If you are using Windows, isn't there an item in the Control Panel (or whatever they are calling it now) called something like Default Program Settings? They are probably all set to Chrome/Bing/Something else you don't want and all you have to do is reset them.
In defence of Bing, it is not and never has been my default search engine and probably never will be but I think it is bloody good at image and video searches. The filter options at the top of the page seem to resolve all sorts of searches that other search engines seem to struggle with.
It will list Bing, it will say Bing is the Default search engine.
"To change your default search engine in Edge:
Open Edge and tap the three-dot menu in the upper right corner and tap Settings.
Tap the three-line menu in the upper left and choose Privacy, search, and services.
Scroll down and tap Address bar and search under the Services section.
Open the drop-down menu next to Search engine used in address bar and choose your preferred search engine.
If you don’t see your search engine, click Manage search engines, then click Add to get the one you want. "
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Looks like this but:
[Picture]
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edge://settings/search <=== this gets you there faster
*******
Naturally, every other search hole on the computer, will use Bing. And many of your activities, will cause a connection to Vortex.
I have even seen web pages, where the article will disparage a certain company, then if you watch at the bottom of the screen, metadata for the session is being sent to the company being disparaged. Sweet comedy! Ouch my irony meter.
The HOSTS file cannot block all connections. If you were thinking you could "blind" Microsoft, stop the telemetry, think again. Using Process Monitor (now having packet tracing capability), I've seen blasts of Akamai activity, as if someone is using a CDN to cloak what they are doing. I could not associate the capture, with anything I was doing at the time.
You can hide some of the Windows search boxes.
But, without using a keylogger, a lot of the "holes" you type into, are recorded anyway. It's the Swiss cheese of OSes. Every hole, an opportunity.
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