Bing Is Now Your Default Search Engine On IE6, Whether You Like It Or Not

For years, Microsoft has tried to shrug off its reputation as a monopolistic tyrant. Today comes news that seems to undermine those efforts pretty badly. The Next Web reports that users of Internet Explorer 6 are being forced to use Bing as their default search engine — even if they've manually switched their preference to another search provider, like Google. Attempts to switch the browser to something other than Bing result in an error message. Now, let's set aside the fact that IE6 is a scourge on the web that opens users up to a wide array of critical security issues and forces developers to implement ugly hacks because the browser doesn't support many web standards. The fact of the matter is that a sizable number of users are still using IE6 (over 5% of TechCrunch readers still use it, and the global marketshare is closer to 20%). We're talking millions of users who are potentially affected by this issue.