The official "Bing Wallpaper app" does some nasty, malware-like things to Windows

WTF?! Microsoft recently released the Bing Wallpaper app on the Windows Store, offering users a new, official way to change your desktop wallpaper on a daily basis. The app includes a collection of images from around the world that have been featured on the Bing homepage, but it apparently also brings a series of very questionable hidden perks after being installed on a Windows PC.

Some third-party software companies behave like true malware sellers, packing their products with really questionable functionality and hidden payloads. When Microsoft shows the same behavior, however, Windows users tend to react swiftly and in an extremely negative way.

According to Windows dev and "reverse engineer by night" Rafael Rivera, Bing Wallpaper is an absolute nightmare for the user's security and privacy. The app automatically installs Bing Visual Search and includes code to decrypt cookies saved in other browsers, Rivera said, and it also brings ...