Windows 10 is spamming Chrome users with a Microsoft shopping app

Microsoft really wants you to install and use its products on your computer. Beyond the myriad Start menu ads plaguing Windows 10, now users have to contend with pop-ups for Redmond-made stuff if they have Google’s Chrome browser installed as well. Myce reports (image below) that when Chrome is pinned to the taskbar an ad for Microsoft’s Personal Shopping Assistant extension hovers over the browser’s familiar icon.

The add-on itself has been around for about a year, but a recent update is triggering the spam. Expectedly, the Chrome Web Store is rife with complaints about the extension. Maybe if it was something genuinely useful it’d be a different story, but this is a crappy price comparison app. C’mon, Microsoft. The fear, noted by Thurrott, is that third-party developers could be given access to this and the OS would be overrun with similar garbage.

A particularly dire scenario could see Microsoft could charge extra for an ad-free version of Windows — a similar move to what YouTube did with YouTube Red, and Amazon does with Kindle devices.

[Thanks Jeb!]

Via: Thurrott

Source: Myce, Chrome Web Store