Microsoft announced a new initiative Wednesday that will reward researchers for finding bugs in the latest version of Internet Explorer.  Microsoft will launch the beta incarnation of Internet Explorer 11 at June 26’s BUILD Developer conference, an event that will also see the launch of Windows 8.1. The new bounty program will begin the same day.

The announcement of the new program–dubbed “the Internet Explorer 11 Preview Bug Bounty,” will encourage computing experts and other researchers around the globe to work with the latest Microsoft web browser and report any vulnerabilities or inconsistencies they find. The reward? Each reported bug could be worth a bounty of anywhere between $500 and $11,000.

Rival companies like Google and Mozilla, both with major web browsers of their own, have set a precedent in the past of paying  independent computing experts for discovering unforeseen problems within their programs. But Microsoft has long claimed that such bug bounty programs are a waste of money. In 2011, the software giant introduced a contest encouraging researchers to work with their programs and develop security systems to deal with a large number of bugs and vulnerabilities at once. While the contest, called the “BlueHat Prize” was similar to bug bounty programs in execution, its scope dwarfed all other independent research contests, offering a titanic $250,000 prize to whoever could come up with a comprehensive solution for Windows weaknesses.

Now, Microsoft is evidently making a u-turn on previous claims concerning bug bounties, but that doesn’t mean the company is letting go of its old programs, either. The “BlueHat Prize” contest has been altered and extended, reducing the purse to $50,000, but offering ongoing opportunities for researchers to develop fresh security solutions for Windows entities. The grand prize, meanwhile, can be claimed within another new program called “Mitigation Bypass Bounty,” which will reward researchers for finding new ways around Window’s 8.1’s bulletproof defense system.

But while Microsoft seems to be eating their words with their new bug bounty program, they’re doing it in a way that will likely bring in big results right away. Where Google and Mozilla generally operate their own bug bounty offerings on an open-ended basis, Microsoft is limiting their program to the beta version of Internet Explorer 11, and because of the company’s desire to get the new browser out to the public as soon as possible, Microsoft will be putting a tight time limit on the program. The Preview Bug Bounty will only run until July 26, leading researchers, hackers, and other computer-fluent experts in a 30-day frenzy to find every bug and exploit every vulnerability left in Microsoft’s browser.