8 ms·

Malvertising on Microsoft Edge's news feed pushes tech support scams

156 points by rand0mx1 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Who needs to get work done? Just make the entire OS an advertisement platform already that fills the screen with ads. Mike Judge's Idiocracy satire was ahead of the curve on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F44514a34-c72e-490b-b1b2-f1866c2aafa4_1920x1080.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
- e3bc54b2 4y ago
  When I first watched that movie I never thought it would be so on the point, just 15 years too early..
- weberer 4y ago
  They must have hired that guy to design the UI for Windows Phone.
  - dagw 4y ago
    Did you ever use Windows Phone? Personally I consider it the high water mark of phone UIs and my Nokia Lumia is still one of my favourite phones I've owned. Unfortunately the app ecosystem was never there, greatly limiting what you could actually do with the phone.
    - pedro2 4y ago
      Still expecting [not really but...] that Microsoft releases a new Windows Phone with Android app support via WSL2. Not that I'd buy it -- but would bring competition to Google.
- ticviking 4y ago
  These issues are why I’ve paid the pain to migrate myself onto Linux. I’m still not half as productive as I am on my company windows machine but I see far fewer adds day to day
- herbst 4y ago
  I think people who use Windows don't even realize how the OS slowly get more distracting over time, making people used to all this. I am always amazed on how passively and non annoyed people click away all these virus scanner and whatever popups popping up whatever you are doing. Sure I may be biased, I get aggressions when YouTube forces a second ad. And my brain was turned upside down when I realized smart TVs introduced smart ads that may take 20% of the screen, whenever and people still don't seem to care. I am so glad I live behind a pihole in a Linux only network, without 'normal' TV. I am sure I see at least 95% less ads than my average peers.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    It really depends how you operate Windows. Almost every misbehavior has a way to turn it off, it's just a matter of finding it. Also, people need to use Firefox. With Firefox's tracking prevention, at this point my Pihole barely gets a workout. I reimplemented it recently on my network and it barely did anything, I am already controlling most of it at the PC or browser level.
    - herbst 4y ago
      I don't think that counts if you either need questionable third party tools (usually also coming with ads) or extensive knowledge of the operating system to switch of this 'misbehaviour'. My mum is not able to operate Windows without ad and in-os-spam issues. Pi-Hole is only good for what it does. You have full control (and overview) what your network is requesting and can block everything you don't need. The way I use it it takes time to operate. Like blocking most of whatever IoT devices are doing works like charm. Or whatever my smartTV was sending every other hour for no reason. It doesn't block ads that are served on the same domains as the content, obviously. (Youtube, Twitch, ...) Only the client can filter those.
    - ehvatum 4y ago
      > Also, people need to use Firefox I would, if Firefox would stop deteriorating. They are down to miniscule marketshare and continue redesigning their GUI, disabling features, preventing ad-blocking, launching pointless annoying services. Firefox of 2014 was a far better product than Firefox of 2022.
zinekeller 4y ago
Of course, it's Taboola. Not shocking at all. But why did Microsoft allowed Taboola in the first place despite Taboola's reputation? That's a question that I want to know the answer to.
- veeti 4y ago
  One weird trick, security teams hate him.
- worble 4y ago
  I ask myself the same question with regards to their Klarna partnership in Edge. Are Microsoft really so hurt for cash they're willing to sacrifice their userbase for a few bucks? It seems crazy they'd stake their reputation like this, especially considering their corporate focus.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > same question with regards to their Klarna partnership American here. What’s the beef with Klarna?
    - iakov 4y ago
      Horrendous rates, non-clear fees, everything packed in a nice UI that leads clueless folks right into a trap. It's a scam scheme for financially illiterate people IMO. The fact that it's added into a default browser in a most popular OS in the world adds insult to the injury.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        I’m generally sceptical of BNPL. Is Klarna worse than the category?
        wowokay 4y ago
        No, I think it’s in that bucket, personally I haven’t had a problem with them.
a2tech 4y ago
I've never seen the notification integration for Edge/Chrome used for anything legitimate, only ever scams. Its not unusual for me to sit down on someones computer and get bombarded with tech support/antivirus scams. And Chrome and Edge makes turning it off non-trivial. Its an AWFUL feature that seems to have been destined for misuse from day one.
- bigbacaloa 4y ago
  The feature itself is a misuse, so this is not surprising.
- manimino 4y ago
  When the Windows 11 beta showed up with the ads and distractions built in, I finally switched my last computer to a KDE Linux. Love the Windows UI, but their commitment to putting ads in the OS means the OS is no longer the product. Their users are the product. We all know how this ends.
  - a2tech 4y ago
    This feature however is a Google feature. They built it into Chrome and then from there it was made available in Microsoft Edge which runs on Chromium. So while MS made the GUI choices that made it difficult they were really just following the lead that Google set down in Chrome.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
I've been screaming about this for years. Maybe Malwarebytes will get them to listen. The fact that Microsoft delivers malware directly to people's default home screens for money is insane. And it's been happening since the original Edge launched. And yes, in case you're curious, this is a Section 230 problem: As long as we grant platforms default immunity, there is no business risk to Microsoft to offset the profits gained. If the choice to include Taboola included the ability to be sued for damages, Microsoft would be more hesitant to do business with them.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  > this is a Section 230 problem Can we really not draw a distinction between an internet service provider passing messages between users, and a tech company receiving money from a content company to show their ads to users who didn't ask for them? The latter seems much more like an activity that should create a liability than the former.
  - Diggsey 4y ago
    Of course we can - an ISP is paid for by the customer, whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser. As soon as you are paid by the entity producing the content you are no longer a "dumb pipe", and are de-facto curating that content.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      >whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser. Tangent to the publisher/platform debate, but can we stop for a moment to appreciate that Windows is a paid-for product? The fact a paid-for product has ads in it is fucking nonsense.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    That's the core problem with Section 230: It was passed by fools who didn't consider that profit enters into things. Advertising is, ultimately, just speech. So what happened was they passed a law worried about users posting offensive forum/blog comments, but it is used to protect companies that serve malicious ads (Google, Microsoft, being absolutely top offenders) for profit, but claim no responsibility because they didn't write the ads. Any content served to a platform in exchange for any sort of revenue, the platform should be liable for the content of. Note that there's no meaningful distinction between a "tech company" and an "internet service provider". Google operates Fi and Fiber, Comcast operates email and streaming video services, it's just service providers ultimately, and Section 230 is a giant gaping immunity hole for holding any of them responsible for business decisions they're well aware is malicious.
ape4 4y ago
Hopefully Windows Defender will block this
- uxx 4y ago
  ... made me cry bro
justusthane 4y ago
I really, really hate the Edge news feed, which is also built into the Windows 10 "News and Interests" taskbar widget, and there's no way to disable the news feed without also getting rid of the weather. It's so distracting. One day I spent hours going through and blocking each individual news provider from the feed, hoping eventually I'd reach the bottom of the pile and there would be nothing left. It's never ending though. Are there good third party weather widgets that can live on the taskbar?
- neogodless 4y ago
  Slightly off Topic, but I'm on Windows 10 Professional - latest version/updates and I've never been offered the News and Interests taskbar widget. Perhaps because Location is greyed out/disabled (though of course my desktop does not have a GPS...) but I suspect most people don't have location/GPS in their PC. Not that I miss it. Even on my Legion 5 laptop, nothing, though my wife's Legion Y540 does have it. I suspect there's something funky that has it blocked on my Microsoft Account, but I can't imagine what.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    location is taken from your internet service provider; an ISP can generate revenue by selling updates to their IP->location data. As far as I can tell this is traded commonly for revenue, plus govt security people get a place at the table with reviewing sensitive locations and filtering. This all happens without your knowledge.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lostmsu 4y ago
  Not on the taskbar, but my tiling WM for Windows has support for widgets. Here's one I use for weather: https://gist.github.com/lostmsu/96ffc76f3f7b27d438fc707863d0ef87 https://gist.github.com/lostmsu/96ffc76f3f7b27d438fc707863d0... The WM itself: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/stack-wm/9p4rj8rl7qgs https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/stack-wm/9p4rj8rl7qg...
JamesonNetworks 4y ago
I went through and turned this stuff off, just in case it helps anyone else: https://www.thecodeblogs.com/@/JamesonNetworks/removing-the-clutter-from-a-new-edge-tab https://www.thecodeblogs.com/@/JamesonNetworks/removing-the-...
muststopmyths 4y ago
In the windows phone 8 days News was actually a better app than the alternatives. It’s really sad to see what they’ve done to Windows the last few years
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > It’s really sad to see what they’ve done to Windows the last few years At work, the Windows computer takes over 5 seconds to launch the calculator app. Once upon a time, the calculator appeared on screen pretty much instantly. On decades older hardware. It's now faster to just type whatever I want to calculate into a search engine.
NayamAmarshe 4y ago
Windows is where bloatware comes to die.
COMMENT___ 4y ago
MS should at least update its documentation for admins (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#hidefirstrunexperience https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...) and give a clear instruction on how to disable all the "extra features" and choose safe settings. If I use GPO to disable four first run "splash screens", Edge uses unwanted default settings. I want to disable splash screens AND configure safe defaults. Docs mention "some of these other policies", but the list seems to be incomplete.

156 points by rand0mx1 4y ago

Who needs to get work done? Just make the entire OS an advertisement platform already that fills the screen with ads. Mike Judge's Idiocracy satire was ahead of the curve on this one: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F44514a34-c72e-490b-b1b2-f1866c2aafa4_1920x1080.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

e3bc54b2 4y ago
When I first watched that movie I never thought it would be so on the point, just 15 years too early..
weberer 4y ago
They must have hired that guy to design the UI for Windows Phone.
- dagw 4y ago
  Did you ever use Windows Phone? Personally I consider it the high water mark of phone UIs and my Nokia Lumia is still one of my favourite phones I've owned. Unfortunately the app ecosystem was never there, greatly limiting what you could actually do with the phone.
  - pedro2 4y ago
    Still expecting [not really but...] that Microsoft releases a new Windows Phone with Android app support via WSL2. Not that I'd buy it -- but would bring competition to Google.
ticviking 4y ago
These issues are why I’ve paid the pain to migrate myself onto Linux. I’m still not half as productive as I am on my company windows machine but I see far fewer adds day to day
herbst 4y ago
I think people who use Windows don't even realize how the OS slowly get more distracting over time, making people used to all this. I am always amazed on how passively and non annoyed people click away all these virus scanner and whatever popups popping up whatever you are doing. Sure I may be biased, I get aggressions when YouTube forces a second ad. And my brain was turned upside down when I realized smart TVs introduced smart ads that may take 20% of the screen, whenever and people still don't seem to care. I am so glad I live behind a pihole in a Linux only network, without 'normal' TV. I am sure I see at least 95% less ads than my average peers.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  It really depends how you operate Windows. Almost every misbehavior has a way to turn it off, it's just a matter of finding it. Also, people need to use Firefox. With Firefox's tracking prevention, at this point my Pihole barely gets a workout. I reimplemented it recently on my network and it barely did anything, I am already controlling most of it at the PC or browser level.
  - herbst 4y ago
    I don't think that counts if you either need questionable third party tools (usually also coming with ads) or extensive knowledge of the operating system to switch of this 'misbehaviour'. My mum is not able to operate Windows without ad and in-os-spam issues. Pi-Hole is only good for what it does. You have full control (and overview) what your network is requesting and can block everything you don't need. The way I use it it takes time to operate. Like blocking most of whatever IoT devices are doing works like charm. Or whatever my smartTV was sending every other hour for no reason. It doesn't block ads that are served on the same domains as the content, obviously. (Youtube, Twitch, ...) Only the client can filter those.
  - ehvatum 4y ago
    > Also, people need to use Firefox I would, if Firefox would stop deteriorating. They are down to miniscule marketshare and continue redesigning their GUI, disabling features, preventing ad-blocking, launching pointless annoying services. Firefox of 2014 was a far better product than Firefox of 2022.

zinekeller 4y ago

Of course, it's Taboola. Not shocking at all. But why did Microsoft allowed Taboola in the first place despite Taboola's reputation? That's a question that I want to know the answer to.

veeti 4y ago
One weird trick, security teams hate him.
worble 4y ago
I ask myself the same question with regards to their Klarna partnership in Edge. Are Microsoft really so hurt for cash they're willing to sacrifice their userbase for a few bucks? It seems crazy they'd stake their reputation like this, especially considering their corporate focus.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > same question with regards to their Klarna partnership American here. What’s the beef with Klarna?
  - iakov 4y ago
    Horrendous rates, non-clear fees, everything packed in a nice UI that leads clueless folks right into a trap. It's a scam scheme for financially illiterate people IMO. The fact that it's added into a default browser in a most popular OS in the world adds insult to the injury.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      I’m generally sceptical of BNPL. Is Klarna worse than the category?
      - wowokay 4y ago
        No, I think it’s in that bucket, personally I haven’t had a problem with them.

a2tech 4y ago

I've never seen the notification integration for Edge/Chrome used for anything legitimate, only ever scams. Its not unusual for me to sit down on someones computer and get bombarded with tech support/antivirus scams. And Chrome and Edge makes turning it off non-trivial. Its an AWFUL feature that seems to have been destined for misuse from day one.

bigbacaloa 4y ago
The feature itself is a misuse, so this is not surprising.
manimino 4y ago
When the Windows 11 beta showed up with the ads and distractions built in, I finally switched my last computer to a KDE Linux. Love the Windows UI, but their commitment to putting ads in the OS means the OS is no longer the product. Their users are the product. We all know how this ends.
- a2tech 4y ago
  This feature however is a Google feature. They built it into Chrome and then from there it was made available in Microsoft Edge which runs on Chromium. So while MS made the GUI choices that made it difficult they were really just following the lead that Google set down in Chrome.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

I've been screaming about this for years. Maybe Malwarebytes will get them to listen. The fact that Microsoft delivers malware directly to people's default home screens for money is insane. And it's been happening since the original Edge launched. And yes, in case you're curious, this is a Section 230 problem: As long as we grant platforms default immunity, there is no business risk to Microsoft to offset the profits gained. If the choice to include Taboola included the ability to be sued for damages, Microsoft would be more hesitant to do business with them.

dane-pgp 4y ago
> this is a Section 230 problem Can we really not draw a distinction between an internet service provider passing messages between users, and a tech company receiving money from a content company to show their ads to users who didn't ask for them? The latter seems much more like an activity that should create a liability than the former.
- Diggsey 4y ago
  Of course we can - an ISP is paid for by the customer, whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser. As soon as you are paid by the entity producing the content you are no longer a "dumb pipe", and are de-facto curating that content.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser. Tangent to the publisher/platform debate, but can we stop for a moment to appreciate that Windows is a paid-for product? The fact a paid-for product has ads in it is fucking nonsense.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  That's the core problem with Section 230: It was passed by fools who didn't consider that profit enters into things. Advertising is, ultimately, just speech. So what happened was they passed a law worried about users posting offensive forum/blog comments, but it is used to protect companies that serve malicious ads (Google, Microsoft, being absolutely top offenders) for profit, but claim no responsibility because they didn't write the ads. Any content served to a platform in exchange for any sort of revenue, the platform should be liable for the content of. Note that there's no meaningful distinction between a "tech company" and an "internet service provider". Google operates Fi and Fiber, Comcast operates email and streaming video services, it's just service providers ultimately, and Section 230 is a giant gaping immunity hole for holding any of them responsible for business decisions they're well aware is malicious.

ape4 4y ago

Hopefully Windows Defender will block this

uxx 4y ago
... made me cry bro

justusthane 4y ago

I really, really hate the Edge news feed, which is also built into the Windows 10 "News and Interests" taskbar widget, and there's no way to disable the news feed without also getting rid of the weather. It's so distracting. One day I spent hours going through and blocking each individual news provider from the feed, hoping eventually I'd reach the bottom of the pile and there would be nothing left. It's never ending though. Are there good third party weather widgets that can live on the taskbar?

neogodless 4y ago
Slightly off Topic, but I'm on Windows 10 Professional - latest version/updates and I've never been offered the News and Interests taskbar widget. Perhaps because Location is greyed out/disabled (though of course my desktop does not have a GPS...) but I suspect most people don't have location/GPS in their PC. Not that I miss it. Even on my Legion 5 laptop, nothing, though my wife's Legion Y540 does have it. I suspect there's something funky that has it blocked on my Microsoft Account, but I can't imagine what.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  location is taken from your internet service provider; an ISP can generate revenue by selling updates to their IP->location data. As far as I can tell this is traded commonly for revenue, plus govt security people get a place at the table with reviewing sensitive locations and filtering. This all happens without your knowledge.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lostmsu 4y ago
Not on the taskbar, but my tiling WM for Windows has support for widgets. Here's one I use for weather: https://gist.github.com/lostmsu/96ffc76f3f7b27d438fc707863d0ef87 https://gist.github.com/lostmsu/96ffc76f3f7b27d438fc707863d0... The WM itself: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/stack-wm/9p4rj8rl7qgs https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/stack-wm/9p4rj8rl7qg...

JamesonNetworks 4y ago

I went through and turned this stuff off, just in case it helps anyone else: https://www.thecodeblogs.com/@/JamesonNetworks/removing-the-clutter-from-a-new-edge-tab https://www.thecodeblogs.com/@/JamesonNetworks/removing-the-...

muststopmyths 4y ago

In the windows phone 8 days News was actually a better app than the alternatives. It’s really sad to see what they’ve done to Windows the last few years

matheusmoreira 4y ago
> It’s really sad to see what they’ve done to Windows the last few years At work, the Windows computer takes over 5 seconds to launch the calculator app. Once upon a time, the calculator appeared on screen pretty much instantly. On decades older hardware. It's now faster to just type whatever I want to calculate into a search engine.

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

Windows is where bloatware comes to die.

COMMENT___ 4y ago

MS should at least update its documentation for admins (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#hidefirstrunexperience https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...) and give a clear instruction on how to disable all the "extra features" and choose safe settings. If I use GPO to disable four first run "splash screens", Edge uses unwanted default settings. I want to disable splash screens AND configure safe defaults. Docs mention "some of these other policies", but the list seems to be incomplete.