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Just now? When you search for Firefox or Chrome on Bing (the default search engine on Edge), the first result in large font and contrasting background is "Micro

by 013a 6y ago

Just now? When you search for Firefox or Chrome on Bing (the default search engine on Edge), the first result in large font and contrasting background is "Microsoft Recommends You Keep Using This Browser" (referring to Edge). When you visit the Settings to change your default browser to something else, Edge has the line "Recommended for Windows 10" below it in bright letters, and switching it to anything but Edge pops open a confirmation window that reads "Before You Switch: Try Microsoft Edge" with the primary action being to do that, and the actual switch option below it in small gray lettering. OS updates spontaneously reset your default browser back to Edge, and every once in a while the OS will decide to send you a notification helpfully reminding you that Edge just got an update (it didn't) and you should check it out. This is unrelated to Edge, but among the most despicable things I've seen Microsoft do was to promote their "Your Phone" app by popping up a notification that reads "You Got A Message". I didn't just get a message, and there's no way they could know that because I hadn't even installed their crap on my phone! Its like they're just pretending its all connected and displaying message notifications on your PC to get people to click it, then go through the setup. Microsoft is a big company, with many divisions that are doing really great work. Their Windows division is so unimaginably the opposite of this, and has been for near a decade, that I'm beginning to think their push toward services and the cloud is only to hedge against this division, like leadership knows left to their own devices they'll crash into the ground and take Microsoft with them and no one can stop it.

gigel82 6y ago
I never had Windows Update switch the default browser (nor change any other setting for that matter), but otherwise agree with you. The "Your Phone" app is truly idiotic; you can't uninstall it from the regular place (you need a PowerShell script to get rid of it) and it otherwise takes up ~2Mb of RAM all the time for absolutely no reason (I don't even have an Android phone to use it) - there are a couple of other unremovable apps, but at least they don't start at boot and use resources for no reason.
nimbius 6y ago
>Microsoft is a big company, with many divisions that are doing really great work. Are they really though? Github is slowly becoming less and less endearing with export regulations ICE contracts and lock-ins like github client. Minecraft was a confusing four-billion dollar purchase that left people scratching their heads in 2014. analysts said it would help get newer younger users into Microsoft products, but youtube and google trend data since 2015 shows interest had peaked by the time Redmond bought it. They tried shoehorning it into code camps for whatever that was worth. They bought Linkedin, a sterile wasteland of spearphishing and recruiter spam that (surprise) is export restricted as well. Azure and office365 target the same locked in old-news customers: corporate and mega corporate IT shops that deploy COTS and do whatever their rep tells them to do when its time to pay the piper for the OS and server licenses. Neither of these services can seem to stay online for more than a few months at a time before a crippling outage. and now they fold the edge browser into their competitors engine and flog it mercilessly like the '91 browser wars never ended. hardly "great work" from the company thats desperately trying to clean up Ballmers spiraling mess of myopic war drumming against the OS that clearly and definitively won. I guess you could say "Xbox" is doing "great work." the console is fun, the games are fun, and the division in charge seems to genuinely care about and do things the customers want.
Debug_Overload 6y ago
> OS updates spontaneously reset your default browser back to Edge I've never seen this happen, and I have Chrome as default. I noticed the other issues you point out, but this never happened to me the years I've been dual-booting with Windows 10.
- beagle3 6y ago
  I suspect they are A/B testing it. A relative’s computer I help maintain did not replace Firefox as a default, but it did replace a PDF reader default (SumatraPDF iirc) with Edge, and on the next PDF double click - when Edge opened - it did a bunch of other things like logging in to Microsoft.
userbinator 6y ago
Their Windows division is so unimaginably the opposite of this, and has been for near a decade I think there's still lots of great low-level developers there working on things like the kernel, but it's mainly the UI/UX people who give the whole division a bad reputation.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Microsoft the spam engine. Lovely.
panarky 6y ago
After I apply Windows security patches and reboot, the machine starts Edge automatically, full-screen, and doesn't allow me to close it. I have to kill the process in Task Manager. How many ordinary users know how to do this? This has happened multiple times on multiple machines. People say if you don't pay for the product, you are the product. Well I paid for Windows, and still get this user-hostile treatment. It's fucking outrageous. How can anyone complain about Google's monopoly while Microsoft gets away with shit like this?

by 013a 6y ago

gigel82 6y ago

I never had Windows Update switch the default browser (nor change any other setting for that matter), but otherwise agree with you. The "Your Phone" app is truly idiotic; you can't uninstall it from the regular place (you need a PowerShell script to get rid of it) and it otherwise takes up ~2Mb of RAM all the time for absolutely no reason (I don't even have an Android phone to use it) - there are a couple of other unremovable apps, but at least they don't start at boot and use resources for no reason.

nimbius 6y ago

>Microsoft is a big company, with many divisions that are doing really great work. Are they really though? Github is slowly becoming less and less endearing with export regulations ICE contracts and lock-ins like github client. Minecraft was a confusing four-billion dollar purchase that left people scratching their heads in 2014. analysts said it would help get newer younger users into Microsoft products, but youtube and google trend data since 2015 shows interest had peaked by the time Redmond bought it. They tried shoehorning it into code camps for whatever that was worth. They bought Linkedin, a sterile wasteland of spearphishing and recruiter spam that (surprise) is export restricted as well. Azure and office365 target the same locked in old-news customers: corporate and mega corporate IT shops that deploy COTS and do whatever their rep tells them to do when its time to pay the piper for the OS and server licenses. Neither of these services can seem to stay online for more than a few months at a time before a crippling outage. and now they fold the edge browser into their competitors engine and flog it mercilessly like the '91 browser wars never ended. hardly "great work" from the company thats desperately trying to clean up Ballmers spiraling mess of myopic war drumming against the OS that clearly and definitively won. I guess you could say "Xbox" is doing "great work." the console is fun, the games are fun, and the division in charge seems to genuinely care about and do things the customers want.

Debug_Overload 6y ago

> OS updates spontaneously reset your default browser back to Edge I've never seen this happen, and I have Chrome as default. I noticed the other issues you point out, but this never happened to me the years I've been dual-booting with Windows 10.

beagle3 6y ago
I suspect they are A/B testing it. A relative’s computer I help maintain did not replace Firefox as a default, but it did replace a PDF reader default (SumatraPDF iirc) with Edge, and on the next PDF double click - when Edge opened - it did a bunch of other things like logging in to Microsoft.

userbinator 6y ago

Their Windows division is so unimaginably the opposite of this, and has been for near a decade I think there's still lots of great low-level developers there working on things like the kernel, but it's mainly the UI/UX people who give the whole division a bad reputation.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Microsoft the spam engine. Lovely.

panarky 6y ago

After I apply Windows security patches and reboot, the machine starts Edge automatically, full-screen, and doesn't allow me to close it. I have to kill the process in Task Manager. How many ordinary users know how to do this? This has happened multiple times on multiple machines. People say if you don't pay for the product, you are the product. Well I paid for Windows, and still get this user-hostile treatment. It's fucking outrageous. How can anyone complain about Google's monopoly while Microsoft gets away with shit like this?