Microsoft's Bing Wallpaper App Hijacks Desktop Clicks to Promote Bing.com

Microsoft's popular wallpaper application, Bing Wallpaper, has now been transformed into adware, according to a new report by Windows Latest. When a user clicks on an empty area of the desktop—not on any icon or menu—the application redirects them to Bing.com, Microsoft's search engine. Normally, this behavior would not be acceptable and would likely trigger a strong reaction from the community. However, Microsoft has limited this issue to occur only once every 24 hours. Repeated clicks after the initial activation do not open another browser window. Testing has confirmed that this behavior persists after the waiting period, even when Google Chrome is set as the default browser.

Interestingly, Microsoft tested a similar feature in 2025, which included a clearly labeled setting in Bing Wallpaper that allowed a desktop click to open Bing. At that time, the feature could be turned off, but this option is not available in the latest version of the application. Microsoft has removed the ability to disable this feature, meaning that every 24 hours, a desktop click will redirect to Bing.com. This change leaves users with less control over an action that is unrelated to managing wallpaper. The application has also reportedly displayed prompts encouraging users to make Bing their default search engine across installed browsers, even when the default browser is Google Chrome or another non-Microsoft browser. Read full story