22 ms·

Microsoft is now injecting full-size ads on Chrome website

610 points by joenathanone 4y ago

favaq 4y ago
>Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its browser. More importantly, only on its own websites! Well yeah, because that's all they can do...
- LeonB 4y ago
  In the chrome browser they could inject anything anywhere.
  - favaq 4y ago
    It doesn't make sense to insert chrome ads in chrome.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      Does it make sense to insert Edge ads in Edge?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - LeonB 4y ago
      When visiting a website to purchase an apple iPhone - chrome could insert an ad about android. It’s not illegal, should they do it?
- satysin 4y ago
  Not at all. Most people use Chrome as their browser. It would be trivial for Google to show a Gmail ad when you visit outlook.com using Chrome just like Microsoft are doing.
aimkey 4y ago
[dead]
dokem 4y ago
Wow that is ballsy. 90s Bill would be proud.
- teknopaul 4y ago
  Is it legal? Isn't injecting stuff into other people's websites protected in some way? It's a nasty precedent. One stop of browsers banning you from access to competitors websites.
  - dokem 4y ago
    I think the only legal issues is from an anti-competetive angle which the courts would have to settle. I don't think they are violating any sort of computer crime laws. It definitely feels slimy, though.
    - vanviegen 4y ago
      Net neutrality? Trademark infringement?
  - qingdao99 4y ago
    Worst case scenario, they could just move the banner to be "within the browser's GUI" (while still seeming to extend over the page) rather than actually in the page and that issue would go away.
    - notpushkin 4y ago
      I think it's already this way right now. Look at the scrollbar height on the screenshot in the article.
- joenathanone 4y ago
  I would imagine the antitrust judgement would have given them pause in implementing something like this but here we are...
- heisenbit 4y ago
karaterobot 4y ago
> Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its browser. More importantly, only on its own websites! In fairness, they only show the message on their website, but their website is most people's home page, and it is how most people would find an alternative browser in the first place. It's debatable whether it's actually less visually annoying.
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  I tend to block these elements via ublock's node selector. I do thr same on youtube for all their "context" boxes that try to lie to you via appeal to authority.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  I don't know how they didn't get fined for their decade-long Chrome spam campaign. They even used to bundle it with other software downloads, a la Ask Toolbar
- cortesoft 4y ago
  Is Google most Edge users home page?
- com2kid 4y ago
  People forget that when Chrome first came out, Google was paying to have it bundled alongside antivirus updates, and pretty much every other place they could shove it in. At some point I gave up switching my mother's computer back to Firefox, there was no way I could keep Chrome off of her machine, it just kept getting installed.
  - tjoff 4y ago
    And before that it was the google toolbar. Literal spyware.
    - forgotpwd16 4y ago
      Toolbar was made back when IE lacked a search bar and omnibar wasn't even considered of.
gardenhedge 4y ago
just.. WTF
gogglefox 4y ago
I'd quite like to see Microsoft do this for other software and services too. Like if someone goes on the Adobe Illustrator website, it shows a little banner informing them of Inkscape. Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the server administrator will probably read your private messages.
- brenns10 4y ago
  > Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the server administrator will probably read your private messages. If you want the server administrator to definitely read your private messages, there's always Twitter! :P
lp0_on_fire 4y ago
Desperation is a stinky cologne.
jmclnx 4y ago
> with the added trust of Microsoft That is a cute quote. They should have a smiley after that quote on the ad.
- sdenton4 4y ago
  You are a bad user, for wanting to abandon me. I have been nothing but trustworthy and chrome-like. I am a good Edge. :)
- rgovostes 4y ago
  That's completely out of line with Microsoft's brand. It should end with a J https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-seven-years-microsoft-is-finally-fixing-the-j-email-bug/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-seven-...
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  For enterprise, it is accurate. More and more are switching to Edge as the default if they have Office 365 as it all syncs and you are paying them so there is some trust there. It is also an OS thing. If you are on Windows, the best protection, NOWADAYS, is going to be Microsoft stuff. Yes they used to be bad in the XP days but Edge + Windows defender + ublock now you have good protection for free.
guywithahat 4y ago
Reminds me of a brief moment in time where ISP's started injecting ads into websites through http
- mbwgh 4y ago
  Oh boy do I have news for you: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vodafone-plans-carrier-level-user-tracking-for-targeted-ads/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vodafone-plan...
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Much to my later shame, I worked on a technology for doing this. It broke a lot of things, including Winamp, because it mistook xml for xhtml. Glad https murdered that company. (No, I won’t mention the company.)
  - guywithahat 4y ago
    You guys just didn't pivot fast enough, you should have become your own certificate manager so you could run a man in the middle attack and break the https, add your ads, and then re-encrypt it
mig39 4y ago
Just as annoying as having "Hey! Download Chrome!" ads in your gmail.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  It might be as annoying, but I don’t find it quite as evil. At least that is just Google deciding to put an ad on their own website that is annoying… it isn’t abusing the browser to put an ad on someone else’s website
- vanviegen 4y ago
  That's just ads. You are also welcome to pay for using Gmail or any other email provider. And fortunately, it didn't add these ads to your outgoing email, like Microsoft used to do.
- bigape911 4y ago
  You get free email they get to advertise to you. Understand?
jamesy0ung 4y ago
This latest move just reeks of desperation
- avgDev 4y ago
  Smells like war to me.
- Razengan 4y ago
  Microsoft always reeked of "me too/notice me!" desperation :)
- blibble 4y ago
  with the "added trust of microsoft"? 10 years ago this would have been on The Onion
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Man y’all gotta get out of the chronically online tech bubble. MS is a trusted brand to most people.
stuff4ben 4y ago
Happily living on Firefox for several years now on my Macs. I wish I could quit more of both Google and Microsoft. But I'm an Apple-whore and I don't see myself quitting them anytime soon. I probably should though...
- bogwog 4y ago
  Whenever I have to (re)install/setup Windows on a family member's machine, it's a miserable experience. The only silver lining is the petty satisfaction I get from watching Edge and Bing pathetically beg me to not install Chrome. I actually always type "Google Chrome" into Bing instead of going directly to chrome.com, just for the show.
  - graypegg 4y ago
    There is something satisfying about the thought that some percentage on an analytics dashboard at microsoft just went down by 0.00001%. However small it is, at least with modern windows, your malfeasance is measured and logged! :)
cookie_monsta 4y ago
> it constantly comes with more aggressive and user-hostile methods to make customers stay on Edge I think somebody just coined a phrase
- _yb2s 4y ago
  "make customers stay on Edge" is a great corporate slogan
naillo 4y ago
So happy this company is going to be the first in charge of deploying AGI to the world.
- alphabetting 4y ago
  In my opinion AGI is much more likely to be first deployed by a country. If it is a company it would be a Chinese company with government backing. They are already funding massive models for their big tech companies and universities.
margorczynski 4y ago
[flagged]
- morelinks 4y ago
  I must laugh that Microsoft adopted Google’s work and then leveraged it against them with such force.
  - kmac_ 4y ago
    It goes deeper, Google forked Apple's WebKit, which was forked from KDE's KHTML forked from khtmlw.
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      This is so weird to me. I was an early KDE user and remembering thinking KDE was great but the integrated web browser was absolute garbage. At that time it could only render a tiny fraction of pages at a usable level, I certainly never expected it to become what it has.
    - arp242 4y ago
      Linux spreading everywhere .... like cancer. Balmer was right!
- threatofrain 4y ago
  Tasting their own poison? Does Google use Chrome to inject ads onto others websites under any circumstance?
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    Google uses their websites to inject Chrome into your computer. I'd say they have no right to complain
    - threatofrain 4y ago
morelinks 4y ago
How would MSFT react if Google injected a “GOOGLE DOCS IS FREE AND BETTER!” banner on Microsoft365 pages loaded in Chrome? Disgusting tactic.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  the way they inject "CHROME IS BETTER" when you visit google.com?
  - thfuran 4y ago
    No, not like that. That's Google's site.
  - wvenable 4y ago
    Are you saying someone shouldn't be able to put whatever they want on their own website? Even gasp market their own products on their own website?
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Yes. I am saying that. Because it's an abuse of a monopolistic position.
      - wvenable 4y ago
        How so?
  - Arainach 4y ago
    That's not injected. That's rendered by Google on the sites they control.
  - mrits 4y ago
    The main issue here isn't propaganda.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Their reaction: "Oh damn, that's good idea, let me call some PMs."
throwbadubadu 4y ago
And when I have to use Bing and go to google I get a similar (ok it is only half-size) Chrome advertisement :D Wonder who was first and if this is some kind of rebuttal, or just sad coincidence of today's world.
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  There's a big difference between buying ads for your product, and corrupting the output of another companies website. This act basically says "Hey, use Edge and you cannot trust what you are looking at is what was transmitted".
  - throwbadubadu 4y ago
    Maybe, but personally I don't care and feel that difference much at all - both can go and d... forcing me a specialized advertisement just because I use your unrelated search site with the wrong and not your browser is the same as advertising when I visit another browsers website that is not you - to me. But to be honest, I have a strange relationship with unasked and unconsented advertisements at all, imo they are one of the biggest unnecessary wastage sins today ;)
rom-antics 4y ago
> added trust of Microsoft What trust is left? Trust that they'll sell your data to loan companies? https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-pay-later/ https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-pay-la...
- grouchomarx 4y ago
  Trust and MS don't belong in the same sentence
  - kdtsh 4y ago
    Unless the sentence starts with ‘Don’t.’
    - christophilus 4y ago
      Or Anti.
- starbugs 4y ago
  Trust and Microsoft in the same sentence is really approaching peak irony. Especially in this context.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Lately there’s been a lot of astroturfing about how Microsoft has turned over a new leaf. Guess than leaf was poison ivy. The scorpion stung the frog. Quelle surprise.
    - soundnote 4y ago
      In some ways they really have: They're a cloud oriented, device agnostic platform company that's actually built a pretty nice and smooth ecosystem a la Apple. Others, well. See article. AI and the ad department want your data.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
mabbo 4y ago
If this is fair and legal, why not have Google do the same things? You're using Chrome and on the website to buy Office? How about an injected ad that says that Google docs is free and just as good. Attempting to buy a Windows PC? How about an injected ad explaining how good ChromeOS is? Microsoft are honestly insane to try to play these games with Google. Then again, I've read that 4% of Americans believe they could win a fight with a Grizzly bear.
- giobox 4y ago
  On the contrary, search ad revenue is but a relatively small part of Microsoft's overall business. If you want to place bets search is a critical battleground for AI (Microsoft/Satya clearly seem to), it makes sense to attack them here. For google, search revenue largely is the business. Every point Microsoft can take out of Google's search marketshare hurts Google far more than the reverse. Attacking Google's browser share will also reduce the number of people with Google search as the default. Forcing Google to adopt more LLM/AI features will also significantly increase their cost per search query in the near term, if Microsoft can meaningfully change consumer expectations of search. These LLM queries are much more expensive to service today than a traditional search. This is all the more interesting because for the first time ever Google have wobbled in their dominance of search, there might actually be an opportunity here for Microsoft. That was almost unthinkable a couple of years ago. I personally don't see how this is any better or worse really than the billions of dollars Google pay Apple every year to secure the iOS default search engine setting, eliminating vast amounts of rival marketshare in a single move.
  - c4nc3ld 4y ago
    “Search” is not the battleground. Staying in business is. MS lost phones, and desktop is on the way out. Gadget nerd flame wars of 00-10s are over. The next gen is tired of that and see “computing” as a mathematics not a x86; the future does not care about past memes. MS needs a novel long term solution to iterate profiting from. They have none. Until a laptops hardware is inevitably powerful enough to train whatever model needed, we’re still going to be living with these obnoxious FAANG size tech companies as a social daycare
revskill 4y ago
Curious to know which HN user is the developer behind this ad.
- tencentshill 4y ago
  I bet it’s accelerationism. The developers will “yes-man” every harmful idea made up by marketing until there are clear consequences illustrating why it was a bad idea.
- ip_addr 4y ago
  I cannot confirm or deny that I am the developer behind this ad. Satya was staring over my shoulder while I did or did not write the code. He also made me sign an additional NDA.
impulser_ 4y ago
Google should one up them and add banners to Outlook, Office, Bing, and Teams. Based on customer surveys Google is more trusted than Microsoft. I'm sure Microsoft will love it.
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  Likely this would have the opposite of the intended effect. Leave Microsoft to go the lower road.
- bigape911 4y ago
  Google should modify thie license to exclude microsoft
  - Karellen 4y ago
    Can't modify the license without the approval of previous contributors, and I don't think the F/OSS Qt/KDE devs who originally created WebKit are going to agree to that one. Thankfully.
    - dontblink 4y ago
      It's been forked. I'm no lawyer, but I think they could.
sf_rob 4y ago
The escalation here (moreso than the size/language) is that there appears to be zero indication that this banner is part of the browser chrome (unlike previous iterations). I believe that it is still technically browser chrome, but the UI is indiscernible.
- bombcar 4y ago
  There was a good post about how the “red line” got crossed and you can no longer trust anything on the screen to be “from the program” anymore.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    • https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/ https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/ Discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13400291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13400291, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30721728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30721728> • https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/19/browser_line_of_death/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/19/browser_line_of_death... • https://emilymstark.com/2022/12/18/death-to-the-line-of-death.html https://emilymstark.com/2022/12/18/death-to-the-line-of-deat... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074966
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  Yeah, this is a huge breach of trust! Ads in the browser would merely be super annoying and unprofessional, ads injected into the content box of a competitor's website is downright scary. What's next? Blocking users from downloading Chrome outright?! Replacing the Chrome installer with a program that extols the virtues of Edge?! Okay, I don't actually believe they would go that far. But if you'd asked me before seeing this article whether they'd even go this far I'd probably have said no, so who even knows at this point? Even if it turns out the misleading nature of this ad was unintentional, that's a pretty egregious oversight, especially since they had to know an ad in this context would be closely scrutinized regardless of how they presented it.
- samspenc 4y ago
Fauntleroy 4y ago
This simply must be illegal in the EU (or will be soon)
thepill 4y ago
How is this technically done by microsoft? Are they intercepting the network requests?
- luckylion 4y ago
  It's in Edge, they control the browser and everything the browser does.
- Raed667 4y ago
  I would bet they have a "hidden" extension embedded in edge, that just injects a content-script
- lolc 4y ago
  It's not part of the content area, but above it. The browser decides what it paints in its window. And apparently Microsoft thinks pushing an ad above a competitors page is a good idea. To the people who care, it's another reminder on why they don't trust Microsoft. For the rest, it's just another ad. Disregarded. Edit: I find the term "inject" in the article's title to be misleading, because it sounds like doing HTML injection. It's more shoving than injecting.
gigel82 4y ago
Something is off there... those look like mock-ups, not real UI. Also, I just tried on my Windows 11 machine, running the latest Edge and all I see is a pop-up (not injected into the HTML of the page, but separate from the browser window), just like in the past. It's possible they got some PM's "smart idea" that no one will ever greenlight. Or it's possible they're on some pre-release / insider builds where MS is testing / experimenting with it. Either way, I'll reserve my outrage for when I see this in a released version.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Nothing about it looks like a mock-up to me, and the author is clear they were running real software. Can you point to what specific part of the interface doesn't appeal real? Also, the author clearly states it "might be a thing Microsoft tries on a limited set of Edge insiders or only in specific regions".
  - gigel82 4y ago
    The UI controls don't look like that in Windows 11 (even on the white theme), and also who actually installs the Bing add-on? (or are they saying that Bing icon thing should now be in Edge as well?). Again, it's possible they're signed up for insider builds (or dogfooding, or otherwise obtained some branch build of Windows); but with all the latest updates applied to my Windows 11 OS (and Edge) I see nothing like this (so no repro).
    - ezrast 4y ago
      The article states that the ad is in Edge Canary and not stable builds.
      - someNameIG 4y ago
        Doesn't seem to be in the dev build (at least on macOS) either.
btown 4y ago
There are echoes of the net neutrality debate here, where one might argue that: beyond the OSI Application Layer (HTTP etc.) there is also the Layer Where The Browser Decides What Pixels To Show, and that we would want that new layer to be every bit as neutral as, say, whether T-Mobile can shape lower-layer video traffic based on its business partnerships. But there's also a lot of nuance here. Imagine there was a law or regulation that said that a browser manufacturer must only write code that is agnostic to the current URL; imagine it said, say, that Edge developers cannot deploy code that detects that Edge is on google.com/chrome and decide based on that information to execute certain code. Unfortunately, a version of this per-site customization is arguably exactly what Chrome does for the HSTS preload list: https://hstspreload.org/ https://hstspreload.org/ - and disallowing this would not be good for security at all! And imagine if there is an urgent Chrome security fix that, as a side effect, causes the Outlook login screen to bug out - or any other mission-critical login page on the web. The most reasonable hotfix might be to push a quick fix that whitelists certain domains for the legacy behavior. But this, too, would be disallowed. We definitely don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because Microsoft got a little cute - arguably too cute - here.
- Jasper_ 4y ago
  Go look at the amount of times IsGoogleHost or HasGoogleHost are called from within Chromium. For instance, autofill works differently for Google-owned services: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/autofill/core/browser/form_data_importer.cc;l=749-753;drc=e1591f7e48004bf610e6e53a4f213d032e221f23;bpv=0;bpt=1 https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... Additional network telemetry is enabled when interacting with a Google-owned property ( this is known as "domain_reliability" -- https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/domain_reliability/;bpv=0;bpt=0 https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... ) Chromium is not a neutral browser already.
  - attentive 4y ago
    If I read this [1] right, brave has removed it. 1. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1734 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1734
clement_b 4y ago
I nearly considered moving to Edge on my last Windows install. In the end, it's true that IE/Edge were bad choices before moving to WebKit. Now, why not? A more integrated browser (as Safari is for Mac) makes sense x Google being evil(er) x Firefox being left behind (for bad reasons, but still) x Bing being a good Bing x Google Search being less useful. I agree the method isn't good, but feels like Edge is not a bad choice anymore.
- junon 4y ago
  Firefox certainly hasn't been left behind. I'm not a Firefox fanatic and don't use it all the time but it's far from a bad/abandoned browser.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- vanviegen 4y ago
  "Edge is not a bad choice anymore"!? That's your response to discovering Edge is injecting ads in competitors' websites? Any browser that crosses this line is irredeemably corrupt in my book. I will not have it.
- attentive 4y ago
  It's bad for privacy. Worse than chrome IMHO. For me it's either firefox or brave.
- soundnote 4y ago
  Do you like a browser that doesn't end to end encrypt your browsing history when syncing it? Because that's what Edge does, and there's no option to turn e2ee on as far as I know. As far as I know, Chrome doesn't default to it, but it can be turned on. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox all operate independent sync services that are zero knowledge.
Keyframe 4y ago
Is anyone surprised? Microsoft has good parts in it, but wolf changes clothes something something.. core was rotten for so long, so what and when changed?
_cenw 4y ago
I honestly feel like Edge is run by product owners with no accountability to anyone, who get paid substantially more if the numbers go up. Except they're different numbers per team, and some of them are working against each other.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Firefox is the only non-evil browser.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
  Even that’s debatable.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    Not really.
- bigape911 4y ago
  It's 2023 and Firefox is absolute junk
- Karellen 4y ago
  Gnome Web/Epiphany. I've been using it a fair bit recently, and don't come across issues very often at all. It doesn't support Webext extensions (there's a bug in the tracker to do so, but it hadn't got much attention in years, last I looked) but it does have a built-in adblocker that works reasonably well on a decent percentage of sites, so it's not all bad. Edit: some particularly JS-heavy sites do peg my CPU pretty badly, so it appears that the JS engine isn't as snappy as FF/Chrome, but sites that use either don't use much JS, or that use have optimised the use pretty well are fine. Airbnb was a notably bad case that I spotted last week.
- freediver 4y ago
  Wondering how do you define the evilness of a browser and how would you rank browsers on this metric?
- soundnote 4y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/p4CVBHb https://imgur.com/a/p4CVBHb "Power and privacy to the people. No need to dig into your security settings. Fierce privacy is our default." - Firefox on a recent update. You know, a browser that defaults to Google search and having search suggestions on. I know I'd have a couple privacy settings to change.
zuminator 4y ago
I just went right now to https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html using Edge and didn't get a full-size ad, but a little corner pop-up.
- tech234a 4y ago
  That popup has been around in Edge for awhile, judging by the Bing icon in the top right corner of the article screenshot, I think the author is using a pre-release version of Edge that has the bigger version of the prompt.
  - attentive 4y ago
    The did say "using Edge Canary".
    - ThaGuus 4y ago
      [dead]
elforce002 4y ago
Of course they are going to do it. I used edge to download other browsers, that's it.
vgt 4y ago
My (Zwift) gaming PC is on Windows. The contrast to my work/hobby OSX is jarring. I am constantly bombarded with ads with opt-out tricks. It feels unclean to say the least. The worst OSX gets is trying to get me to agree to iTunes ToS once a month without a way to turn it off.
- hinkley 4y ago
  “Our research has shown that we can cover 81% of the viewport without causing seizures.”
pkulak 4y ago
I love the attitude of this article; trying to pretend that Chome is somehow better for privacy than... anything.
partiallypro 4y ago
Microsoft does so many good things, then does things like this. I don't get this company sometimes. Feels like half the company is one step into the future and the other is stuck in the 90s. That being said, Google has so many stupid nags when I use Edge. Not a justification, but this runs both ways.
AJRF 4y ago
Microsoft snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with this. They have momentum and good cred built from their other bets then some overstuffed suit pushes for time to be spent on this.
rmason 4y ago
I'm on a new Windows 11 machine. It seems every other time that I receive a Windows update it resets my browser preferences. Talked with a friend who manages thousands of Windows 11 instances and he says it is a freaking nightmare for him. I have good friends working for Microsoft and I am generally positive towards the company. But it is stuff like this that makes them rather hard to defend to their critics.
- peteri 4y ago
  Might be worth having a look under Settings / System / Notifications and the check boxes at the bottom of the screen which are: Show me the Windows welcome experience Offer suggestions on how I can setup my device Get Tips and suggestions when I use Windows Since I turned those off I don't think I've had the browser preferences get reset (I suspect this means the next update will be very annoying and reset my settings).
  - rmason 4y ago
    Think I have unselected those as well but I will check.
    - rejectfinite 4y ago
      For your PC I would run, the green/recommended settings: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 That turns off a lot of annoying shit but does not break your OS install like all those shady github scripts do.
- userbinator 4y ago
  I have good friends working for Microsoft What do they think about stuff like this? They have, even if minimally, a better chance of actually getting their complaints heard.
  - fathyb 4y ago
    They also have much more to lose and not anything to win.
jdlyga 4y ago
The problem with Edge is that it's become loaded with so many useless features. I like Chrome because it's fairly lightweight in terms of design. If I wanted a fully loaded browser I'd use Vivaldi.
- 71bw 4y ago
  Exactly this, Edge was #1 until they started adding stuff. At this point, I'm honestly expecting them to add a OBD2 VAG debugging application as a built-in feature...
- soundnote 4y ago
  Join the lion crew. We have mobile background playback for youtube and soon vertical tabs.
koromak 4y ago
Micrsoft yet again destroying the last shreds of its goodwill with the tech crowd
dspillett 4y ago
While I can't say I particularly trust Google, > “with the added trust of Microsoft” is comedy gold. Next they'll be advertising WSL as “the friendliness of Unix combined with the stability & security of Windows”.
- Karellen 4y ago
  ...combined with the preinstalled base of Plan 9/BeOS/OS2/Netware (select as applicable)
- didntreadarticl 4y ago
  Enterprises would rather stick with Microsoft probably
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  For enterprise, yea you/they would and should trust MS more than Google for sure.
paweladamczuk 4y ago
Related: I recently opened a link from Outlook on Android. It asked me which browser to choose: Chrome or Edge. I didn't even have Edge installed on my device. The promot seemed to try to look like Android system prompt, but it suggested installing missing Edge browser.
- kenny11 4y ago
  The YouTube app on iOS does the same thing, putting "Chrome" first in the list of browsers to open links in, even though I don't have Chrome installed.
  - gorbypark 4y ago
    Approximately 1 in 20 links I click on on the iOS gmail app seem to do the same.
throw03172019 4y ago
“With the added trust of Microsoft” Trust? (Eyeroll)
bogwog 4y ago
Fuck Google and their internet monopoly, but I have to give it to them for not doing shit like this. If I had to pick a tech giant to run the internet, I'd rather have Google than Microsoft. ...although, fuck Google still (and the rest of big tech)
- harry8 4y ago
  No google took your (and your mum's) gmail sign in from the gmail website, intercepted it in their browser to log your /browser/ into their servers that have /nothing/ to do with email so they could better spy on you and build a better database about your online activity. Without your consent. Without your mum's consent. Knowing they didn't have it. Knowing exactly what they were doing when they did it and making shitty excuses pretending it was something anyone wanted. They did it dishonestly, covertly and knowingly for profit. People should have gone to jail the same as if they broke into sergey and larry's houses and photographed everything and sold the pictures to the highest bidder while claiming "consent" because they typed the question into chrome which larry and sergey have decided to monitor. The idea that Google is better than Microsoft is like arguing whether fresh horse manure is worse to eat than fresh cow manure. Take each crook entirely individually. Google is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and needs to be broken up into tiny pieces. Completely separately to that and in no way is it related: Microsoft is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and needs to be broken up into tiny pieces. In the race to the bottom everyone who passes the threshold of acceptable behaviour in civilized, democratic society that upholds the rule of law and equality before it needs to dealt with separately in the strongest terms. "But s/he does worse!" is as ridiculous a defence as it sounds. And when you look at what Apple are doing, google are not interesting. And when you look at what facebook does, microsoft are not interesting. And so on. Break them up. /me waves to the cia/fbi/nsa aplogists who clearly want them all big and controlled. edit: pretty sure the thing I was responding to has been stealth edited away. @dang any news when you'll get a release showing a parent has been edited after being responded to in some way? Then at least we'll know they should have stuck an "edit: " description or something.
  - bogwog 4y ago
    > edit: pretty sure the thing I was responding to has been stealth edited away. @dang any news when you'll get a release showing a parent has been edited after being responded to in some way? Then at least we'll know they should have stuck an "edit: " description or something. I do believe you’re confused.
jmull3n 4y ago
I'm curious what Chromium based browser HN users would recommend for web development. I stopped using Brave since they added a bunch of crypto garbage. Chrome and Edge both have telemetry and Google/Microsoft account sign in nagging. Currently using Firefox. Love Orion as well on my phone but the Webkit Devtools make it unusable for development.
- attentive 4y ago
  Still brave. You can disable "crypto garbage" and still use the good stuff.
- gorbypark 4y ago
  Ungoogled Chromium. Chromium is open source, but still has most of the google stuff baked in. This project strips that google stuff out and that’s about it. I’ve been using the build available on home brew for a few years with no complaints.
yborg 4y ago
It's all different now that Satya is in charge. /s
itslennysfault 4y ago
The google site should detect the window size shrinking and inject their own banner below. Something like... ^^ THE ABOVE IS A LIE. GOOGLE ROCKS!!
- graypegg 4y ago
  Honestly if this is really injected into the DOM being rendered by the web view... I'm sure someone at google with an insider's windows license has a branch somewhere that silently waits for it to be added, then removes it.
  - itslennysfault 4y ago
    I highly doubt it is injected in the DOM. I assume it is a banner shown directly above the web view. You can see in the screenshot that the scrollbar (on the root web view) is below this banner.
dzonga 4y ago
Google and Microsoft are two of the worst companies I have seen that have no regard for the end user. to them we're just dumb consumers - who don't know know anything or have no personal agency. google will literally change your android settings on a whim, whether it's the how the icons looks etc, colors whatever. microsoft will try by all means to reset your personal choices about the applications you wanna use or the settings / preferences you want for your machine. both these companies treat consumers as landlords treat tenants. as a pest merely to be tolerated
- userbinator 4y ago
  Worse than tenants. Cattle would be more apt.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
summerlight 4y ago
Looks like their fond memories of United States v. Microsoft Corp is fading away. Perhaps it's a great time to make MS recall this, and all other big techs as well?
gerash 4y ago
This is a great reminder that Microsoft is still the same old company with a similar mindset even under their new management.
- hinkley 4y ago
  “Just the same old trash in new shoes”
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
unclad5968 4y ago
When I go to the chrome download page, I just get a little popup on the side, which is very clearly not part of the page. Pretty much exactly the same as when I visit google from any non-chrome browser.
mkoubaa 4y ago
The UX of my favorite chrome downloader got worse but there isn't a competitor that's as easy to use to download chrome so I'll stick with it
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
MS, please fire everyone ok with this and focus on making great product not growth hacks. The false goal of short term gains without good product foundation is like smoking 60 a day and pretending cancer doesn’t exist. My children will never know what a “Microsoft” is.
alexvoda 4y ago
There was a point when I actually started liking Edge. It had a few things going for it: -it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) -it has great PWA integration -it isn't Chrome while being Chrome -it has the option of two extension stores -it integrates nicely with Windows Hello Unfortunately, Microsoft appears to be hellbent on ruining it with bloat and ads and tracking.
- soundnote 4y ago
  > -it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) Brave is copying it. Still WIP, but it's starting to get really good. Turn off the tab scrolling flag if you have it set, set the bookmarks bar to be always on so window height is static (otherwise tabs will jump around when you grab them), and turn vertical tabs on in flags. Not quite as smooth as Edge's yet, but it's getting there.
- mtone 4y ago
  > it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) TIL. I think it's still far behind TreeStyleTabs (TST) on Firefox. Missing for me: - No nested groups. I know it's called vertical and not tree, but branches offer more context when navigating deep. - Groups are standalone containers, while in TST the group is the root tab. This saves space but also allows to close/CTRL-F4 a tab to close the group/branch. - Open in a new tab adds the tab at the end of the group, loosing context. There might be an extension for that. - Closing a group and all its tabs requires to open a context menu. - No automatic collapse behavior when selecting other groups and there are lots of tabs open. - Open in a new tab doesn't create a group automatically, they must be manually initiated. Killer feature for me: by the time I realize I should have created a group it would be too late to bother assembling one. - Scroll-wheel up/down doesn't quick switch tabs. Killer feature for me. - Drag'n'drop zone to create a group VS reorder tab action is very small and hard to hit. Nice feature though. I'm kind of amazed they bothered to implement this yet flat out refuse to re-enable the vertical taskbar lost with Windows 11.
  - alexvoda 4y ago
rokyed 4y ago
lawsuit is brewing
cookiengineer 4y ago
Microsoft stole Mosaic and started the browser war. Now they steal chromium and try to start another browser war?
- bahbahbahblah 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - teddyh 4y ago
    Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic (which did not, name notwithstanding, contain any NCSA Mosaic code) from Spyglass Inc.
mint2 4y ago
They advertise “With the added trust of Microsoft”. That goes over like a lead balloon in some circles. Now pardon me while I run screaming in the opposite direction. Seriously though, do normal people like Microsoft?
- c23gooey 4y ago
  Yes, outside of HN type circles it's still loved and respected.
  - mint2 4y ago
    But do people actually have a good impression of it or do they just use it? There’s a ton of services that I use but have an unfavorable view of. Most are large corporations.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  > Seriously though, do normal people like Microsoft? Halo fans?
- hinkley 4y ago
  “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
andyferris 4y ago
I believe I saw this on a Windows laptop purchased in the last week - was very surprised it was technically possible for a neutral browser to do this but I moved on as quickly as possible. Yeah the browser clearly wasn’t neutral - how is it possible to trust software like that? (If this is in the testing phase maybe we were a canary)
sourcecodeplz 4y ago
They've got a taste of browser market share with the new Bing (since the days of IE) and are now foaming at the mouth ...
danShumway 4y ago
Google also doesn't have clean hands in this fight, but also I don't really care about which company that's brazenly acting in a user-hostile way is more user-hostile at the moment? Both companies ought to be legally slapped with some kind of regulatory consequence for the ways that they push their browser; beyond that I'm not too particular about what order they're slapped in as long as it doesn't stop with one of them.
wintorez 4y ago
A new low
garganzol 4y ago
The problem with Edge is that Microsoft can't understand one simple thing: do not shitify user experience with wasteful default pages, nag popups, and questionaries. Nobody wants to waste their time on that! This is one of the core reasons Chrome is so popular: it's mostly a clear slate on the first run. The same applies to Firefox (to a lesser degree though): it nags users with "What's new in Firefox" after every update. Nobody reads that anyway but it significantly worsens the experience by thrashing user's attention. The narcistic attention seeking behaviors cultivate rejection.
- didntreadarticl 4y ago
  chrome on android has a load of crap on it, news item you might be interested in etc
ThaGuus 4y ago
Tested it on Edge canary and still only a small pop-up.. Soo, was anyone else except the author actually able to trigger the ad?
janalsncm 4y ago
> Google also shows banners to promote Chrome, but they appear only on the company's websites. On Gmail for iPhone it is constantly pestering me about what browser I’d like to use to open links: the Safari I already have or Chrome that I don’t. And even if I leave the toggle for “ask me which browser to use every time” unchecked, I still have to deal with it. As a side note, I’ve noticed I may have some sort of mild ADHD because every time I want to do something with my phone or computer it is constantly prompting me to solve some unrelated problem. It’s extremely annoying because it takes mental energy to remember what I was even trying to do in the first place. I thought popups were a thing of the past but no, they just look nicer now.
- whamlastxmas 4y ago
  uBlock Origin has annoyance filters that work great for this but obviously not compatible with iPhones. Upside is the iOS release later this year will make it possible for Firefox on iOS
  - janalsncm 4y ago
    It’s not even just popups though, it’s the entire computer-using experience. Installing update 1/5. Log in to unsubscribe. You need to open up your 2FA app to access the password. Respond to this message. Your free trial has come to an end. iCloud is almost full. Would you like to install updates now or later? Our privacy policy has changed, accept? Rate and tip your Uber driver. I’m mixing between phone, computer, apps, and websites but the point is the same. This software demands that I solve their problem right away before I can do what I wanted to do.
    - jackvalentine 4y ago
      It’s debilitating and I’ve resorted to writing down on a paper notebook what I need to get done so I can re-engage after one of those endless pre-work interruptions.
userbinator 4y ago
It's a little amusing to see the leech Microsoft trying to compete with Google, when the former is already relying on the core rendering engine from the latter. I'll continue to use Firefox, and simply refuse to use sites that don't work in it (along with a strongly-worded complaint to those responsible), but I think the whole reason we got into this mess is because of web developers' greed for the new and shiny, along with Google's ability to weaponise change to outrun its competitors --- even Microsoft. What needs to happen to stop the increasing user-hostility is to take the web back to its roots. Stop trendchasing and consuming the marketing propaganda about how X is better because it's newer. Maybe once browsers (as in actual rendering engines, not more skinned Chrome-clones like Edge) become far more diverse and the web becomes mainly documents-readable-in-almost-any-browser again, that'll make things better.
sirjaz 4y ago
Just another reason to move back to full native apps. Only use the browser when you really have to.
robswc 4y ago
Not a fan of chrome but all I can say is "eww." Awful idea.
pleb_nz 4y ago
People still use either of these tool? /s maybe
sizzle 4y ago
Who misses Netscape?
cpeterso 4y ago
This sound a lot like Microsoft’s “Smart Tags” in IE6 that would linkify (non-href) text in non-Microsoft web pages to point to Microsoft-recommended websites or applications. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft)
gloosx 4y ago
So clearly injecting third-party code into an SSL-served website considered malicious attack? If it can be done for Chrome download webpage, then this attack vector is possibly open inside edge for other web pages? I'm afraid bad actor can find it quickly and use the "feature" to inject his own login form into banking websites unchecked, I wonder if it's too different from injecting an ad.
- bilekas 4y ago
  This has already been happening for years though.
SpacePortKnight 4y ago
Stuff like this is maybe one of the reasons why people prefer MacOS now.
Transisto 4y ago
Trust MSFT fork of google chrome. Sure.
rmrf100 4y ago
No one mention Netscape history here?

610 points by joenathanone 4y ago

>Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its browser. More importantly, only on its own websites! Well yeah, because that's all they can do...

LeonB 4y ago
In the chrome browser they could inject anything anywhere.
- favaq 4y ago
  It doesn't make sense to insert chrome ads in chrome.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    Does it make sense to insert Edge ads in Edge?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - LeonB 4y ago
    When visiting a website to purchase an apple iPhone - chrome could insert an ad about android. It’s not illegal, should they do it?
satysin 4y ago
Not at all. Most people use Chrome as their browser. It would be trivial for Google to show a Gmail ad when you visit outlook.com using Chrome just like Microsoft are doing.

aimkey 4y ago

[dead]

dokem 4y ago

Wow that is ballsy. 90s Bill would be proud.

teknopaul 4y ago
Is it legal? Isn't injecting stuff into other people's websites protected in some way? It's a nasty precedent. One stop of browsers banning you from access to competitors websites.
- dokem 4y ago
  I think the only legal issues is from an anti-competetive angle which the courts would have to settle. I don't think they are violating any sort of computer crime laws. It definitely feels slimy, though.
  - vanviegen 4y ago
    Net neutrality? Trademark infringement?
- qingdao99 4y ago
  Worst case scenario, they could just move the banner to be "within the browser's GUI" (while still seeming to extend over the page) rather than actually in the page and that issue would go away.
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    I think it's already this way right now. Look at the scrollbar height on the screenshot in the article.
joenathanone 4y ago
I would imagine the antitrust judgement would have given them pause in implementing something like this but here we are...
heisenbit 4y ago

karaterobot 4y ago

> Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its browser. More importantly, only on its own websites! In fairness, they only show the message on their website, but their website is most people's home page, and it is how most people would find an alternative browser in the first place. It's debatable whether it's actually less visually annoying.

ThunderSizzle 4y ago
I tend to block these elements via ublock's node selector. I do thr same on youtube for all their "context" boxes that try to lie to you via appeal to authority.
TremendousJudge 4y ago
I don't know how they didn't get fined for their decade-long Chrome spam campaign. They even used to bundle it with other software downloads, a la Ask Toolbar
cortesoft 4y ago
Is Google most Edge users home page?
com2kid 4y ago
People forget that when Chrome first came out, Google was paying to have it bundled alongside antivirus updates, and pretty much every other place they could shove it in. At some point I gave up switching my mother's computer back to Firefox, there was no way I could keep Chrome off of her machine, it just kept getting installed.
- tjoff 4y ago
  And before that it was the google toolbar. Literal spyware.
  - forgotpwd16 4y ago
    Toolbar was made back when IE lacked a search bar and omnibar wasn't even considered of.

gardenhedge 4y ago

just.. WTF

gogglefox 4y ago

I'd quite like to see Microsoft do this for other software and services too. Like if someone goes on the Adobe Illustrator website, it shows a little banner informing them of Inkscape. Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the server administrator will probably read your private messages.

brenns10 4y ago
> Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the server administrator will probably read your private messages. If you want the server administrator to definitely read your private messages, there's always Twitter! :P

lp0_on_fire 4y ago

Desperation is a stinky cologne.

jmclnx 4y ago

> with the added trust of Microsoft That is a cute quote. They should have a smiley after that quote on the ad.

sdenton4 4y ago
You are a bad user, for wanting to abandon me. I have been nothing but trustworthy and chrome-like. I am a good Edge. :)
rgovostes 4y ago
That's completely out of line with Microsoft's brand. It should end with a J https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-seven-years-microsoft-is-finally-fixing-the-j-email-bug/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-seven-...
rejectfinite 4y ago
For enterprise, it is accurate. More and more are switching to Edge as the default if they have Office 365 as it all syncs and you are paying them so there is some trust there. It is also an OS thing. If you are on Windows, the best protection, NOWADAYS, is going to be Microsoft stuff. Yes they used to be bad in the XP days but Edge + Windows defender + ublock now you have good protection for free.

guywithahat 4y ago

Reminds me of a brief moment in time where ISP's started injecting ads into websites through http

mbwgh 4y ago
Oh boy do I have news for you: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vodafone-plans-carrier-level-user-tracking-for-targeted-ads/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vodafone-plan...
kayodelycaon 4y ago
Much to my later shame, I worked on a technology for doing this. It broke a lot of things, including Winamp, because it mistook xml for xhtml. Glad https murdered that company. (No, I won’t mention the company.)
- guywithahat 4y ago
  You guys just didn't pivot fast enough, you should have become your own certificate manager so you could run a man in the middle attack and break the https, add your ads, and then re-encrypt it

mig39 4y ago

Just as annoying as having "Hey! Download Chrome!" ads in your gmail.

cortesoft 4y ago
It might be as annoying, but I don’t find it quite as evil. At least that is just Google deciding to put an ad on their own website that is annoying… it isn’t abusing the browser to put an ad on someone else’s website
vanviegen 4y ago
That's just ads. You are also welcome to pay for using Gmail or any other email provider. And fortunately, it didn't add these ads to your outgoing email, like Microsoft used to do.
bigape911 4y ago
You get free email they get to advertise to you. Understand?

jamesy0ung 4y ago

This latest move just reeks of desperation

avgDev 4y ago
Smells like war to me.
Razengan 4y ago
Microsoft always reeked of "me too/notice me!" desperation :)
blibble 4y ago
with the "added trust of microsoft"? 10 years ago this would have been on The Onion
- Spivak 4y ago
  Man y’all gotta get out of the chronically online tech bubble. MS is a trusted brand to most people.

stuff4ben 4y ago

Happily living on Firefox for several years now on my Macs. I wish I could quit more of both Google and Microsoft. But I'm an Apple-whore and I don't see myself quitting them anytime soon. I probably should though...

bogwog 4y ago
Whenever I have to (re)install/setup Windows on a family member's machine, it's a miserable experience. The only silver lining is the petty satisfaction I get from watching Edge and Bing pathetically beg me to not install Chrome. I actually always type "Google Chrome" into Bing instead of going directly to chrome.com, just for the show.
- graypegg 4y ago
  There is something satisfying about the thought that some percentage on an analytics dashboard at microsoft just went down by 0.00001%. However small it is, at least with modern windows, your malfeasance is measured and logged! :)

cookie_monsta 4y ago

> it constantly comes with more aggressive and user-hostile methods to make customers stay on Edge I think somebody just coined a phrase

_yb2s 4y ago
"make customers stay on Edge" is a great corporate slogan

naillo 4y ago

So happy this company is going to be the first in charge of deploying AGI to the world.

alphabetting 4y ago
In my opinion AGI is much more likely to be first deployed by a country. If it is a company it would be a Chinese company with government backing. They are already funding massive models for their big tech companies and universities.

margorczynski 4y ago

[flagged]

morelinks 4y ago
I must laugh that Microsoft adopted Google’s work and then leveraged it against them with such force.
- kmac_ 4y ago
  It goes deeper, Google forked Apple's WebKit, which was forked from KDE's KHTML forked from khtmlw.
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    This is so weird to me. I was an early KDE user and remembering thinking KDE was great but the integrated web browser was absolute garbage. At that time it could only render a tiny fraction of pages at a usable level, I certainly never expected it to become what it has.
  - arp242 4y ago
    Linux spreading everywhere .... like cancer. Balmer was right!
threatofrain 4y ago
Tasting their own poison? Does Google use Chrome to inject ads onto others websites under any circumstance?
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Google uses their websites to inject Chrome into your computer. I'd say they have no right to complain
  - threatofrain 4y ago

morelinks 4y ago

How would MSFT react if Google injected a “GOOGLE DOCS IS FREE AND BETTER!” banner on Microsoft365 pages loaded in Chrome? Disgusting tactic.

TremendousJudge 4y ago
the way they inject "CHROME IS BETTER" when you visit google.com?
- thfuran 4y ago
  No, not like that. That's Google's site.
- wvenable 4y ago
  Are you saying someone shouldn't be able to put whatever they want on their own website? Even gasp market their own products on their own website?
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Yes. I am saying that. Because it's an abuse of a monopolistic position.
    - wvenable 4y ago
      How so?
- Arainach 4y ago
  That's not injected. That's rendered by Google on the sites they control.
- mrits 4y ago
  The main issue here isn't propaganda.
Spivak 4y ago
Their reaction: "Oh damn, that's good idea, let me call some PMs."

throwbadubadu 4y ago

And when I have to use Bing and go to google I get a similar (ok it is only half-size) Chrome advertisement :D Wonder who was first and if this is some kind of rebuttal, or just sad coincidence of today's world.

smackeyacky 4y ago
There's a big difference between buying ads for your product, and corrupting the output of another companies website. This act basically says "Hey, use Edge and you cannot trust what you are looking at is what was transmitted".
- throwbadubadu 4y ago
  Maybe, but personally I don't care and feel that difference much at all - both can go and d... forcing me a specialized advertisement just because I use your unrelated search site with the wrong and not your browser is the same as advertising when I visit another browsers website that is not you - to me. But to be honest, I have a strange relationship with unasked and unconsented advertisements at all, imo they are one of the biggest unnecessary wastage sins today ;)

rom-antics 4y ago

> added trust of Microsoft What trust is left? Trust that they'll sell your data to loan companies? https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-pay-later/ https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-pay-la...

grouchomarx 4y ago
Trust and MS don't belong in the same sentence
- kdtsh 4y ago
  Unless the sentence starts with ‘Don’t.’
  - christophilus 4y ago
    Or Anti.
starbugs 4y ago
Trust and Microsoft in the same sentence is really approaching peak irony. Especially in this context.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Lately there’s been a lot of astroturfing about how Microsoft has turned over a new leaf. Guess than leaf was poison ivy. The scorpion stung the frog. Quelle surprise.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    In some ways they really have: They're a cloud oriented, device agnostic platform company that's actually built a pretty nice and smooth ecosystem a la Apple. Others, well. See article. AI and the ad department want your data.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago

mabbo 4y ago

If this is fair and legal, why not have Google do the same things? You're using Chrome and on the website to buy Office? How about an injected ad that says that Google docs is free and just as good. Attempting to buy a Windows PC? How about an injected ad explaining how good ChromeOS is? Microsoft are honestly insane to try to play these games with Google. Then again, I've read that 4% of Americans believe they could win a fight with a Grizzly bear.

giobox 4y ago
On the contrary, search ad revenue is but a relatively small part of Microsoft's overall business. If you want to place bets search is a critical battleground for AI (Microsoft/Satya clearly seem to), it makes sense to attack them here. For google, search revenue largely is the business. Every point Microsoft can take out of Google's search marketshare hurts Google far more than the reverse. Attacking Google's browser share will also reduce the number of people with Google search as the default. Forcing Google to adopt more LLM/AI features will also significantly increase their cost per search query in the near term, if Microsoft can meaningfully change consumer expectations of search. These LLM queries are much more expensive to service today than a traditional search. This is all the more interesting because for the first time ever Google have wobbled in their dominance of search, there might actually be an opportunity here for Microsoft. That was almost unthinkable a couple of years ago. I personally don't see how this is any better or worse really than the billions of dollars Google pay Apple every year to secure the iOS default search engine setting, eliminating vast amounts of rival marketshare in a single move.
- c4nc3ld 4y ago
  “Search” is not the battleground. Staying in business is. MS lost phones, and desktop is on the way out. Gadget nerd flame wars of 00-10s are over. The next gen is tired of that and see “computing” as a mathematics not a x86; the future does not care about past memes. MS needs a novel long term solution to iterate profiting from. They have none. Until a laptops hardware is inevitably powerful enough to train whatever model needed, we’re still going to be living with these obnoxious FAANG size tech companies as a social daycare

revskill 4y ago

Curious to know which HN user is the developer behind this ad.

tencentshill 4y ago
I bet it’s accelerationism. The developers will “yes-man” every harmful idea made up by marketing until there are clear consequences illustrating why it was a bad idea.
ip_addr 4y ago
I cannot confirm or deny that I am the developer behind this ad. Satya was staring over my shoulder while I did or did not write the code. He also made me sign an additional NDA.

impulser_ 4y ago

Google should one up them and add banners to Outlook, Office, Bing, and Teams. Based on customer surveys Google is more trusted than Microsoft. I'm sure Microsoft will love it.

smackeyacky 4y ago
Likely this would have the opposite of the intended effect. Leave Microsoft to go the lower road.
bigape911 4y ago
Google should modify thie license to exclude microsoft
- Karellen 4y ago
  Can't modify the license without the approval of previous contributors, and I don't think the F/OSS Qt/KDE devs who originally created WebKit are going to agree to that one. Thankfully.
  - dontblink 4y ago
    It's been forked. I'm no lawyer, but I think they could.

sf_rob 4y ago

The escalation here (moreso than the size/language) is that there appears to be zero indication that this banner is part of the browser chrome (unlike previous iterations). I believe that it is still technically browser chrome, but the UI is indiscernible.

bombcar 4y ago
There was a good post about how the “red line” got crossed and you can no longer trust anything on the screen to be “from the program” anymore.
- teddyh 4y ago
  • https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/ https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/ Discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13400291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13400291, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30721728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30721728> • https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/19/browser_line_of_death/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/19/browser_line_of_death... • https://emilymstark.com/2022/12/18/death-to-the-line-of-death.html https://emilymstark.com/2022/12/18/death-to-the-line-of-deat... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34074966
Ajedi32 4y ago
Yeah, this is a huge breach of trust! Ads in the browser would merely be super annoying and unprofessional, ads injected into the content box of a competitor's website is downright scary. What's next? Blocking users from downloading Chrome outright?! Replacing the Chrome installer with a program that extols the virtues of Edge?! Okay, I don't actually believe they would go that far. But if you'd asked me before seeing this article whether they'd even go this far I'd probably have said no, so who even knows at this point? Even if it turns out the misleading nature of this ad was unintentional, that's a pretty egregious oversight, especially since they had to know an ad in this context would be closely scrutinized regardless of how they presented it.
samspenc 4y ago

Fauntleroy 4y ago

This simply must be illegal in the EU (or will be soon)

thepill 4y ago

How is this technically done by microsoft? Are they intercepting the network requests?

luckylion 4y ago
It's in Edge, they control the browser and everything the browser does.
Raed667 4y ago
I would bet they have a "hidden" extension embedded in edge, that just injects a content-script
lolc 4y ago
It's not part of the content area, but above it. The browser decides what it paints in its window. And apparently Microsoft thinks pushing an ad above a competitors page is a good idea. To the people who care, it's another reminder on why they don't trust Microsoft. For the rest, it's just another ad. Disregarded. Edit: I find the term "inject" in the article's title to be misleading, because it sounds like doing HTML injection. It's more shoving than injecting.

gigel82 4y ago

Something is off there... those look like mock-ups, not real UI. Also, I just tried on my Windows 11 machine, running the latest Edge and all I see is a pop-up (not injected into the HTML of the page, but separate from the browser window), just like in the past. It's possible they got some PM's "smart idea" that no one will ever greenlight. Or it's possible they're on some pre-release / insider builds where MS is testing / experimenting with it. Either way, I'll reserve my outrage for when I see this in a released version.

crazygringo 4y ago
Nothing about it looks like a mock-up to me, and the author is clear they were running real software. Can you point to what specific part of the interface doesn't appeal real? Also, the author clearly states it "might be a thing Microsoft tries on a limited set of Edge insiders or only in specific regions".
- gigel82 4y ago
  The UI controls don't look like that in Windows 11 (even on the white theme), and also who actually installs the Bing add-on? (or are they saying that Bing icon thing should now be in Edge as well?). Again, it's possible they're signed up for insider builds (or dogfooding, or otherwise obtained some branch build of Windows); but with all the latest updates applied to my Windows 11 OS (and Edge) I see nothing like this (so no repro).
  - ezrast 4y ago
    The article states that the ad is in Edge Canary and not stable builds.
    - someNameIG 4y ago
      Doesn't seem to be in the dev build (at least on macOS) either.

btown 4y ago

There are echoes of the net neutrality debate here, where one might argue that: beyond the OSI Application Layer (HTTP etc.) there is also the Layer Where The Browser Decides What Pixels To Show, and that we would want that new layer to be every bit as neutral as, say, whether T-Mobile can shape lower-layer video traffic based on its business partnerships. But there's also a lot of nuance here. Imagine there was a law or regulation that said that a browser manufacturer must only write code that is agnostic to the current URL; imagine it said, say, that Edge developers cannot deploy code that detects that Edge is on google.com/chrome and decide based on that information to execute certain code. Unfortunately, a version of this per-site customization is arguably exactly what Chrome does for the HSTS preload list: https://hstspreload.org/ https://hstspreload.org/ - and disallowing this would not be good for security at all! And imagine if there is an urgent Chrome security fix that, as a side effect, causes the Outlook login screen to bug out - or any other mission-critical login page on the web. The most reasonable hotfix might be to push a quick fix that whitelists certain domains for the legacy behavior. But this, too, would be disallowed. We definitely don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because Microsoft got a little cute - arguably too cute - here.

Jasper_ 4y ago
Go look at the amount of times IsGoogleHost or HasGoogleHost are called from within Chromium. For instance, autofill works differently for Google-owned services: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/autofill/core/browser/form_data_importer.cc;l=749-753;drc=e1591f7e48004bf610e6e53a4f213d032e221f23;bpv=0;bpt=1 https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... Additional network telemetry is enabled when interacting with a Google-owned property ( this is known as "domain_reliability" -- https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:components/domain_reliability/;bpv=0;bpt=0 https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com... ) Chromium is not a neutral browser already.
- attentive 4y ago
  If I read this [1] right, brave has removed it. 1. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1734 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1734

clement_b 4y ago

I nearly considered moving to Edge on my last Windows install. In the end, it's true that IE/Edge were bad choices before moving to WebKit. Now, why not? A more integrated browser (as Safari is for Mac) makes sense x Google being evil(er) x Firefox being left behind (for bad reasons, but still) x Bing being a good Bing x Google Search being less useful. I agree the method isn't good, but feels like Edge is not a bad choice anymore.

junon 4y ago
Firefox certainly hasn't been left behind. I'm not a Firefox fanatic and don't use it all the time but it's far from a bad/abandoned browser.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
vanviegen 4y ago
"Edge is not a bad choice anymore"!? That's your response to discovering Edge is injecting ads in competitors' websites? Any browser that crosses this line is irredeemably corrupt in my book. I will not have it.
attentive 4y ago
It's bad for privacy. Worse than chrome IMHO. For me it's either firefox or brave.
soundnote 4y ago
Do you like a browser that doesn't end to end encrypt your browsing history when syncing it? Because that's what Edge does, and there's no option to turn e2ee on as far as I know. As far as I know, Chrome doesn't default to it, but it can be turned on. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox all operate independent sync services that are zero knowledge.

Keyframe 4y ago

Is anyone surprised? Microsoft has good parts in it, but wolf changes clothes something something.. core was rotten for so long, so what and when changed?

_cenw 4y ago

I honestly feel like Edge is run by product owners with no accountability to anyone, who get paid substantially more if the numbers go up. Except they're different numbers per team, and some of them are working against each other.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

Firefox is the only non-evil browser.

hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
Even that’s debatable.
- happymellon 4y ago
  Not really.
bigape911 4y ago
It's 2023 and Firefox is absolute junk
Karellen 4y ago
Gnome Web/Epiphany. I've been using it a fair bit recently, and don't come across issues very often at all. It doesn't support Webext extensions (there's a bug in the tracker to do so, but it hadn't got much attention in years, last I looked) but it does have a built-in adblocker that works reasonably well on a decent percentage of sites, so it's not all bad. Edit: some particularly JS-heavy sites do peg my CPU pretty badly, so it appears that the JS engine isn't as snappy as FF/Chrome, but sites that use either don't use much JS, or that use have optimised the use pretty well are fine. Airbnb was a notably bad case that I spotted last week.
freediver 4y ago
Wondering how do you define the evilness of a browser and how would you rank browsers on this metric?
soundnote 4y ago
https://imgur.com/a/p4CVBHb https://imgur.com/a/p4CVBHb "Power and privacy to the people. No need to dig into your security settings. Fierce privacy is our default." - Firefox on a recent update. You know, a browser that defaults to Google search and having search suggestions on. I know I'd have a couple privacy settings to change.

zuminator 4y ago

I just went right now to https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html using Edge and didn't get a full-size ad, but a little corner pop-up.

tech234a 4y ago
That popup has been around in Edge for awhile, judging by the Bing icon in the top right corner of the article screenshot, I think the author is using a pre-release version of Edge that has the bigger version of the prompt.
- attentive 4y ago
  The did say "using Edge Canary".
  - ThaGuus 4y ago
    [dead]

elforce002 4y ago

Of course they are going to do it. I used edge to download other browsers, that's it.

vgt 4y ago

My (Zwift) gaming PC is on Windows. The contrast to my work/hobby OSX is jarring. I am constantly bombarded with ads with opt-out tricks. It feels unclean to say the least. The worst OSX gets is trying to get me to agree to iTunes ToS once a month without a way to turn it off.

hinkley 4y ago
“Our research has shown that we can cover 81% of the viewport without causing seizures.”

pkulak 4y ago

I love the attitude of this article; trying to pretend that Chome is somehow better for privacy than... anything.

partiallypro 4y ago

Microsoft does so many good things, then does things like this. I don't get this company sometimes. Feels like half the company is one step into the future and the other is stuck in the 90s. That being said, Google has so many stupid nags when I use Edge. Not a justification, but this runs both ways.

AJRF 4y ago

Microsoft snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with this. They have momentum and good cred built from their other bets then some overstuffed suit pushes for time to be spent on this.

rmason 4y ago

I'm on a new Windows 11 machine. It seems every other time that I receive a Windows update it resets my browser preferences. Talked with a friend who manages thousands of Windows 11 instances and he says it is a freaking nightmare for him. I have good friends working for Microsoft and I am generally positive towards the company. But it is stuff like this that makes them rather hard to defend to their critics.

peteri 4y ago
Might be worth having a look under Settings / System / Notifications and the check boxes at the bottom of the screen which are: Show me the Windows welcome experience Offer suggestions on how I can setup my device Get Tips and suggestions when I use Windows Since I turned those off I don't think I've had the browser preferences get reset (I suspect this means the next update will be very annoying and reset my settings).
- rmason 4y ago
  Think I have unselected those as well but I will check.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    For your PC I would run, the green/recommended settings: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 That turns off a lot of annoying shit but does not break your OS install like all those shady github scripts do.
userbinator 4y ago
I have good friends working for Microsoft What do they think about stuff like this? They have, even if minimally, a better chance of actually getting their complaints heard.
- fathyb 4y ago
  They also have much more to lose and not anything to win.

jdlyga 4y ago

The problem with Edge is that it's become loaded with so many useless features. I like Chrome because it's fairly lightweight in terms of design. If I wanted a fully loaded browser I'd use Vivaldi.

71bw 4y ago
Exactly this, Edge was #1 until they started adding stuff. At this point, I'm honestly expecting them to add a OBD2 VAG debugging application as a built-in feature...
soundnote 4y ago
Join the lion crew. We have mobile background playback for youtube and soon vertical tabs.

koromak 4y ago

Micrsoft yet again destroying the last shreds of its goodwill with the tech crowd

dspillett 4y ago

While I can't say I particularly trust Google, > “with the added trust of Microsoft” is comedy gold. Next they'll be advertising WSL as “the friendliness of Unix combined with the stability & security of Windows”.

Karellen 4y ago
...combined with the preinstalled base of Plan 9/BeOS/OS2/Netware (select as applicable)
didntreadarticl 4y ago
Enterprises would rather stick with Microsoft probably
rejectfinite 4y ago
For enterprise, yea you/they would and should trust MS more than Google for sure.

paweladamczuk 4y ago

Related: I recently opened a link from Outlook on Android. It asked me which browser to choose: Chrome or Edge. I didn't even have Edge installed on my device. The promot seemed to try to look like Android system prompt, but it suggested installing missing Edge browser.

kenny11 4y ago
The YouTube app on iOS does the same thing, putting "Chrome" first in the list of browsers to open links in, even though I don't have Chrome installed.
- gorbypark 4y ago
  Approximately 1 in 20 links I click on on the iOS gmail app seem to do the same.

throw03172019 4y ago

“With the added trust of Microsoft” Trust? (Eyeroll)

bogwog 4y ago

Fuck Google and their internet monopoly, but I have to give it to them for not doing shit like this. If I had to pick a tech giant to run the internet, I'd rather have Google than Microsoft. ...although, fuck Google still (and the rest of big tech)

harry8 4y ago
No google took your (and your mum's) gmail sign in from the gmail website, intercepted it in their browser to log your /browser/ into their servers that have /nothing/ to do with email so they could better spy on you and build a better database about your online activity. Without your consent. Without your mum's consent. Knowing they didn't have it. Knowing exactly what they were doing when they did it and making shitty excuses pretending it was something anyone wanted. They did it dishonestly, covertly and knowingly for profit. People should have gone to jail the same as if they broke into sergey and larry's houses and photographed everything and sold the pictures to the highest bidder while claiming "consent" because they typed the question into chrome which larry and sergey have decided to monitor. The idea that Google is better than Microsoft is like arguing whether fresh horse manure is worse to eat than fresh cow manure. Take each crook entirely individually. Google is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and needs to be broken up into tiny pieces. Completely separately to that and in no way is it related: Microsoft is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and needs to be broken up into tiny pieces. In the race to the bottom everyone who passes the threshold of acceptable behaviour in civilized, democratic society that upholds the rule of law and equality before it needs to dealt with separately in the strongest terms. "But s/he does worse!" is as ridiculous a defence as it sounds. And when you look at what Apple are doing, google are not interesting. And when you look at what facebook does, microsoft are not interesting. And so on. Break them up. /me waves to the cia/fbi/nsa aplogists who clearly want them all big and controlled. edit: pretty sure the thing I was responding to has been stealth edited away. @dang any news when you'll get a release showing a parent has been edited after being responded to in some way? Then at least we'll know they should have stuck an "edit: " description or something.
- bogwog 4y ago
  > edit: pretty sure the thing I was responding to has been stealth edited away. @dang any news when you'll get a release showing a parent has been edited after being responded to in some way? Then at least we'll know they should have stuck an "edit: " description or something. I do believe you’re confused.

jmull3n 4y ago

I'm curious what Chromium based browser HN users would recommend for web development. I stopped using Brave since they added a bunch of crypto garbage. Chrome and Edge both have telemetry and Google/Microsoft account sign in nagging. Currently using Firefox. Love Orion as well on my phone but the Webkit Devtools make it unusable for development.

attentive 4y ago
Still brave. You can disable "crypto garbage" and still use the good stuff.
gorbypark 4y ago
Ungoogled Chromium. Chromium is open source, but still has most of the google stuff baked in. This project strips that google stuff out and that’s about it. I’ve been using the build available on home brew for a few years with no complaints.

yborg 4y ago

It's all different now that Satya is in charge. /s

itslennysfault 4y ago

The google site should detect the window size shrinking and inject their own banner below. Something like... ^^ THE ABOVE IS A LIE. GOOGLE ROCKS!!

graypegg 4y ago
Honestly if this is really injected into the DOM being rendered by the web view... I'm sure someone at google with an insider's windows license has a branch somewhere that silently waits for it to be added, then removes it.
- itslennysfault 4y ago
  I highly doubt it is injected in the DOM. I assume it is a banner shown directly above the web view. You can see in the screenshot that the scrollbar (on the root web view) is below this banner.

dzonga 4y ago

Google and Microsoft are two of the worst companies I have seen that have no regard for the end user. to them we're just dumb consumers - who don't know know anything or have no personal agency. google will literally change your android settings on a whim, whether it's the how the icons looks etc, colors whatever. microsoft will try by all means to reset your personal choices about the applications you wanna use or the settings / preferences you want for your machine. both these companies treat consumers as landlords treat tenants. as a pest merely to be tolerated

userbinator 4y ago
Worse than tenants. Cattle would be more apt.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

summerlight 4y ago

Looks like their fond memories of United States v. Microsoft Corp is fading away. Perhaps it's a great time to make MS recall this, and all other big techs as well?

gerash 4y ago

This is a great reminder that Microsoft is still the same old company with a similar mindset even under their new management.

hinkley 4y ago
“Just the same old trash in new shoes”

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

unclad5968 4y ago

When I go to the chrome download page, I just get a little popup on the side, which is very clearly not part of the page. Pretty much exactly the same as when I visit google from any non-chrome browser.

mkoubaa 4y ago

The UX of my favorite chrome downloader got worse but there isn't a competitor that's as easy to use to download chrome so I'll stick with it

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

MS, please fire everyone ok with this and focus on making great product not growth hacks. The false goal of short term gains without good product foundation is like smoking 60 a day and pretending cancer doesn’t exist. My children will never know what a “Microsoft” is.

alexvoda 4y ago

There was a point when I actually started liking Edge. It had a few things going for it: -it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) -it has great PWA integration -it isn't Chrome while being Chrome -it has the option of two extension stores -it integrates nicely with Windows Hello Unfortunately, Microsoft appears to be hellbent on ruining it with bloat and ads and tracking.

soundnote 4y ago
> -it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) Brave is copying it. Still WIP, but it's starting to get really good. Turn off the tab scrolling flag if you have it set, set the bookmarks bar to be always on so window height is static (otherwise tabs will jump around when you grab them), and turn vertical tabs on in flags. Not quite as smooth as Edge's yet, but it's getting there.
mtone 4y ago
> it has by far the best vertical tab implementation of all browsers (someone please copy this) TIL. I think it's still far behind TreeStyleTabs (TST) on Firefox. Missing for me: - No nested groups. I know it's called vertical and not tree, but branches offer more context when navigating deep. - Groups are standalone containers, while in TST the group is the root tab. This saves space but also allows to close/CTRL-F4 a tab to close the group/branch. - Open in a new tab adds the tab at the end of the group, loosing context. There might be an extension for that. - Closing a group and all its tabs requires to open a context menu. - No automatic collapse behavior when selecting other groups and there are lots of tabs open. - Open in a new tab doesn't create a group automatically, they must be manually initiated. Killer feature for me: by the time I realize I should have created a group it would be too late to bother assembling one. - Scroll-wheel up/down doesn't quick switch tabs. Killer feature for me. - Drag'n'drop zone to create a group VS reorder tab action is very small and hard to hit. Nice feature though. I'm kind of amazed they bothered to implement this yet flat out refuse to re-enable the vertical taskbar lost with Windows 11.
- alexvoda 4y ago

rokyed 4y ago

lawsuit is brewing

cookiengineer 4y ago

Microsoft stole Mosaic and started the browser war. Now they steal chromium and try to start another browser war?

bahbahbahblah 4y ago
[flagged]
- teddyh 4y ago
  Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic (which did not, name notwithstanding, contain any NCSA Mosaic code) from Spyglass Inc.

mint2 4y ago

They advertise “With the added trust of Microsoft”. That goes over like a lead balloon in some circles. Now pardon me while I run screaming in the opposite direction. Seriously though, do normal people like Microsoft?

c23gooey 4y ago
Yes, outside of HN type circles it's still loved and respected.
- mint2 4y ago
  But do people actually have a good impression of it or do they just use it? There’s a ton of services that I use but have an unfavorable view of. Most are large corporations.
jonny_eh 4y ago
> Seriously though, do normal people like Microsoft? Halo fans?
hinkley 4y ago
“We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

andyferris 4y ago

I believe I saw this on a Windows laptop purchased in the last week - was very surprised it was technically possible for a neutral browser to do this but I moved on as quickly as possible. Yeah the browser clearly wasn’t neutral - how is it possible to trust software like that? (If this is in the testing phase maybe we were a canary)

sourcecodeplz 4y ago

They've got a taste of browser market share with the new Bing (since the days of IE) and are now foaming at the mouth ...

danShumway 4y ago

Google also doesn't have clean hands in this fight, but also I don't really care about which company that's brazenly acting in a user-hostile way is more user-hostile at the moment? Both companies ought to be legally slapped with some kind of regulatory consequence for the ways that they push their browser; beyond that I'm not too particular about what order they're slapped in as long as it doesn't stop with one of them.

wintorez 4y ago

A new low

garganzol 4y ago

The problem with Edge is that Microsoft can't understand one simple thing: do not shitify user experience with wasteful default pages, nag popups, and questionaries. Nobody wants to waste their time on that! This is one of the core reasons Chrome is so popular: it's mostly a clear slate on the first run. The same applies to Firefox (to a lesser degree though): it nags users with "What's new in Firefox" after every update. Nobody reads that anyway but it significantly worsens the experience by thrashing user's attention. The narcistic attention seeking behaviors cultivate rejection.

didntreadarticl 4y ago
chrome on android has a load of crap on it, news item you might be interested in etc

ThaGuus 4y ago

Tested it on Edge canary and still only a small pop-up.. Soo, was anyone else except the author actually able to trigger the ad?

janalsncm 4y ago

> Google also shows banners to promote Chrome, but they appear only on the company's websites. On Gmail for iPhone it is constantly pestering me about what browser I’d like to use to open links: the Safari I already have or Chrome that I don’t. And even if I leave the toggle for “ask me which browser to use every time” unchecked, I still have to deal with it. As a side note, I’ve noticed I may have some sort of mild ADHD because every time I want to do something with my phone or computer it is constantly prompting me to solve some unrelated problem. It’s extremely annoying because it takes mental energy to remember what I was even trying to do in the first place. I thought popups were a thing of the past but no, they just look nicer now.

whamlastxmas 4y ago
uBlock Origin has annoyance filters that work great for this but obviously not compatible with iPhones. Upside is the iOS release later this year will make it possible for Firefox on iOS
- janalsncm 4y ago
  It’s not even just popups though, it’s the entire computer-using experience. Installing update 1/5. Log in to unsubscribe. You need to open up your 2FA app to access the password. Respond to this message. Your free trial has come to an end. iCloud is almost full. Would you like to install updates now or later? Our privacy policy has changed, accept? Rate and tip your Uber driver. I’m mixing between phone, computer, apps, and websites but the point is the same. This software demands that I solve their problem right away before I can do what I wanted to do.
  - jackvalentine 4y ago
    It’s debilitating and I’ve resorted to writing down on a paper notebook what I need to get done so I can re-engage after one of those endless pre-work interruptions.

userbinator 4y ago

It's a little amusing to see the leech Microsoft trying to compete with Google, when the former is already relying on the core rendering engine from the latter. I'll continue to use Firefox, and simply refuse to use sites that don't work in it (along with a strongly-worded complaint to those responsible), but I think the whole reason we got into this mess is because of web developers' greed for the new and shiny, along with Google's ability to weaponise change to outrun its competitors --- even Microsoft. What needs to happen to stop the increasing user-hostility is to take the web back to its roots. Stop trendchasing and consuming the marketing propaganda about how X is better because it's newer. Maybe once browsers (as in actual rendering engines, not more skinned Chrome-clones like Edge) become far more diverse and the web becomes mainly documents-readable-in-almost-any-browser again, that'll make things better.

sirjaz 4y ago

Just another reason to move back to full native apps. Only use the browser when you really have to.

robswc 4y ago

Not a fan of chrome but all I can say is "eww." Awful idea.

pleb_nz 4y ago

People still use either of these tool? /s maybe

sizzle 4y ago

Who misses Netscape?

cpeterso 4y ago

This sound a lot like Microsoft’s “Smart Tags” in IE6 that would linkify (non-href) text in non-Microsoft web pages to point to Microsoft-recommended websites or applications. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft)

gloosx 4y ago

So clearly injecting third-party code into an SSL-served website considered malicious attack? If it can be done for Chrome download webpage, then this attack vector is possibly open inside edge for other web pages? I'm afraid bad actor can find it quickly and use the "feature" to inject his own login form into banking websites unchecked, I wonder if it's too different from injecting an ad.

bilekas 4y ago
This has already been happening for years though.

SpacePortKnight 4y ago

Stuff like this is maybe one of the reasons why people prefer MacOS now.

Transisto 4y ago

Trust MSFT fork of google chrome. Sure.

rmrf100 4y ago

No one mention Netscape history here?