Microsoft Edge sets Yandex as default search engine in Moldova

[AdrenalinMd]

Microsoft signed a deal in 2015 to set Yandex as the default search engine in several countries close to Russia. The article mentions "Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Ukraine". The list is not exhaustive, as I know about Moldova and Georgia. https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-partners-russias-ya...

The list includes Ukraine! I've tested Edge with Ukraine as a Region on my MacOS, and it no longer appears to set it to Yandex.

But it still does for several other countries. Which includes Moldova. Moldova is a country that Russia has repeatedly threatened. While advanced users may try and remove Yandex as default, non-tech savvy users likely leave the defaults.

Meaning Microsoft Edge shares data with Russia by setting Yandex as a default search engine for their users, which is really bad.

Please upvote this story to give it visibility. Many thanks!

[jaynetics]

Thank goodness edge's market share is very low in these countries. About 2% for Moldova [1].

For MSFT, this is a huge embarrassment, reminiscent of Google's infamous "project dragonfly".

And they deleted your inquiry on their forums for "violating the community guidelines"! Not exactly PR geniuses, are they?

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/moldova

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

And once you go to Yandex search page, it will spam you to death to install Yandex browser, which will automatically install Russian government CA certificates, allowing them to spy on all your web traffic!

[mabbo]

Incredibly damning of Microsoft if they were making deals after 2014 to help the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

That they would still be participating in this deal is even worse.

[caskstrength]

> The list includes Ukraine! I've tested Edge with Ukraine as a Region on my MacOS, and it no longer appears to set it to Yandex.

Yandex has been banned in Ukraine for some time now, so no point for MS to still have it as default search.

[smsm42]

I love it how Russians paid Microsoft to make Russian search engine default in Ukraine, without asking Ukrainians, and nobody in Microsoft thought there's anything wrong with that.

[elkos]

To my understanding, Yandex is nowadays based in the Netherlands.

[intsunny]

Given MSFT's troubled history with browsers, it is amazing how one product, one group, can continue to produce one PR black eye after another in the modern era.

Between integrating predatory BNPL, the microsoft-edge: overriding default browser nonsense, injecting ads on the Chrome site, and now this ... one has to wonder, is this all some joke?

Either Satya and friends are asleep at the broser wheel, or the whole subject is too annoying/toxic for them to address directly.

[lnsru]

I see often enough cyrillic street names in Google Maps or Street View in Germany using Windows in Germany with regional settings for one of former soviet “republics”. Tried to report it to Google but nobody cares despite russian language and cyrillic writings have nothing in common with my regional settings.

[SSLy]

As I said somewhere else on this site, don't expect people raised in pleasant SV to understand the complexities of modern world.

[litiholofan]

I use yandex over google/bing. Works well for western censored content - however it does have a clear disinfo bent for english language searches. I still prefer it over google simply because it returns results like google used to in 2010 or so lol. Give it a go, you'll see what I mean.

[slaw]

I use Yandex sometimes for the same reasons, it is like Google from 2010, image search still works and old personal websites are still indexed. Is Yandex still Russian company or is it detached from Russia like Jetbrains and Telegram?

[kspacewalk2]

>Works well for western censored content

Not sure if that's what you mean, but Yandex is great for piracy and otherwise illegal content.

[smsm42]

If you live in the west, FSB having all your data probably doesn't matter, they have more urgent issues that you. If you live next door to Russia and have Russian troops stationed in part of your county occupied by Russia-supported bandits, your calculus may be a bit different.

[zajio1am]

It definitely has much better image search than Google.

[randomname93857]

yandex and RT are the top of rus disinformation and anti-west/divisive content.