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Why am I seeing this dialog?

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Internet Explorer 8 has a new feature that keeps you in control of your search engine default, by informing you when software attempts to change your settings.

If you are using Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 or RC1, you might have seen the following dialog when installing new software:

search provider default confirmation dialog. The dialog asks the user to confirm or decline a change to the default search provider.

The default search preference is the search engine Internet Explorer uses when you type a search query into the search box in the top-right corner of the main Internet Explorer window:

the IE search box

(Wikipedia is set as my default.)

Internet Explorer also use the default search preference when you type a question into the address bar – Try typing “How high is Mt Everest” into the address bar.

A lot of toolbars that plug into Internet Explorer modify the user’s search preference in their installer program. Some ask (by way of a checkbox in their install program) if they should change it.

Some don’t ask clearly, and change your setting without you noticing the change before it happens. We believe this is not a good thing – a program should never change a user’s setting without their unambiguous consent.

To counteract this, some applications or toolbars install a ‘search setting protector’ – a small program that monitors your search default preference, and switches it back automatically to their search engine if any other program ever changes the setting. A lot of users have multiple toolbars installed – and this creates a situation where toolbar installers, toolbars and ‘search setting protectors’ are all fighting over your search setting – If you, or another program, ever changes the setting, you will see a variety of prompts from various ‘search setting protectors’, warning you about the change.

All of the squabbling between programs means that you are not in complete control of your search preference – your setting.

Starting in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, any toolbar that wants to change the search setting default (by setting a registry key) will trigger a ‘user consent’ dialog, where the requested change is explained clearly, and you are asked to approve/not approve the change. So, no program can silently change your search setting without you knowing about it.

This change in Internet Explorer does not  break any existing toolbar installers or ‘search setting protector’ programs – they can still change the user’s search setting (by changing a registry key in the user’s registry) – but when Internet Explorer starts up, you will be informed of the change, and you can allow or decline the change.

There is also a new API for setting the search default. Any application can call this API, and request that the Internet Explorer Search Default be changed. A dialog box is shown (and the application requesting the change is clearly identified) and the user can allow/not allow the change.

If a ‘search setting protector’ program keeps asking you to change your default, you can clearly indicate your preference (and lock them out of changing your preference in the future) by checking the ‘Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider’ checkbox. You can still use the Manage Search Providers command in the search box dropdown to change your default search provider at any point – you should be able to set your search default to anything you want, without any programs interfering with it.

the search options dropdown box.

And Everest is 8,848 meters (29,029 FT) high, by the way.

Frank Olivier
Program Manager

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.clickandsolve.com/?p=16976

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    Finally! I hate it when my customized toolbar gets changed without my knowledge. It feels like a form of Spyware. This should be applied to all programs. Anytime registry gets changed or if my user experience gets modified.

  • Anonymous
    March 02, 2009
    Uh, it's better to hook registry access for all BHOs running inside IE and forbid it to change user settings. Why this technology wasn't applied to home page? I hate every single program which tries to change it.

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    Then don't use these programs. Any program that changes your homepage without asking you is malware.

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    Hopefully this will put an end to programs like CoolWebSearch changing search providers underhandedly.

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    @steppres - CoolWebSearch is spyware - get rid of it!

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    Why "a program" Why not name the culprit ?

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    I LOVE the search bar in IE8!!! It's one of my favorite features. I haven't seen that dialog but it might be because I don't use search toolbars (I don't find a need for them) but it's good to know there's options to stop installed programs from changing the default search engine in IE.

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    don't complicate the "search provider" thing ... just freeze the one who has 98% of share and the best in the word: google.com just a suggestion

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    I assume this technology is not implemented by a new registry key "TrueSearchProvider" besides to "SearchProvider" ...?

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    and so here comes the new generation of spyware, which poses themselves as "wikipedia search engine"...

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    Is there some sort of protection in there to prevent this feature from being overridden? In order to detect that the search provider has changed, the previous provider name is likely stored somewhere. Could a malicious app simply update both references so that IE doesn't notice the change or has Microsoft foreseen this and come up with a solution?

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    @Chris: Various technological protections are in place. Having said that, from a strict security point of view, if a truly malicious application is already installed on your computer, all sorts of malicious threats exist, search provider hijacking being among the least important of them.  

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2009
     Texte bitte übersetzen  englisch für mich nicht lesbar   JH

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 10, 2009
    I think it will be not clear enough for IE8 newbie. It should be more friendly.

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2009
    Today we’re excited to release the final build of Internet Explorer 8 in 25 languages. IE8 makes what

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2009
    @Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:26 PM by Anon Very good point. The live suite is a major culprit at this. "Some don’t ask clearly, and change your setting without you noticing the change before it happens. We believe this is not a good thing – a program should never change a user’s setting without their unambiguous consent." Please pass this info on to the Live/MSN team. Although I suspect they will just update their installer to change both the previous and new search provider in the registry such that IE doesn't detect the change. Meaning this feature will be pretty useless.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2009
    @Shane: Simply changing both the "previous" and "new" search provider in the registry will not work, as these settings are protected.  Software which attempts to circumvent search provider protection is considered malware and may be blocked by Windows Defender. @Rejesh cyriac: That sounds like a great suggestion for an IE Accelerator.  A thesaurus/dictionary site could easily offer such an accelerator.