microsoft doing a bad job of trying to get you to switch to its products.

The new popups have begun to appear after almost six months of reprieve, which was only granted to us thanks to an “issue” that the pop-ups were experiencing. Microsoft claimed the issue led to “unintended behavior” when it began appearing on top of other apps in the past. But now it seems the Windows parent company is doubling down on its strange advertising practices.

This latest batch of pop-ups is so bad that users have even posted to Reddit to question whether or not the advertisements are real or if they are an attempt to infiltrate and infect their computers with malware. Users with both Windows 10 and Windows 11 have reported the new ads popping up, and some have reported that they look very low quality and extremely pixelated.

Microsoft has had a really long and terrible history of going about advertising its products the wrong way. From the past Windows experience in which it was difficult to change your default web browser, to a change in its Edge browser that had it automatically importing Google Chrome history and information without user consent, something The Verge writer Tom Warren says he experienced for himself.

While it isn’t unusual for bad actors to try to copy advertisements put out by big companies like Microsoft, the ad in question only points back to official Microsoft links. The move is just the longest in a bumbling line of advertisements that have seen the company putting ads for Edge on top of other windows in the past. Microsoft has even put the pop-up on desktops as a “tip” that users struggled to disable several months ago.

The worst part of all this is that Microsoft’s products might not be the best, but they’ve come a long way since their inception. Sure, Bing isn’t my favorite search engine ever, but there are some cool features available, including free access to GPT-4, and while the search isn’t as robust as Google, it does return some good results that are worth checking out. The Edge browser has gotten better, too, as our friends at PCMag are quick to point out in their review from 2017. However, none of this is worth turning to the invasive methods that Microsoft has leaned on for advertising its products.

These kinds of advertisements aren’t going to draw new users in. Sure, you might get some new users in the form of folks who accidentally clicked the confirm button, but for the most part, people are happy with what they’re using already, and there isn’t really any reason for them to change up what they’re doing.

If Microsoft really wants to increase the number of users turning to Bing for its search results, it needs to prove that there’s a real reason to switch. And these malware-like ads aren’t the solution. They just make the service look worse.