Microsoft has quite a long (and dubious) history of aggressively promoting its browsers. This now gets another chapter, because the Redmond company “hijacks” a Chrome download page and shows a huge banner ad there.
Microsoft has never been squeamish when it comes to pushing users toward its products and, most importantly, its browsers. Anyone who starts Edge, for example, is regularly and quite obtrusively bullied into setting the Microsoft browser as the default. Apparently, you don’t want users to think of using or even trying out another program, even if it’s an experimental version like Google’s Chrome Canary.
As the Microsoft expert, FireCube reports on Twitter and Neowin and shows, users who go to an official Google Chrome page will see a fairly obtrusive and large banner. This tells the user that they don’t actually need another browser because Microsoft Edge uses the same technology as Chrome, “but with the additional trust of Microsoft”.
This banner is of course clickable, whoever does so lands on a download page for Microsoft Edge. Whether the Redmond group actually offers more trust or a safer surfing experience is debatable. But does Microsoft make many friends by displaying such aggressive advertisements?
Because even Microsoft fans repeatedly react allergically to such forced happiness or advertising. For example, some users point out that such a banner would be the same as if Google displayed a message stating that YouTube works best with Chrome.
In any case, Microsoft has already been “convicted” several times here, because the group has little hesitation in advertising its own products within Windows or other programs such as Office. And as always, the question arises as to whether you are more likely to win users or rather put them off.
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