Office 365 ProPlus will make Bing the default search engine in Chrome from February

Office 365 ProPlus will make Bing the default search engine in Chrome starting next month, unless administrators actively prevent it. Initially, this will not happen in the Benelux, but according to Microsoft, it will probably happen with a future version.

Office 365 ProPlus replaces the default search engine in Chrome with Bing in Germany and France, among others, Microsoft says. This happens with the monthly release from mid-February and with the semi-annual release from mid-March.

Microsoft does that by installing a Chrome extension that replaces the default search engine with Bing. Administrators can stop this via Group Policy or remove the extension after installation. Microsoft will let users know via Message Center, the company says.

The move has not gone down well with all users, according to GitHub and Reddit. Admins are afraid to get a lot of questions for help because their browser’s default search engine has changed. Microsoft also plans to change Firefox’s default search engine to Bing with Office 365 ProPlus at a later stage. The extension is only in ProPlus and not in Office 365 Business.