Microsoft accused of Malware-like Bing Wallpaper app

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.

Turns out, the app has a darker side.

Malware-like behavior

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

Here are his key findings:

The app installs Bing Visual Search automatically on the Windows 10 or 11 system.
Displays a prompt on first run that includes an option to make Microsoft Bing the default homepage and search engine in Edge, Firefox, and Chrome.
Includes code to “peruse and decrypt” Edge, Chrome, and Firefox cookies.
Has access to the geolocation web API.
Suggests to make Microsoft Edge the default browser.
Launches a tab in the default (non-Edge) browser that recommends enabling the Microsoft Bing Search extension for that browser.

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.

Better alternatives for Bing Wallpaper

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.

If you prefer non-Microsoft services, you have plenty of options as well. Here are a few suggestions:

Lively Wallpaper is a free app that supports static and animated wallpapers. You can display a video file or an animated GIF, or even a webpage if you want as the wallpaper.
Active Desktop Plus is a similar app that supports animated wallpapers among other things.
DynaWin is another free wallpaper app that can set the wallpaper based on the time of day or other events.
Space fans may want to check out SpaceEye. It is a free app that is specialized in satellite imagery.
Chameleon, last but not least, is another powerful app that can change the background of the desktop based on time or weather.

Closing Words

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.

What is your take on this? Would you install Bing Wallpaper? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Summary