Posted on Tuesday, October 20 2020 @ 13:15 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Yesterday there was public outcry about
Microsoft installing Office web apps on Windows 10 PCs without even asking permission. After getting called out on this by various media outlet, Microsoft now conveniently claims this was a bug. The software giant says it has paused this rollout.
Originally, Microsoft tells The Verge, the idea was that any website you pinned to the Start Menu would launch in Microsoft Edge, and it simply intended to turn those shortcuts into more visible tiles now. But — in what Microsoft is calling a bug — the change also turned its existing Microsoft Office web shortcuts into PWA web apps as well. That’s something you can normally do from inside the Edge browser, but not something that would happen by itself.
However, as the
The Verge points out, Microsoft did not address all points of concern like why it's giving itself free premium advertising space, why these apps open exclusively in Edge, and why Microsoft gives itself the right to force a reboot to install unwanted apps.
