8 ms·
Microsoft doing exactly the same thing they were, twenty plus years ago, with the IE vs Netscape browser wars. At least they're consistent about being hostile.
by walrus01 5y ago
Microsoft doing exactly the same thing they were, twenty plus years ago, with the IE vs Netscape browser wars. At least they're consistent about being hostile. And now, of course, their main competition is Chrome and Google.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=netscape+microsoft+lawsuit https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=netscap...
I would encourage anyone who doesn't use Windows 10 on a regular basis to take a look at what the 'defaults' are that Microsoft steers people towards on a brand new Win10 Home installation. Including the creation of a Microsoft account, bing, edge, all the telemetry turned on, etc. Just... Yuck.
- wpietri 5y agoMonopolies don't see themselves like a normal business, one that has to compete for customers by serving them well. Instead, their thinking is more like a cattle rancher: the users are their property, to pen and milk as they see fit.
- the_snooze 5y agoBetween hostile defaults, dark patterns in opting-out and unsubscribing, and persistent surveillance, a lot of consumer-facing tech these days is taking on what an obsessive abusive partner would do. I can't help but wonder if these systems are a reflection of who those designers are as people.
- basilgohar 5y agoThe psychopathy is not due to the developers nor the designers, but rather, the perverse incentives that bring profits to shareholders. You're looking too close at the end-result. It's the fact that it's legal to profit from these kind of behavior that is the real cause of all of this. But consumer protection online is all but absent, and the "strongest" effort so far, GDPR, was implemented so annoyingly and in your face that most folks' experience with it is a net negative, so future motions will be shot down more easily with wide praise.
- wpietri 5y agoNo. Many bad things are legal that most people don't do. People taking the actions and profiting from them deserve the blame. That includes developers and designers, plus plenty more people.
- _arvin 5y agoIt’s such scummy behavior. Do better, Microsoft
- tsol 5y agoTo be pragmatic to an excess-- where is their incentive to? I agree this is an issue, and more than that a pattern-- but they seem to be any to continue unimpeded. I imagine when they push initiatives like this at meetings, they consider the risk- reward metric of such decisions. In this case, I don't think they'll see much real risk except for some grumbling as we are now
- _arvin 5y agoJust eroded trust. Go ahead. Support that kind of behavior Choice over force
- pierrebai 5y agoYou mean rely and hope that whatever the user installed as the default browser will not mess-up help, documentation and other such links? I'm quite certain that all those non-standard URLs are all for internal links to OS-related information hosted on the web. If they instead just popped a custom app that hosted an Edge webview nobody would rip their shirts. Doing that would be ridiculous given that Edge is just there and has been tested and vetted by QA. Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales. You're asking MS to trust that any 3rd party app will give proper user experience for any locale when presenting such links. It's not as-if MS was hijacking normal URLs. But ripping shirts is soooo much fun.
- _jal 5y agoSo the claim is that if I make up a URL scheme, it should be untouchable by other developers and only my software should respond to it? > Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales. You are confusing Microsoft with their users. Microsoft needs that. No user does, and very few need more than one version and one locale. > But ripping shirts is soooo much fun. Right, there is no competitive aspect at all to see here, just hardworking monks trying to ensure the absolute best Windows experience with no other motives whatsoever.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoApple does the same, no?
- i_cannot_hack 5y agoI've never had any url open in Safari instead of the default browser on macOS.
- mastazi 5y agosee this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28748596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28748596
- bogwog 5y agoOh, well, in that case it’s okay.
- _joel 5y agoI'm not aware of any links that force open in Safari?
- walrus01 5y agoa recent macos installation fresh configuration does try to steer you towards using safari several times with popups and reminders.
- _joel 5y agoSteering and forcing are two different things
- _arvin 5y agoLol, yes, it is their flagship browser for all of their operating systems. I would sure hope that would be the default behavior or else I’d be getting a lot of phone calls from family members. Edit: mods quickly downvoting my comment. Okay. Will tell Paul Graham. Edit 2: every HN comment should lack any emotion or anything. Just robotic comments. Got it. Edit 3: Do better. Edit 4: HN bubble thinks they’re above everyone else. Have a good one.
- josefx 5y ago> Microsoft doing exactly the same thing they were, twenty plus years ago, They never stopped, one big reason why Firefox restricts what plugins users can install was Windows installing plugins that could not be removed or disabled.
- mywittyname 5y agoMcAfee seems to have found a way around this. I picked up a new laptop for my parents a few weeks ago and found that the pre-installed crapware injects plugins to every browser you install.
- josefx 5y agoAs far as I could find Mozilla is signing at least one plugin by McAfee, but that at least seems to request permission to run and can be disabled.
- mook 5y agoHmm, do you recall any details about those things? My impression was that the bad extensions mostly came from the antivirus vendors, but I may be missing something as I didn't daily drive Windows for a period, and I'm interested in the details. Thanks!
- josefx 5y agoThe case I recall was the integration of the .Net Framework Assistant. The initial version installed itself after a Windows update and couldn't be removed, later versions seem to have fixed that.
- mongol 5y agoI don't think they created microsoft-ie:// protocol links. In some ways, this feels worse.
- MiddleEndian 5y agoIt's not just Windows 10 Home. I have Windows 10 Pro. The other day after rebooting my laptop, I was prompted yet again with that setup page that tries to enable useless shit like Office 365 and change my default browser to Edge. Honestly not sure how this can be legal after they got busted for something relatively mundane like setting the default to IE in the past.
- neodymiumphish 5y agoLooking at past legislation/court rulings from the early days of the internet is pointless. They ruled that AOL had to allow other applications access to AOL IM, yet present day third party apps aren't given access to Apple's iMessages or Facebook Messenger.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> They ruled that AOL had to allow other applications access to AOL IM Citation?
- neodymiumphish 5y agoI tried to find it, but I can't. Years back I recall a case, I think involving an app like Trillian, where they sued and won on the basis that they should be allowed to handle AIM messaging with native or near-native API access. Sorry, wish I had a source, as now I'm unsure whether this is true or just something I'm mis-remembering.
- ffhhj 5y agoThe difference today is that dark patterns aren't monopolized.
- zmmmmm 5y agoIt's actually the main reason I despise Apple for how it locks down iOS : it's not that I care specifically about that, but it creates cover for this kind of thing. The bar has been raised across the board now for what is tolerated.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoI really wish they'd focus on just making be best HW/SW that they can and respecting the user. For awhile I was rooting for them, they seemed the least bad of the tech giants. I was hoping they'd strategically differentiate themselves from the antitrust FAAG pack (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google).
- phkahler 5y ago>> I really wish they'd focus on just making be best HW/SW that they can and respecting the user. They can't increase revenue any more without "monetizing" the OS and users at this point. It just doesnt take a trillion dollar company to maintain a decent OS and office suite. It never did.
- nitrogen 5y agoIt just doesnt take a trillion dollar company to maintain a decent OS and office suite. It never did. We'd all be so much better off if every trillion dollar company were replaced by 10,000 $100mil companies.
- Spivak 5y agoI find it hilarious that HN assumes that MS or any company should devote effort to supporting users who hate all their core products and only use Windows begrudgingly. Why even bother, if you could leave you already would have.
- siproprio 5y agoBecause they paid for it?
- snuser 5y agoThey are dangerously close and may be crossing the line with these moves mostly unavoidable bing integration, mostly unavoidable edge integration, unavoidable teams integration, bing rewards in the start menu I'd expect lawsuits to follow in the coming months and years if they don't take some steps back the marketshare they retain in the desktop space still places them in the classical monopoly position ( > 75%)
- concinds 5y agoEdge is messed up, in that you cannot change the default search engine. It only changes the search engine for the URL bar, not for the new tab page (which is likely used just as much). I'm not aware of any other browser that does this. It's so cartoonish that I couldn't believe it when I found out.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mdavidn 5y agoYou can configure the start page to use the address bar for search. That takes the cake for the most-obfuscated-default-search-setting, but at least the start page will send queries to DDG.
- manderley 5y agoAnd then Edge will pop up the "suggestion" to change the search engine back to Bing with regularity.
- gsich 5y agoWell, seeing that Google and Apple do the same on their OS they might even get through with it.
- gsich 5y agoWell, seeing that Google and Apple do the same on their OS they might even get through with it. iOS doesn't even allow alternative browser backends, so the bar is not even reached for MS.
- kelnos 5y agoIt's really sad how quickly we all forget. I know people who are a bit younger than I am, and came onto the internet in the 00s, after the height of MS's anti-competitive behavior in the 80s and 90s. I occasionally will talk about how I can never trust MS again, but they're a lot more forgiving, and believe that MS has changed, especially after Gates and Ballmer stepped down and Nadella took the reins. I remember a couple years ago when I bought a new laptop (with Windows 10 on it). I just wanted to get into Windows far enough so I could download a Debian installer and write it to a USB stick, and I was appalled at Windows' first-run setup experience, and the personal information it wanted me to give them, as well as the sheer volume of telemetry, ads, and other spyware I had to explicitly opt out of. And even then, MS was still pushing Edge and Cortana in my face all over the place. My last serious use of Windows was Windows 2000, and man, things have gone super downhill since then. I'm bummed that I was right to continue to not trust MS, but... well, there we have it.
- JohnFen 5y ago> especially after Gates and Ballmer stepped down and Nadella took the reins Which is strange, because Nadella's Microsoft is no better than Gates' or Ballmer's.
- gman83 5y agoThey're way better at PR. The Gates and Ballmer Microsoft sort of adopted the Slashdot evil Borg image, whereas Nadella has managed to somehow make Microsoft seem soft and fuzzy to the people that used to despise them. Even though their behavior hasn't really changed. It's quite incredible.