Patch Lady – World Book encylopedia never did this

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Last night I posted a concern I had about the upcoming Office 365 “Browser hijack” whereby Office 365 pro plus is planning to insert into the Chrome b
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – World Book encylopedia never did this]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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lurks about, deuxbits, AlexEiffel, Alex5723, Nibbled To Death By Ducks, abbodi86, woody, WildBill, wdburt1, RamRod, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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The talk page primarily brings up the fact that it hasn’t happened yet, not that it isn’t a browser hijacker.  I agree.  it shouldn’t be listed yet, it should be listed when released.

No argument that it is browser hijacking.

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Kranium, deuxbits

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Apparently it’s something to do with Wikipedia is not a newspaper.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/939506914

Talk:Browser hijacking (edit)
Revision as of 22:07, 6 February 2020
170 BYTES ADDED,  5 HOURS AGO

Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus:

Sysadmins have undoubtedly seen this on one of the many computing news sites that have run stories about it. Wikipedia isn’t a newspaper. -MrOllie 20:23, 5 February 2020 (UTC) Enough of anons / socks re-adding this stuff, William M. Connolley  22:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

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Moderator note: Please view any copied and pasted material in the TEXT tab and remove unnecessary HTML before posting. A lot of HTML in this post was removed.

 

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Mozilla ESR - grudgingly & Protonmail

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Ella, WildBill

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Wikipedia is more concerned with raising funds than vetting/maintaining factual content on their web based “encyclopedia”. A strange universe exists in that neck of cyberspace that’s neither complete nor properly maintained/curated.

But this sort of Browser and search engine hijacking is just getting started on MS’s 10 Closed OS/Application Ecosystem as that sort of data collection of end user metrics is big business in that targeted and analytics sort of snooping activity done in the name of targeted marketing and ad pushing.

I’d only expect that this will get progressively worse now that 7’s EOL and 8.1’s living on burrowed time.  Maybe the Browser makers need let the end user lock that search engine setting under a user generated password and limit any programmatic access to any browser settings without the end user permission.

I’m on Firefox and not IE or CRedge but it’s an eternal game of cat and mouse with the folks in Redmond under Windows 10/Edge-whatever and MS’s other Cloud based offerings. 2020 is just getting started so expect more doubling down coming from the direction of Redmond as the year progresses.

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Cybertooth

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anonymous wrote:

Wikipedia is more concerned with raising funds than vetting/maintaining factual content on their web based “encyclopedia”

Personal opinion or fact, references please.

cheers, Paul

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I looked at the Revision History for that page & it shows back & forth changes. Searching again on the “Browser hijacking” page for “Office 365” & “Microsoft Office” a/o 6:25 PM CST; not found. Printed encyclopedias & dictionaries never had this problem… as they said on “Laugh-In” in the 1960’s & 70’s, “Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!”

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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Already a fix –

From Ghacks –

Administrators who don’t want this to happen can prevent the installation easily according to Microsoft, and if it is installed already, it is easy enough to stop using Bing as the default search engine as well (there is a toggle to use the previous default search engine again)

Admins may run the following command to remove the extension again:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\DefaultPackPC\MainBootStrap.exe uninstallAll

https://www.ghacks.net/2020/01/23/microsoft-will-install-a-bing-search-extension-in-chrome-on-some-customer-systems/

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WildBill

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The “fix” is for Microsoft not to do this at all.  But with click to run you are never quite sure when it gets installed … until it does.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Tom-R, phaolo, Ascaris, AlexEiffel, lurks about, David F, Mr. Natural, WildBill, Alex5723, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Cybertooth, woody

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There is another answer to this problem — Use Libre office — been using it for years

mbhelwig

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Kranium, Alex5723

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Or use a version of Office that runs entirely on one’s computer, not on the Web, unless one needs the ability to connect to Office anywhere, any time, but does not have one’s own computer handy all the time. I imagine that could happen, just not to me. Susan might know of other cases where using Office 365 is necessary.

As to back and forth editing in Wikipedia: that is an old characteristic and happens by the very nature of it being a Wiki that anybody can use by opening an account with a minimum of fuss. I have seen back and forth discussions there that make watching paint dry a most desirable activity, by comparison.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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wdburt1

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Or OpenOffice.

i7-10700k - ASROCK Z590 Pro4 - 1TB 970 EVO Plus M.2 - DDR4 3200 x 32GB - GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FTW - Windows 10 Pro

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Fred

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AmbularD wrote:

Or OpenOffice.

+ LibreOffice aswell

* _ ... _ *

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Huzzah! The link to Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus on Wikipedia’s “Browser hijacking” page is there… and works! Click the link on Patch Lady’s original post. Now, has William H. Connolley given up a/o earlier this morning? We’ll see…

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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What Wikipedia finally decides is irrelevant but MS’ behavior is totally unacceptable. Users have set their defaults for their convenience and no one else. Changing the defaults is below unethical and in my opinion borderline criminal (harsh yes but it’s my system not MS’).

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Tom-R, Kranium, WildBill, Cybertooth, deuxbits, OscarCP

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I don’t like it either & I’m not defending them but– You said “it’s my system not MS'”. Technically, you just own the license to the Microsoft S/W (the right to use it) & the license probably says something to the effect that they can make whatever changes they want to that S/W whenever they want, w/o notification to you or approval from you. If you don’t want them monkeying around w/ “your” S/W, you’ll have to use their unsupported S/W (past End of Life), if at all legitimately available anymore, or other brands. However, most other brands probably have the same license terms, but many don’t exploit those terms like Msft. does.

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Apropos of this conversation, Dedoimedo has a new post reporting on (OK, complaining about) the installation procedure for Office 2016 when you don’t want to install everything in the suite:

We’ve gone from simple, friendly click-click wizards to command line plus config files.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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This has been the general standard by Microsoft for a while now.  Remember Windows 10 is a Tonka toy of confusing options where the old system allowed you to modify things through basic wizards or management interfaces.  Server management isn’t any better.  Some of the features I used to control in older Exchange 2007/2003/2000 I’m now required to write powershell code for (in 2013.  When I move to 2019 i expect this to get worse).  Not that Powershell code isn’t useful or a nice addition, but the loss of ease of access/management is a large hit.

Although, job security comes with the added frustration, so I guess it works out for me in the end.

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Cybertooth

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anonymous wrote:

This has been the general standard by Microsoft for a while now.  Remember Windows 10 is a Tonka toy of confusing options where the old system allowed you to modify things through basic wizards or management interfaces.  Server management isn’t any better.  Some of the features I used to control in older Exchange 2007/2003/2000 I’m now required to write powershell code for (in 2013.  When I move to 2019 i expect this to get worse).  Not that Powershell code isn’t useful or a nice addition, but the loss of ease of access/management is a large hit.

Although, job security comes with the added frustration, so I guess it works out for me in the end.

It sounds like a (perhaps not so) subtle way to discourage Microsoft customers from doing things their own way and to channel them into doing things the way MS prefers.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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