New Extension in Office 365 ProPlus Causes Excitement

As Microsoft recently announced, the upcoming update for Office 365 ProPlus will install an extension for Microsoft Search that will make Bing the default search engine for the Google Chrome browser. This decision is not without controversy and should cause considerable displeasure among Office 365 subscribers, since the software company installs the Chrome extension "Microsoft Search in Bing" without user consent and also changes the standard search engine to Bing in the Chrome browser.

According to Microsoft, with the "Microsoft Search in Bing" extension, the company wants to make the benefits of its own company search accessible to users of the Google browser, including access to workplace information, such as from OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. On the other hand, the software company describes in a support document how administrators can prevent automatic installation with group policies or the Office Deployment Tool. In the event that the extension is installed nevertheless, the user is given the option of changing the default search engine in the Chrome browser.

The extension will be shipped with the 2002 version of Office 365 ProPlus, which is expected for the monthly channel, around mid-February. Initially, users from the UK, France and Germany will be affected. For the six-monthly channel update, the expansion is not announced until mid-2020.

Microsoft Search is enabled by default in Microsoft 365, without the need for initial tenant setup. It accesses information and files from SharePoint sites, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams and Yammer, and the Internet.

Source: ZDNet