Microsoft released the official Bing Wallpaper application on the Microsoft Store this week. The app was available as a standalone download previously

Microsoft accused of Malware-like Bing Wallpaper app

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2024-11-21 17:30:08

Microsoft released the official Bing Wallpaper application on the Microsoft Store this week. The app was available as a standalone download previously only.

It is a basic app that changes the wallpaper of the Windows desktop to a new image each day and helps users find out more about the images. The store app, in fact, is a Win32 application.

Software engineer Rafael Rivera, known for apps like EarTrumpet, installed the Bing Wallpaper application and analyzed its behavior. He published his findings on X.

We verified some of the claims and they appear to be accurate. Rivera suggests to avoid the app at all costs, which is also our suggestion at the time.

There are plenty of apps and services out there that push a new wallpaper to the desktop regularly. Heck, Windows Spotlight is baked right into the operating system.

It is rather sad to see that Microsoft is implementing behaviors in some of its apps that is generally only found in malware apps. Microsoft Defender would probably flag Bing Wallpaper as a PUP, a potentially unwanted program, if it would not come from Microsoft.

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