4 ms·

They're not really "protections", to be fair.

• notRobot 5y ago
  Exactly. They're not protections. They're strategies to make it harder for non-super-users to change their default browser. As technical people, it's easy to underestimate just how well these tactics that introduce friction work at making "regular" folks shurg and say "meh, okay, whatever -- sure, I'll use Edge" just because they don't want to repeatedly have to figure out how to change their default browser.
• sebazzz 5y ago
  They are. Default file associations are protected in Windows 10 [0][1]. The default browser is in essence also an file association. [0]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96175 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96... [1]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190724-00/?p=102730 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190724-00/?p=10...
  • dralley 5y ago
    They are not. This is not some generic "are you sure" prompt, it is specifically coded to nag users to use Edge instead. https://www.itsupportguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Windows10-ChangeBrowser.gif https://www.itsupportguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Windows10...
  • approxim8ion 5y ago
    It's one thing to push "protections" on your users because you think you know better and they can't navigate their way around their devices without ruining them. That's the Apple way. But what Microsoft has done here is push their own product in the name of protection. That's much more malicious. To argue whether it is a protection because they call it one is semantics.
  • CRConrad 5y ago
    Get back to us with that when it's less of an utterly transparent lie. When, for instance, switching your default handler for .txt files leads you through three dialogs that ever more insistently extol the virtues of MS Notepad for this purpose.