5 ms·

My organization (which uses Teams) forcibly migrated all Firefox users to Edge a couple of weeks ago and uninstalled FF. They were citing incompatibility with s

by plorg 4y ago

My organization (which uses Teams) forcibly migrated all Firefox users to Edge a couple of weeks ago and uninstalled FF. They were citing incompatibility with some software and I assumed that meant the new ERP system being adopted by one of the larger departments.

number6 4y ago
At least Edge is now Chrome...
- josephcsible 4y ago
  "At least" makes it sound like that's a silver lining, but that makes it worse. It's exacerbating the Blink monoculture problem.
  - number6 4y ago
    You are right; it is more defeatism than optimism really
wkat4242 4y ago
Microsoft is very heavily lobbying organizations to use edge as a standard browser right now. They're doing the same to us. It's really annoying. They're hell-bent on increasing marketshare no matter what.
- fatneckbeard 4y ago
  trying to get rid of a nother IM client at my place. everyone hates it because the one they are replacing is very simple and quick
- jzombie 4y ago
  It would be interesting if Google tweaked their Chromium licensing so that Edge couldn't use it. Then Microsoft wouldn't have a browser at all.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Or “we like open source software and ‘freedom’ as long as it is used by the right people in a way that I agree with”
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      Wow all low-hanging fruit patent-troll type of stuff :( The patent system is so broken.
    - kyle-rb 4y ago
      Most of these patent numbers seem to be incorrect; all the numbers except for the first one seem to point to unrelated patents. I was curious about the email one, but "7,536,726" points to a different Microsoft patent (also expired), and I couldn't find a patent with the name "System and method for providing remote access to electronic mail".
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        I did wonder about the ethics of pasting a list derived from ChatGPT without checking them personally. Thanks for doing the legwork on that. What I'm finding (over the last few minutes of experimentation) is that patent references in ChatGPT are valid, but tend to have the wrong numbers associated with them. If you ask it to summarize the claims in a given patent, it will sometimes pull up the wrong patent. Interestingly, you can correct it with a suitable prompt -- see one example at https://i.imgur.com/EQrhFt8.png https://i.imgur.com/EQrhFt8.png -- at which point it will do the right thing or at least come close to it. Anyway, the point stands: there is only so much Google can do to stand up to Microsoft. Royalties in 2013 reached $2 billion ( https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-pe... ) and it's safe to say they didn't stop filing bullshit patents in 2013.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  In the last months I have heard everything from MS including "Firefox is the #1 source of security bugs in enterprise" and the like.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Since that's verifiably false, why hasn't Mozilla filed a defamation lawsuit over it?
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Lobbying? Please describe
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Constantly hanging out with the senior management praising Edge. As they say "Microsoft is better at talking to your boss than you do". Also their consultants are trained to be shills. Every time we have a call with them they will remark about it if we use another browser, even though their area of expertise has nothing to do with it.
nabilhat 4y ago
This sounds remarkably familiar. A certain ERP I've been dealing with sent out dire warnings about installing and updating Edge, else something nebulously defined would break. This understandably caused a lot of confusion and frustration with users (the ERP spammed so many with this warning...) and pissed off IT teams. It turns out that the Edge they were talking about was the ERP's own software named Edge (amusingly named and released long after Edge the browser showed up), which they leave for the end user to optionally install, and actively refused to clearly document why, where, and how to install it. The fun part is all of this was to update an expired certificate.
magicalhippo 4y ago
> forcibly migrated all Firefox users to Edge Man, I can understand doing that for regular users who don't care, but as a developer? Just a few weeks ago an integrator for an ERP system our customer had bought was trying to show some details in a Teams call when his PC suddenly rebooted. He came back and apologized, turns out it was a company policy forced reboot. In the middle of the day because what are timezones? If my company tried anything like forcing which browser is installed or when my machine reboots, I'd hand in my resignation promptly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MaxLeiter 4y ago
  From a security perspective, I feel like my employer can do what they need to. I wouldn’t accept 24/7 active monitoring, but ensuring programs are up-to-date and trusted seems like basic steps in preventing a security incident. The two programs I’ve used that auto-update your machine give you plenty of a heads-up that you should do it yourself.
  - ghusto 4y ago
    > From a security perspective, I feel like my employer can do what they need to I've always felt that this kind of attitude from IT departments is counter productive. It gives people a false sense of security at best, and baby mentality at worst (where they assume no responsibility because it's apparently someone else's).
einpoklum 4y ago
Which organization? At least they can get derided publicly for doing this...
- plorg 4y ago
  I work for a small manufacturing company. I'm not going to blow up my company or my job over a decision I have next to no insight into that affects my job in such a small way.
nicoburns 4y ago
I wonder why they don't just allow both
Peanuts99 4y ago
This is 100% down to the poor manageability of Firefox on corporate networks. Edge has all the same ADMX templates plus more than Chrome. Corporate management of software is important.
rejectfinite 4y ago
The above link is for home Teams. Your company should be using teams.microsoft.com ! :) So your comment makes no sense. We as IT admins may just want to keep track of Edge updates and extensions and not want someone running months old Firefox all sneaky like.
- plorg 4y ago
  I'm sure there's a distinction, but this is an anecdote, and the above link is specifically another person's anecdote. My comment makes fine sense, if you want to say they are completely separate products, it's probably unrelated just do that, don't be an ass. Our IT department doesn't treat us like idiots, FF was an officially supported browser until a month ago, we were on the most recent version. I believe them if they say it's about webapp compatibility, even if this does help them manage the browser under group policy or whatever. They could make this decision for whatever reason they want and wouldn't have a problem getting people to go along with it.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    Because teams.microsoft.com works in Firefox teams.live.com does not So they are different and it is relevant.

by plorg 4y ago

number6 4y ago

At least Edge is now Chrome...

josephcsible 4y ago
"At least" makes it sound like that's a silver lining, but that makes it worse. It's exacerbating the Blink monoculture problem.
- number6 4y ago
  You are right; it is more defeatism than optimism really

wkat4242 4y ago

Microsoft is very heavily lobbying organizations to use edge as a standard browser right now. They're doing the same to us. It's really annoying. They're hell-bent on increasing marketshare no matter what.

fatneckbeard 4y ago
trying to get rid of a nother IM client at my place. everyone hates it because the one they are replacing is very simple and quick
jzombie 4y ago
It would be interesting if Google tweaked their Chromium licensing so that Edge couldn't use it. Then Microsoft wouldn't have a browser at all.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Or “we like open source software and ‘freedom’ as long as it is used by the right people in a way that I agree with”
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Wow all low-hanging fruit patent-troll type of stuff :( The patent system is so broken.
  - kyle-rb 4y ago
    Most of these patent numbers seem to be incorrect; all the numbers except for the first one seem to point to unrelated patents. I was curious about the email one, but "7,536,726" points to a different Microsoft patent (also expired), and I couldn't find a patent with the name "System and method for providing remote access to electronic mail".
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      I did wonder about the ethics of pasting a list derived from ChatGPT without checking them personally. Thanks for doing the legwork on that. What I'm finding (over the last few minutes of experimentation) is that patent references in ChatGPT are valid, but tend to have the wrong numbers associated with them. If you ask it to summarize the claims in a given patent, it will sometimes pull up the wrong patent. Interestingly, you can correct it with a suitable prompt -- see one example at https://i.imgur.com/EQrhFt8.png https://i.imgur.com/EQrhFt8.png -- at which point it will do the right thing or at least come close to it. Anyway, the point stands: there is only so much Google can do to stand up to Microsoft. Royalties in 2013 reached $2 billion ( https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-pe... ) and it's safe to say they didn't stop filing bullshit patents in 2013.
AshamedCaptain 4y ago
In the last months I have heard everything from MS including "Firefox is the #1 source of security bugs in enterprise" and the like.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Since that's verifiably false, why hasn't Mozilla filed a defamation lawsuit over it?
rejectfinite 4y ago
Lobbying? Please describe
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Constantly hanging out with the senior management praising Edge. As they say "Microsoft is better at talking to your boss than you do". Also their consultants are trained to be shills. Every time we have a call with them they will remark about it if we use another browser, even though their area of expertise has nothing to do with it.

nabilhat 4y ago

This sounds remarkably familiar. A certain ERP I've been dealing with sent out dire warnings about installing and updating Edge, else something nebulously defined would break. This understandably caused a lot of confusion and frustration with users (the ERP spammed so many with this warning...) and pissed off IT teams. It turns out that the Edge they were talking about was the ERP's own software named Edge (amusingly named and released long after Edge the browser showed up), which they leave for the end user to optionally install, and actively refused to clearly document why, where, and how to install it. The fun part is all of this was to update an expired certificate.

magicalhippo 4y ago

> forcibly migrated all Firefox users to Edge Man, I can understand doing that for regular users who don't care, but as a developer? Just a few weeks ago an integrator for an ERP system our customer had bought was trying to show some details in a Teams call when his PC suddenly rebooted. He came back and apologized, turns out it was a company policy forced reboot. In the middle of the day because what are timezones? If my company tried anything like forcing which browser is installed or when my machine reboots, I'd hand in my resignation promptly.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MaxLeiter 4y ago
From a security perspective, I feel like my employer can do what they need to. I wouldn’t accept 24/7 active monitoring, but ensuring programs are up-to-date and trusted seems like basic steps in preventing a security incident. The two programs I’ve used that auto-update your machine give you plenty of a heads-up that you should do it yourself.
- ghusto 4y ago
  > From a security perspective, I feel like my employer can do what they need to I've always felt that this kind of attitude from IT departments is counter productive. It gives people a false sense of security at best, and baby mentality at worst (where they assume no responsibility because it's apparently someone else's).

einpoklum 4y ago

Which organization? At least they can get derided publicly for doing this...

plorg 4y ago
I work for a small manufacturing company. I'm not going to blow up my company or my job over a decision I have next to no insight into that affects my job in such a small way.

nicoburns 4y ago

I wonder why they don't just allow both

Peanuts99 4y ago

This is 100% down to the poor manageability of Firefox on corporate networks. Edge has all the same ADMX templates plus more than Chrome. Corporate management of software is important.

rejectfinite 4y ago

The above link is for home Teams. Your company should be using teams.microsoft.com ! :) So your comment makes no sense. We as IT admins may just want to keep track of Edge updates and extensions and not want someone running months old Firefox all sneaky like.

plorg 4y ago
I'm sure there's a distinction, but this is an anecdote, and the above link is specifically another person's anecdote. My comment makes fine sense, if you want to say they are completely separate products, it's probably unrelated just do that, don't be an ass. Our IT department doesn't treat us like idiots, FF was an officially supported browser until a month ago, we were on the most recent version. I believe them if they say it's about webapp compatibility, even if this does help them manage the browser under group policy or whatever. They could make this decision for whatever reason they want and wouldn't have a problem getting people to go along with it.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Because teams.microsoft.com works in Firefox teams.live.com does not So they are different and it is relevant.