24 ms·

The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

506 points by thombles 4y ago

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
archive https://archive.is/hmdfZ https://archive.is/hmdfZ
Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
> Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to. Apart from the small matter of Google paying Apple $15bn to be the default search engine in Safari.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Nobody would criticize Microsoft if they did the same with Edge and left it at that.
  - justeleblanc 4y ago
    I sincerely doubt that.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Do you think there is some coordinated smear campaign against Microsoft that is holding them to a higher standard than its competitors, and if so, why do you believe this instead of the simpler explanation that people are fed up with a user-hostile OS/browser especially when it is the only upgrade path from a prior, non-user-hostile one (Windows 7)?
      - justeleblanc 4y ago
        What's the point of introducing a strawman like that? A coordinated smear campaign, really? Nobody said before you. You're painting me as a conspiracy theorist and alienating me from the debate. Why should I bother replying?
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        No offense intended. Your response insinuated that even if Edge did the same as Apple, people would still complain, which suggests that Microsoft is the target of some hate that Apple wouldn't be subject to, so I wanted to understand your reasoning.
    - pseudalopex 4y ago
      Almost no one.
skrebbel 4y ago
I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recently and it has Windows 11. Did you know that Windows 11 has a feature called “widgets”, a popup from the left bottom which has weather, traffic warnings nearby etc? It makes a fair bit of sense, except that it’s filled to the rim with terrible clickbaity news headlines and you can’t turn it off! Someone at Microsoft decided that the entire Windows install base, ie nearly everybody, must really read news about foreign celebrities doing questionable things. The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation that removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible news, but still nuts. Edge has this too. There’s now a Bing button in the toolbar full of “discover” and “suggest” type features that nobody wants. I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt. The core of both Edge and Windows 11 are tastefully designed. You can really see that it’s been built by people who want to ship great software. Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? Who at Microsoft benefits from me seeing the latest Taylor Swift gossip when I just want to know when it’ll rain? Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?
- r12343a_19 4y ago
  > Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)? (Internal) metrics say otherwise.
  - skrebbel 4y ago
    (Internal) metrics may be short sighted.
    - tetrep 4y ago
      What if they're not? What if it really is economically better for Microsoft to "double dip" and try to monetize Windows beyond its purchase price?
frankjr 4y ago
It would be interesting to hear what people outside of the HN bubble (or outside of tech in general) think about this. I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the first place.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the first place. Does anyone, besides maybe the elderly (out of habit), use a desktop computer to read (clickbait, low-quality) news instead of their phone? As an anecdote, I know a non-technical Windows user who unlocks their machine by clicking the "like what you see?" prompt on the lockscreen backgrounds as a way to dismiss the (stupid) lockscreen and get to the password prompt. Doing so opens a Bing search for some bullshit (in Edge obviously) which she just leaves in the background as she moves onto her actual work-related application. I bet this looks great in metrics and "engagement", while being totally fake engagement and not actually representative of the usefulness of this "feature". I wonder how many other useless features are misused by non-technical users where all the "engagement" is actually just accidental clicks.
  - bdw5204 4y ago
    I wonder how many of the clicks on online ads in general are just accidental clicks. Especially clicks from phones where it is extremely easy to accidentally load the ads. This question will probably never be answered because it is a vital business interest of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and every company that makes phone apps that it not be answered.
    - joseda-hg 4y ago
      My phone has recently started to randomly detect taps in a specific segment of the screen, the placement is just right to trigger ads if im not careful My normal tolerance for ads is basically 0, so I expect a change on what gets shown to me until I replace my phone, which will be interesting, because ads I get shown are targeted to me pretty accurately From the location and other problems, I'm guessing the battery has swollen, so it will have to be pretty soon
mrweasel 4y ago
While I'm sure that the shareholder love this, from the outside it looks like that last desperate acts from a company try to avoid bankruptcy.
- binbag 4y ago
  You think Microsoft are at risk of bankruptcy? Why?
  - mrweasel 4y ago
    No, not at all. That's my point. All these ads, data collection and selling of data, that's just unnecessary. Microsoft don't need the additional revenue, yet Edge is filled with stuff that I'd only expect from a shady online gaming company, or a company that's severely short on cash. As others have pointed out, maybe it's actually "features" that adds value for the general public, maybe it's just greed. In any case from my point of it taints the image of a company that's otherwise highly respected.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      For any company of Microsoft's age & size, "doesn't need" is completely orthogonal to "corporate executive greed". You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect for MS.
      - mrweasel 4y ago
        > You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect for MS Maybe it would be better if Microsoft tried to live up to the standard and ideal that people like me expects from a company in their position. Realistically you're right, it would be easier for me to adjust my expectations, but I won't because I see no evidence that I'm not morally right.
        JohnFen 4y ago
        That would be better, yes, but the reality is that's not something you can control, and it's very unlikely to happen.
pityJuke 4y ago
Oh, the Bing button does have an opt-out. It's a Registry Option or a Group Policy option (or create a custom shortcut with some launch argument). Because of course they have to make it as annoying as possible, and impossible for a traditional user.
- plorg 4y ago
  There also used to be a setting that would turn this off, but it isn't present in the version with the button. That same option can be chosen with a command flag, but that requires editing the Edge shortcut.
speg 4y ago
Oh man, as a longtime Mac user I have zero patience for this. Unfortunately my corporate laptop is a Windows one and when that giant, gaudy big blue Bing icon showed up in my toolbar yesterday I dropped everything to try and disable it. I was disappointed but not surprised there was no setting for it. A quick search online led to some policy and registry settings but the corporate policies my company has in place wouldn’t allow those. Thankfully I found a command line option and quickly made a new shortcut which worked. Back to work without that giant B looming over me.
- pluc 4y ago
  Mind sharing that shortcut for fellow corporate-policy dwellers?
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Any job that forces me to use a Windows machine for a significant amount of time is a job I will not take. The only way to fight against this bullshit is to make it a downside for the companies that deploy it, and in turn, their supplier (Microsoft).
  - 404mm 4y ago
    Same. It became one of my interview questions and I haven’t had windows as my primary work machine OS for 9 years now. If I have to work with it for 8 hours a day then it becomes part of sanity. Protect your peace :)
justinclift 4y ago
Did you know that out-of-the-box, Edge will transmit the content of your text boxes on web pages to the Microsoft Editor service for the purpose of grammatical suggestions? I have no idea how this concept got past legal but hey, it’s on by default now. Holy shit. :( At what point are some of the major government legal departments actually going to step up and sort this shit out? It is so, so, so, so, so far past overdue. Yet nothing. :(
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Chrome does the same thing for textboxes if you use enhanced spell checking. >Enhanced spell check Uses the same spell checker that’s used in Google search. Text you type in the browser is sent to Google.
  - imajoredinecon 4y ago
    The difference is that Google has come under enough historical privacy flak that they now aggressively privacy red-team new functionality like this and do things like make it opt-in.
    - justinclift 4y ago
      That seems new?
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Is there an actual example of what these "enhanced" spell-checkers provide over basic ones that run locally? To me it seems like spell checking is a problem that Word from over a decade ago solved well enough (and ran fine on that era's hardware).
    - delecti 4y ago
      A normal local spellcheck requires you to be much closer to the word than an "enhanced" one. As an example, if I search Google for "nucrusift" ("microsoft", but typed with my right hand one space to the left, a fairly common category of typo IME), it suggests a search for "Microsoft". The built-in spellcheck in Chrome (which I'm using to type this comment) does not offer any suggestions to correct "nucrusift".
tyingq 4y ago
There's also the dark bit where changing your default browser in Windows doesn't apply globally. That is, some UI widgets will still open Edge even if you change the default. There used to be an awesome open source project called EdgeDeflector that would fix that. Microsoft got wise to it and found a way to neutralize it, which killed the project. https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  MSEdgeRedirect should work still.
pluc 4y ago
The only reason to use Edge is because your corporate policy forces you to. There is no other reason whatsoever. If you must, use Chrome if you'd rather send all that data to an advertising company in exchange for a familiar UI. Otherwise, use Firefox.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  Edge has lots of great features and UX elements that set it apart. Eg proper vertical tab bar, profiles with great UX, “turn site into desktop app”, well-designed website translation, etc. Chrome has some of these and Firefox lets you piece it all together with lots of add-ons but it’s not the same. Firefox is my daily driver, but for a long time, before all these user-hostile misfeatures were added, Edge was Pretty Great As Well in my opinion.
  - manderley 4y ago
    "Turn site into desktop app" is a Chrome feature, and has been for many years. Chrome calls it "Create shortcut - Open as window". Website translations and the profiles UI is very similar to Chrome as well.
  - tripdout 4y ago
    The collections feature is really useful as well.
  - password4321 4y ago
    Edge dev tools has "edit and resend" built in.
    - pluc 4y ago
      "Edge dev tools" are Chrome dev tools that were Firefox developer tools.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    Brave has vertical tabs nowadays, though they're still behind a flag. But they've gotten pretty and stable enough that I don't miss Edge at all.
satoshiiii 4y ago
Wait until ChatGPT11 is embedded with Bing, Edge, and Windows. And it cannot be turned off because it will make the user's life easier according to MS' sales team.
- soundnote 4y ago
  I wanted to sleep tonight.
tmikaeld 4y ago
And Microsoft wonder why on earth people jump through their arsenal of hoops to switch from Edge to any other browser as a default. This would be it
- surgical_fire 4y ago
  The weird thing is going for Chrome, that is another bloated corporate mess.
srvmshr 4y ago
> If they offered privacy-enhanced ad-blocking Chromium with opt-in MS integration I think they would eat Chrome’s lunch. It’s a strict improvement in every way and I would absolutely love to see it. I wish Microsoft really paid attention to this. This is the core reason why people jumped to Brave (despite the crypto wallet connection & byzantine ad revenue sharing, which I assume sends some kind of telemetry too). I personally don't like it, but having a feature rich Chromium-based, modular features browser would be nice. This is such a missed opportunity.
elboru 4y ago
Microsoft feels like two totally different companies. One company can produce amazing concepts and products. But then, the other company comes and adds nasty “features” on top to ruin everything.
- jorvi 4y ago
  That’s because it is. There’s Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. Anything that’s tied to the consumer side can’t make its returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract value otherwise.
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    > Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. I see you haven’t actually used Azure Devops. (Their “enterprise github”, sort of.)
    - guhidalg 4y ago
      I have, it is actually really good. I remember being crap >5 years ago but lately I find it much nicer than GitHub. What makes you dislike ADO?
  - ChatGTP 4y ago
    Teams?
    - inquirerGeneral 4y ago
      [dead]
    - soundnote 4y ago
      Is heavy but mostly very good?
      - Karunamon 4y ago
Lendal 4y ago
I wouldn't call it "Dark" if switching it off is so simple and right there in front of your face. "Rapacious" is a great description though, and one I would see used in the title instead. These "features" shouldn't be default, they are extremely annoying and they are numerous. Some are arguably useful. But it's not "Dark" if you can switch them off right in the main interface where you'd expect, and doing so actually does what it says it will. Otherwise, this is an excellent article. Thanks for the tips!
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  "dark" as in the tech term "dark pattern." User-hostile defaults are generally considered a dark pattern.
  - Lendal 4y ago
    Oh, I thought "Dark Pattern" meant trickery, deception, and using the browser in a fraudulent way to make users do something they didn't want to do. The features described in the article are certainly unpopular and annoying to certain types of people including myself, but they're not fraudulent. They're not deceptive. They clearly say what they do, and become disabled when you disable them, using the provided controls. That's not a dark pattern. "Dark Pattern" does not just mean anything you don't like.
    - foobarbecue 4y ago
      That's how I see this. When customers buy Windows, they don't realize they are signing up for an ad-supported platform that vaccums up their data. It's trickery that you think you're buying an operating system, but it's actually your attention and data that are the product. Maybe we need a "contains adware" or "violates your privacy" label, FDA-style...
gibspaulding 4y ago
For everyone complaining about telemetry/popups/general bullshit in windows 10/11 itself, go download O&O Shutup 10+ and let it flip all of its recommended options. It gives the nice sane default that Microsoft should have in the first place. Slightly off topic I know since I don't think it will change things in Edge itself, but for that, you can go install your own preferred browser just like the last 28 years.
zvmaz 4y ago
It's also obscure what really gets sent to Microsoft, and what not. There was a Linux based OS that warned the user at every single application trying to phone the internet[1], even Gnome Calculator. [1] https://subgraph.com/index.fr.html https://subgraph.com/index.fr.html
- sph 4y ago
  There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page. Given the extraordinary claim, please link better proof. I cannot imagine GNOME calc phoning home, unless you crashes and you have manually enabled debugging telemetry post-installation.
  - zvmaz 4y ago
    > There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page. It is at the bottom of the page I linked to, under "Application Firewall". There is even a screenshot.
    - philposting 4y ago
      It looks like it's getting currency exchange rates from the IMF, not phoning home.
  - zvmaz 4y ago
    Note that in the example shown in the website, Gnome Calculator is not phoning home, but imf.org; probably a benign thing; it just showed how much control one can have over one's computing.
  - pseudalopex 4y ago
    The claim was not extraordinary. Many calculator apps have currency conversion.
    - sph 4y ago
      Fetching currency data is not phoning home. And how is currency conversion supposed to work without contacting an external service? Let's not dilute the original meaning. Phoning home means sending telemetry and other usage data to its creator and associated third parties, and this data exchange is not at all necessary for the program to do its job.
lapcat 4y ago
From 2020, "Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home?" https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf > We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups from this privacy perspective. In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- shoozza 4y ago
  A more up to date site about browser privacy is https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/
mihaic 4y ago
As a Windows user since version 3.1, ever since Windows 11 I've been thinking of migrating to KDE+Ubuntu. It's sad that Microsoft clearly has talented developers, but their product people seem to be like an Apple that is openly hostile.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  The difference is that Apple, at least until Catalina/Big Sur/Ventura, had good taste. They force you into their workflows or design conventions, but they were generally good or at least bearable. Whatever good taste Microsoft had, it evaporated shortly after the release of Windows 7.
  - pavel_lishin 4y ago
    OS X is slowly backsliding, too. It's not as bad as showing literal advertisements in the OS, but they're also trying to unify their mobile and laptop/desktop experiences, and it results in a worse experience on my laptop. I think I'm about two OSX upgrades away from switching to a *nix OS as my daily driver, though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint.
    - jonas-w 4y ago
      > ...though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint. https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/ is probably the closest one, it's open source and doesn't cost you a penny
jccalhoun 4y ago
The Edge team is working overtime to add in more and more "features" and it is just becoming more and more irritating.
29athrowaway 4y ago
It is your fault for using the successor of Internet Explorer
trustingtrust 4y ago
Almost every default setting from companies like Microsoft and google with have tons of telemetry enabled to ‘serve’ you better. I believe Ooshutup like tools can help up to a certain extent.
edandersen 4y ago
Wait until this chap sees the Crypto Wallet actually being added to Edge. https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/1636759487829917698?s=20 https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176...
- password4321 4y ago
  This feels like an April Fool's joke, yikes!
- schemescape 4y ago
  Is there an official source for this? Edit: I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. The capitalization of "Web3" isn't consistent, most of the text reads like it hasn't been reviewed/edited. Seems fake to me. Edit again: there are several more screenshots, many of which contain glaring typos. This is almost certainly fake.
shp0ngle 4y ago
I am using edge as I like the vertical tabs… the only browser that has this feature, kind of, is Safari; but safari extensions suck (if you tried to ever build one, you would understand why). It’s otherwise very user hostile but just I love the vertical tabs so much
- cycomanic 4y ago
  I've been using vertical tabs in Firefox for longer than Edge existed. Currently I'm using the treestyle tabs extension, but there are others. I find it interesting how we have a perfectly viable alternative in Firefox, but even many privacy informed users still promote Edge or Chrome. The author is a perfect example of this, he says he wants to box his "privacy exposure" to as few companies as possible. That would somehow make sense if all "companies" (in the broadest sense) were equal, but Firefox is made by a non for profit with the explicit goal of keeping the Internet free and private. And for the argument regarding Apple, Apple is perfectly happy to milk you for all your private data as well, they just keep it all to themselves. Why else the locking to their ecosystem.
- soundnote 4y ago
  Brave has vertical tabs built in, designed to work much in the same way as Edge's (you'll need to enable a flag. Then right click a tab)
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    Oh I will try it then. I disliked how Brave includes all the crypto nonsense when I tried it last. Yes you can turn it off, but you can say that about Edge too.
    - soundnote 4y ago
      'Bout that... https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/1636759487829917698 https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176... (Also, use the Brave Beta. It seems that some key fixes haven't gotten to Stable yet)
- 4y ago
mdasen 4y ago
> Partly I’m hoping that somebody at Microsoft will wake up to the unrealised potential of Edge and start treating it like Safari: a utility that end users can trust to have their back and preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as possible. Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to. I understand what the author is getting at, but Apple does make a lot of money off Safari. Their deal for Google to be the default search engine makes them a ton of money. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-estimated-to-be-paying-15-billion-to-remain-default-search-engine-on-safari/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-e... "Sacconaghi estimates that Google could be paying nearly $15 billion in 2021 for default placement. This is an increase over the roughly $10 billion Google paid last year for the exclusivity." That's essentially $15B in pure profit. The issue isn't that Microsoft wants to make money from Edge. Apple makes plenty of money from Safari while making sure Safari keeps that space as "a utility that end users can trust to have their back and preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as possible." The issue is that Microsoft is looking for all the edge cases to milk marginal profits out of. Microsoft could just have Edge feed Bing traffic and make money off ads on Bing - but they want more! The issue isn't always making money vs. not making money. Sometimes the issue is restraint. It's why I'm sometimes skeptical about companies trying to optimize things too much. Maybe your profits are increasing, but are you doing long-term damage to your product and brand that will see bad long-term effects? "We've found that we can increase ad revenue by adding 7 more ads to the page." Then a few years later customers have left. It can be really hard to pass up what seems like free money and what seems to be working. Whether it will be sustainable money is the question, but often one that isn't asked.
- thimabi 4y ago
  > Microsoft could just have Edge feed Bing traffic and make money off ads on Bing - but they want more! That won’t work if users switch their default search engine to Google, what many of them probably do. And Edge’s user base is relatively small anyway.
- e4e5 4y ago
  The only reason apple is making money with safari is because they keep it a browser people trust. If people wouldn't trust safari, and treat it like edge: uninstalling it, moving to other browsers, etc.. it wouldn't be worth it for google to pay apple.
nubinetwork 4y ago
That's not even all of them... Edge routinely takes over file association of pdf files, even if you have Adobe Acrobat installed. At work, we had to apply a whole slew of GPO and logon scripts to force Windows into using Acrobat.
- password4321 4y ago
  However bad Edge is, Adobe Acrobat Reader is worse. I understand it is a necessary evil for some of the forms stuff, digital signatures, and the full edition for editing.
  - dblitt 4y ago
    Now you can have both! https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2023/02/08/adobe-acrobat-microsoft-edge-pdf/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2023/02/08/adobe-acrobat...
rejectfinite 4y ago
Edge has been getting worse and worse. I switched to Firefox and Vivaldi instead. Chrome, just in case I need it.
coffeefirst 4y ago
Yes. In a lot of ways Edge is a better Chrome that doesn't force you to make your Browser Syncing account the same as your default Google Account. But they keep adding invasive features without asking. There's supposed to be a setting for Discover but it's not actually there.
- mormegil 4y ago
  Yeah, it used to be that way until Microsoft noticed this good idea of browser syncing accounts… So now it goes in the same direction: https://imgur.com/a/wLcljDK https://imgur.com/a/wLcljDK
sandworm101 4y ago
As had been said many times, every bad day for microsoft is a great day for linux. There is a way. That way is freedom.
wildmXranat 4y ago
Wait until you find out about the trap that is "default page or home page" in Edge... What poop show. I installed Windows 10 LTSC and am not looking at a regular, retail level Windows ever again. They are shoving distractions and spyware into every app
password4321 4y ago
Occasionally Edge works up the nerve to force logging into my Microsoft account to continue with a modal login dialog that cannot be avoided unless I terminate the process. I'm not sure what triggers this or if there's a way to disable it, but it doesn't appear if I restart a new instance.
eh9 4y ago
So, in the same way pixels have been found to illegally transmit protected health information (PHI) back to the social giants, MSFT is just sending any data in text boxes to their servers…? They’ll just deal with the class action when it comes…?
dboreham 4y ago
I use an arm surface when traveling (google doesn't ship an arm binary for chrome so I use edge). This has driven me nuts. To stop Edge from displaying ads and add-inducing news stories on a new tab, you have to install a third party extension. Microsoft disables that extension every few weeks.
uni_baconcat 4y ago
I quite like MS365 and Edge works great together. But there’s just too much adverts and unrelated content from MSN.com pushed to the index tab. Also, they ruined the PDF experience when changing the engine from EdgeHTML.
- soundnote 4y ago
  Old Edge was a really nice ebook reader.
psyclobe 4y ago
This Edge bullshit pushed me off the edge; I'm all Linux now.
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  Microsoft does not force you to use Edge. There are some places where it will launch Edge instead of the default browser, like the start menu search or widgets, but they are quite pointless anyway. For all your other web browsing, you can just switch to Firefox and forget Edge is a thing.
dreamcompiler 4y ago
What worries me is that I know there's some VP at Microsoft right now trying to figure out how to convey the Windows/Edge crapware/adshit/tracking bloat experience to Github. One day it will happen.
graycat 4y ago
There is a LOT of discussion here about the Microsoft Web browser Edge and Windows 10/11. I have some questions. Background: At present I'm a heavy user of Windows 10 Home Edition, Firefox, KEdit, Rexx, etc. From a move, I have a Windows 7 Professional system in a box and am eager to get it running. That system has the 100,000 lines of code for my Web site I'm eager to get on-line. I'm considering plugging together a desktop computer for a Web server, with, say, some 16 core AMD processor, solid state memory for much of the file system, e.g., the SQL part, running some version of Windows Server 2019. (1) Simple question: This thread has many mentions of a widget. What is a widget? Maybe I use them nearly hourly, but I don't know just what they are, what the definition is. (2) My understanding is that with Windows Server, can turn off the automatic updates. Is that true? Hopefully. (3) I am guessing that with Windows Server I can still run software that has long, commonly run on Windows, e.g., KEdit, Firefox, Rexx, some IBM code in Fortran for the classic applied math of linear programming, a Fortran compiler, Adobe's Acrobat PDF reader, Knuth's TeX mathematical word processing software, .... Is this true? (4) I'm guessing that Windows Server will have less of the intrusive, unrequested popups, suggestions, recommendations, etc. about shopping, weather, travel, news, celebrities, etc. than Windows 10/11 have. Is that true? (5) Generally, if I want or need to leave Windows 7 Professional, I hope to move to some version of Windows Server and just stay away from Windows 10/11. Is that doable? Thanks!!
- graycat 4y ago
  What is a widget? Google search software widget has some good descriptions, examples. I was surprised that Google had such a good description of widgets. It turns out that I am not a heavy user of widgets and would not much like them. Okay, that answers my question about widgets. Anyone have any information on the questions about Windows Server?
oneplane 4y ago
If you accidentally click on the Sign In button in Edge, it locks into an infinite loop asking for your credentials until you either enter them or kill the process in task manager. No amount of clicking cancel actually cancels it, and since it's a modal dialog you also can't continue using the browser.
Frenchgeek 4y ago
I've never used Edge: I usually use my Windows machine solely for gaming so I've had no need for it. But one day, that browser started itself to tell me of all the new.. Well, whatever it was, I killed the process before it could end its spiel. So now, I'll never use Edge. I don't know what their marketing department believe their core business is, but selling adware and spyware isn't a viable long term strategy.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
happybuy 4y ago
Wrote a similar article for Safari's Dangerous Defaults: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safaris-dangerous-defaults/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safaris-dangerous-default... These articles came out in the same week, so it looks like one inspired the other or was just serendipitous timing.
Neil44 4y ago
It’s all very well turning these off but they’ll get reset at some point when there’s an update anyway.
siliconc0w 4y ago
My next compute 100% won't be a windows computer, I am so done with this horseshit. Steamdeck is good enough(if not better) for gaming which was the main motivator.
thallavajhula 4y ago
Wow, what a coincidence. I literally changed all of these just yesterday. I found the clutter extremely annoying and wasn't sure why Edge was going for the early 2000s "install the search bar" vibe on Internet Explorer. That's just awful UX and taste.
Mikho 4y ago
This huge blue Bing icon in the toolbar near the address bar is really abusive. It's too big and really provides no real value except offering users to sign up for a waiting list. There is a hack to remove it. The simplest option is to: Step 1: Add in the properties of the shortcut icon that launches the Edge browser additional flag: --disable-features=msEdgeSidebarV2 So, it would look something like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --profile-directory=Default --disable-features=msEdgeSidebarV2 Step 2: Disable in the browser's Settings in the "System and performance" section "Startup boost" for it to not launch the browser in advance without the flag. Step 3: Restart the browser. P.S. I used to love the Edge and switched everything to it from Chrome. But OMG! Microsoft with every update ruins the experience even more and tries to shovel an even more irrelevant introduction to other services that have nothing to do with a browser. Microsoft abuses users' trust. I already think about abandoning Edge. I've read recently that next it will try to integrate a crypto wallet into the Edge.

506 points by thombles 4y ago

archive https://archive.is/hmdfZ https://archive.is/hmdfZ

> Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to. Apart from the small matter of Google paying Apple $15bn to be the default search engine in Safari.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Nobody would criticize Microsoft if they did the same with Edge and left it at that.
- justeleblanc 4y ago
  I sincerely doubt that.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Do you think there is some coordinated smear campaign against Microsoft that is holding them to a higher standard than its competitors, and if so, why do you believe this instead of the simpler explanation that people are fed up with a user-hostile OS/browser especially when it is the only upgrade path from a prior, non-user-hostile one (Windows 7)?
    - justeleblanc 4y ago
      What's the point of introducing a strawman like that? A coordinated smear campaign, really? Nobody said before you. You're painting me as a conspiracy theorist and alienating me from the debate. Why should I bother replying?
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        No offense intended. Your response insinuated that even if Edge did the same as Apple, people would still complain, which suggests that Microsoft is the target of some hate that Apple wouldn't be subject to, so I wanted to understand your reasoning.
  - pseudalopex 4y ago
    Almost no one.

skrebbel 4y ago

I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recently and it has Windows 11. Did you know that Windows 11 has a feature called “widgets”, a popup from the left bottom which has weather, traffic warnings nearby etc? It makes a fair bit of sense, except that it’s filled to the rim with terrible clickbaity news headlines and you can’t turn it off! Someone at Microsoft decided that the entire Windows install base, ie nearly everybody, must really read news about foreign celebrities doing questionable things. The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation that removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible news, but still nuts. Edge has this too. There’s now a Bing button in the toolbar full of “discover” and “suggest” type features that nobody wants. I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt. The core of both Edge and Windows 11 are tastefully designed. You can really see that it’s been built by people who want to ship great software. Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? Who at Microsoft benefits from me seeing the latest Taylor Swift gossip when I just want to know when it’ll rain? Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?

r12343a_19 4y ago
> Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)? (Internal) metrics say otherwise.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  (Internal) metrics may be short sighted.
  - tetrep 4y ago
    What if they're not? What if it really is economically better for Microsoft to "double dip" and try to monetize Windows beyond its purchase price?

frankjr 4y ago

It would be interesting to hear what people outside of the HN bubble (or outside of tech in general) think about this. I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the first place.

Nextgrid 4y ago
> I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the first place. Does anyone, besides maybe the elderly (out of habit), use a desktop computer to read (clickbait, low-quality) news instead of their phone? As an anecdote, I know a non-technical Windows user who unlocks their machine by clicking the "like what you see?" prompt on the lockscreen backgrounds as a way to dismiss the (stupid) lockscreen and get to the password prompt. Doing so opens a Bing search for some bullshit (in Edge obviously) which she just leaves in the background as she moves onto her actual work-related application. I bet this looks great in metrics and "engagement", while being totally fake engagement and not actually representative of the usefulness of this "feature". I wonder how many other useless features are misused by non-technical users where all the "engagement" is actually just accidental clicks.
- bdw5204 4y ago
  I wonder how many of the clicks on online ads in general are just accidental clicks. Especially clicks from phones where it is extremely easy to accidentally load the ads. This question will probably never be answered because it is a vital business interest of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and every company that makes phone apps that it not be answered.
  - joseda-hg 4y ago
    My phone has recently started to randomly detect taps in a specific segment of the screen, the placement is just right to trigger ads if im not careful My normal tolerance for ads is basically 0, so I expect a change on what gets shown to me until I replace my phone, which will be interesting, because ads I get shown are targeted to me pretty accurately From the location and other problems, I'm guessing the battery has swollen, so it will have to be pretty soon

mrweasel 4y ago

While I'm sure that the shareholder love this, from the outside it looks like that last desperate acts from a company try to avoid bankruptcy.

binbag 4y ago
You think Microsoft are at risk of bankruptcy? Why?
- mrweasel 4y ago
  No, not at all. That's my point. All these ads, data collection and selling of data, that's just unnecessary. Microsoft don't need the additional revenue, yet Edge is filled with stuff that I'd only expect from a shady online gaming company, or a company that's severely short on cash. As others have pointed out, maybe it's actually "features" that adds value for the general public, maybe it's just greed. In any case from my point of it taints the image of a company that's otherwise highly respected.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    For any company of Microsoft's age & size, "doesn't need" is completely orthogonal to "corporate executive greed". You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect for MS.
    - mrweasel 4y ago
      > You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect for MS Maybe it would be better if Microsoft tried to live up to the standard and ideal that people like me expects from a company in their position. Realistically you're right, it would be easier for me to adjust my expectations, but I won't because I see no evidence that I'm not morally right.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        That would be better, yes, but the reality is that's not something you can control, and it's very unlikely to happen.

pityJuke 4y ago

Oh, the Bing button does have an opt-out. It's a Registry Option or a Group Policy option (or create a custom shortcut with some launch argument). Because of course they have to make it as annoying as possible, and impossible for a traditional user.

plorg 4y ago
There also used to be a setting that would turn this off, but it isn't present in the version with the button. That same option can be chosen with a command flag, but that requires editing the Edge shortcut.

speg 4y ago

Oh man, as a longtime Mac user I have zero patience for this. Unfortunately my corporate laptop is a Windows one and when that giant, gaudy big blue Bing icon showed up in my toolbar yesterday I dropped everything to try and disable it. I was disappointed but not surprised there was no setting for it. A quick search online led to some policy and registry settings but the corporate policies my company has in place wouldn’t allow those. Thankfully I found a command line option and quickly made a new shortcut which worked. Back to work without that giant B looming over me.

pluc 4y ago
Mind sharing that shortcut for fellow corporate-policy dwellers?
Nextgrid 4y ago
Any job that forces me to use a Windows machine for a significant amount of time is a job I will not take. The only way to fight against this bullshit is to make it a downside for the companies that deploy it, and in turn, their supplier (Microsoft).
- 404mm 4y ago
  Same. It became one of my interview questions and I haven’t had windows as my primary work machine OS for 9 years now. If I have to work with it for 8 hours a day then it becomes part of sanity. Protect your peace :)

justinclift 4y ago

Did you know that out-of-the-box, Edge will transmit the content of your text boxes on web pages to the Microsoft Editor service for the purpose of grammatical suggestions? I have no idea how this concept got past legal but hey, it’s on by default now. Holy shit. :( At what point are some of the major government legal departments actually going to step up and sort this shit out? It is so, so, so, so, so far past overdue. Yet nothing. :(

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Chrome does the same thing for textboxes if you use enhanced spell checking. >Enhanced spell check Uses the same spell checker that’s used in Google search. Text you type in the browser is sent to Google.
- imajoredinecon 4y ago
  The difference is that Google has come under enough historical privacy flak that they now aggressively privacy red-team new functionality like this and do things like make it opt-in.
  - justinclift 4y ago
    That seems new?
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Is there an actual example of what these "enhanced" spell-checkers provide over basic ones that run locally? To me it seems like spell checking is a problem that Word from over a decade ago solved well enough (and ran fine on that era's hardware).
  - delecti 4y ago
    A normal local spellcheck requires you to be much closer to the word than an "enhanced" one. As an example, if I search Google for "nucrusift" ("microsoft", but typed with my right hand one space to the left, a fairly common category of typo IME), it suggests a search for "Microsoft". The built-in spellcheck in Chrome (which I'm using to type this comment) does not offer any suggestions to correct "nucrusift".

tyingq 4y ago

There's also the dark bit where changing your default browser in Windows doesn't apply globally. That is, some UI widgets will still open Edge even if you change the default. There used to be an awesome open source project called EdgeDeflector that would fix that. Microsoft got wise to it and found a way to neutralize it, which killed the project. https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector

pseudalopex 4y ago
MSEdgeRedirect should work still.

pluc 4y ago

The only reason to use Edge is because your corporate policy forces you to. There is no other reason whatsoever. If you must, use Chrome if you'd rather send all that data to an advertising company in exchange for a familiar UI. Otherwise, use Firefox.

skrebbel 4y ago
Edge has lots of great features and UX elements that set it apart. Eg proper vertical tab bar, profiles with great UX, “turn site into desktop app”, well-designed website translation, etc. Chrome has some of these and Firefox lets you piece it all together with lots of add-ons but it’s not the same. Firefox is my daily driver, but for a long time, before all these user-hostile misfeatures were added, Edge was Pretty Great As Well in my opinion.
- manderley 4y ago
  "Turn site into desktop app" is a Chrome feature, and has been for many years. Chrome calls it "Create shortcut - Open as window". Website translations and the profiles UI is very similar to Chrome as well.
- tripdout 4y ago
  The collections feature is really useful as well.
- password4321 4y ago
  Edge dev tools has "edit and resend" built in.
  - pluc 4y ago
    "Edge dev tools" are Chrome dev tools that were Firefox developer tools.
- soundnote 4y ago
  Brave has vertical tabs nowadays, though they're still behind a flag. But they've gotten pretty and stable enough that I don't miss Edge at all.

satoshiiii 4y ago

Wait until ChatGPT11 is embedded with Bing, Edge, and Windows. And it cannot be turned off because it will make the user's life easier according to MS' sales team.

soundnote 4y ago
I wanted to sleep tonight.

tmikaeld 4y ago

And Microsoft wonder why on earth people jump through their arsenal of hoops to switch from Edge to any other browser as a default. This would be it

surgical_fire 4y ago
The weird thing is going for Chrome, that is another bloated corporate mess.

srvmshr 4y ago

> If they offered privacy-enhanced ad-blocking Chromium with opt-in MS integration I think they would eat Chrome’s lunch. It’s a strict improvement in every way and I would absolutely love to see it. I wish Microsoft really paid attention to this. This is the core reason why people jumped to Brave (despite the crypto wallet connection & byzantine ad revenue sharing, which I assume sends some kind of telemetry too). I personally don't like it, but having a feature rich Chromium-based, modular features browser would be nice. This is such a missed opportunity.

elboru 4y ago

Microsoft feels like two totally different companies. One company can produce amazing concepts and products. But then, the other company comes and adds nasty “features” on top to ruin everything.

jorvi 4y ago
That’s because it is. There’s Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. Anything that’s tied to the consumer side can’t make its returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract value otherwise.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  > Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. I see you haven’t actually used Azure Devops. (Their “enterprise github”, sort of.)
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    I have, it is actually really good. I remember being crap >5 years ago but lately I find it much nicer than GitHub. What makes you dislike ADO?
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  Teams?
  - inquirerGeneral 4y ago
    [dead]
  - soundnote 4y ago
    Is heavy but mostly very good?
    - Karunamon 4y ago

Lendal 4y ago

I wouldn't call it "Dark" if switching it off is so simple and right there in front of your face. "Rapacious" is a great description though, and one I would see used in the title instead. These "features" shouldn't be default, they are extremely annoying and they are numerous. Some are arguably useful. But it's not "Dark" if you can switch them off right in the main interface where you'd expect, and doing so actually does what it says it will. Otherwise, this is an excellent article. Thanks for the tips!

foobarbecue 4y ago
"dark" as in the tech term "dark pattern." User-hostile defaults are generally considered a dark pattern.
- Lendal 4y ago
  Oh, I thought "Dark Pattern" meant trickery, deception, and using the browser in a fraudulent way to make users do something they didn't want to do. The features described in the article are certainly unpopular and annoying to certain types of people including myself, but they're not fraudulent. They're not deceptive. They clearly say what they do, and become disabled when you disable them, using the provided controls. That's not a dark pattern. "Dark Pattern" does not just mean anything you don't like.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
    That's how I see this. When customers buy Windows, they don't realize they are signing up for an ad-supported platform that vaccums up their data. It's trickery that you think you're buying an operating system, but it's actually your attention and data that are the product. Maybe we need a "contains adware" or "violates your privacy" label, FDA-style...

gibspaulding 4y ago

For everyone complaining about telemetry/popups/general bullshit in windows 10/11 itself, go download O&O Shutup 10+ and let it flip all of its recommended options. It gives the nice sane default that Microsoft should have in the first place. Slightly off topic I know since I don't think it will change things in Edge itself, but for that, you can go install your own preferred browser just like the last 28 years.

zvmaz 4y ago

It's also obscure what really gets sent to Microsoft, and what not. There was a Linux based OS that warned the user at every single application trying to phone the internet[1], even Gnome Calculator. [1] https://subgraph.com/index.fr.html https://subgraph.com/index.fr.html

sph 4y ago
There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page. Given the extraordinary claim, please link better proof. I cannot imagine GNOME calc phoning home, unless you crashes and you have manually enabled debugging telemetry post-installation.
- zvmaz 4y ago
  > There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page. It is at the bottom of the page I linked to, under "Application Firewall". There is even a screenshot.
  - philposting 4y ago
    It looks like it's getting currency exchange rates from the IMF, not phoning home.
- zvmaz 4y ago
  Note that in the example shown in the website, Gnome Calculator is not phoning home, but imf.org; probably a benign thing; it just showed how much control one can have over one's computing.
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  The claim was not extraordinary. Many calculator apps have currency conversion.
  - sph 4y ago
    Fetching currency data is not phoning home. And how is currency conversion supposed to work without contacting an external service? Let's not dilute the original meaning. Phoning home means sending telemetry and other usage data to its creator and associated third parties, and this data exchange is not at all necessary for the program to do its job.

lapcat 4y ago

From 2020, "Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They Phone Home?" https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf > We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups from this privacy perspective. In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
shoozza 4y ago
A more up to date site about browser privacy is https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/

mihaic 4y ago

As a Windows user since version 3.1, ever since Windows 11 I've been thinking of migrating to KDE+Ubuntu. It's sad that Microsoft clearly has talented developers, but their product people seem to be like an Apple that is openly hostile.

Nextgrid 4y ago
The difference is that Apple, at least until Catalina/Big Sur/Ventura, had good taste. They force you into their workflows or design conventions, but they were generally good or at least bearable. Whatever good taste Microsoft had, it evaporated shortly after the release of Windows 7.
- pavel_lishin 4y ago
  OS X is slowly backsliding, too. It's not as bad as showing literal advertisements in the OS, but they're also trying to unify their mobile and laptop/desktop experiences, and it results in a worse experience on my laptop. I think I'm about two OSX upgrades away from switching to a *nix OS as my daily driver, though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint.
  - jonas-w 4y ago
    > ...though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint. https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/ is probably the closest one, it's open source and doesn't cost you a penny

jccalhoun 4y ago

The Edge team is working overtime to add in more and more "features" and it is just becoming more and more irritating.

29athrowaway 4y ago

It is your fault for using the successor of Internet Explorer

trustingtrust 4y ago

Almost every default setting from companies like Microsoft and google with have tons of telemetry enabled to ‘serve’ you better. I believe Ooshutup like tools can help up to a certain extent.

edandersen 4y ago

Wait until this chap sees the Crypto Wallet actually being added to Edge. https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/1636759487829917698?s=20 https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176...

password4321 4y ago
This feels like an April Fool's joke, yikes!
schemescape 4y ago
Is there an official source for this? Edit: I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. The capitalization of "Web3" isn't consistent, most of the text reads like it hasn't been reviewed/edited. Seems fake to me. Edit again: there are several more screenshots, many of which contain glaring typos. This is almost certainly fake.

shp0ngle 4y ago

I am using edge as I like the vertical tabs… the only browser that has this feature, kind of, is Safari; but safari extensions suck (if you tried to ever build one, you would understand why). It’s otherwise very user hostile but just I love the vertical tabs so much

cycomanic 4y ago
I've been using vertical tabs in Firefox for longer than Edge existed. Currently I'm using the treestyle tabs extension, but there are others. I find it interesting how we have a perfectly viable alternative in Firefox, but even many privacy informed users still promote Edge or Chrome. The author is a perfect example of this, he says he wants to box his "privacy exposure" to as few companies as possible. That would somehow make sense if all "companies" (in the broadest sense) were equal, but Firefox is made by a non for profit with the explicit goal of keeping the Internet free and private. And for the argument regarding Apple, Apple is perfectly happy to milk you for all your private data as well, they just keep it all to themselves. Why else the locking to their ecosystem.
soundnote 4y ago
Brave has vertical tabs built in, designed to work much in the same way as Edge's (you'll need to enable a flag. Then right click a tab)
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  Oh I will try it then. I disliked how Brave includes all the crypto nonsense when I tried it last. Yes you can turn it off, but you can say that about Edge too.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    'Bout that... https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/1636759487829917698 https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176... (Also, use the Brave Beta. It seems that some key fixes haven't gotten to Stable yet)
4y ago

mdasen 4y ago

> Partly I’m hoping that somebody at Microsoft will wake up to the unrealised potential of Edge and start treating it like Safari: a utility that end users can trust to have their back and preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as possible. Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to. I understand what the author is getting at, but Apple does make a lot of money off Safari. Their deal for Google to be the default search engine makes them a ton of money. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-estimated-to-be-paying-15-billion-to-remain-default-search-engine-on-safari/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-e... "Sacconaghi estimates that Google could be paying nearly $15 billion in 2021 for default placement. This is an increase over the roughly $10 billion Google paid last year for the exclusivity." That's essentially $15B in pure profit. The issue isn't that Microsoft wants to make money from Edge. Apple makes plenty of money from Safari while making sure Safari keeps that space as "a utility that end users can trust to have their back and preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as possible." The issue is that Microsoft is looking for all the edge cases to milk marginal profits out of. Microsoft could just have Edge feed Bing traffic and make money off ads on Bing - but they want more! The issue isn't always making money vs. not making money. Sometimes the issue is restraint. It's why I'm sometimes skeptical about companies trying to optimize things too much. Maybe your profits are increasing, but are you doing long-term damage to your product and brand that will see bad long-term effects? "We've found that we can increase ad revenue by adding 7 more ads to the page." Then a few years later customers have left. It can be really hard to pass up what seems like free money and what seems to be working. Whether it will be sustainable money is the question, but often one that isn't asked.

thimabi 4y ago
> Microsoft could just have Edge feed Bing traffic and make money off ads on Bing - but they want more! That won’t work if users switch their default search engine to Google, what many of them probably do. And Edge’s user base is relatively small anyway.
e4e5 4y ago
The only reason apple is making money with safari is because they keep it a browser people trust. If people wouldn't trust safari, and treat it like edge: uninstalling it, moving to other browsers, etc.. it wouldn't be worth it for google to pay apple.

nubinetwork 4y ago

That's not even all of them... Edge routinely takes over file association of pdf files, even if you have Adobe Acrobat installed. At work, we had to apply a whole slew of GPO and logon scripts to force Windows into using Acrobat.

password4321 4y ago
However bad Edge is, Adobe Acrobat Reader is worse. I understand it is a necessary evil for some of the forms stuff, digital signatures, and the full edition for editing.
- dblitt 4y ago
  Now you can have both! https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2023/02/08/adobe-acrobat-microsoft-edge-pdf/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2023/02/08/adobe-acrobat...

rejectfinite 4y ago

Edge has been getting worse and worse. I switched to Firefox and Vivaldi instead. Chrome, just in case I need it.

coffeefirst 4y ago

Yes. In a lot of ways Edge is a better Chrome that doesn't force you to make your Browser Syncing account the same as your default Google Account. But they keep adding invasive features without asking. There's supposed to be a setting for Discover but it's not actually there.

mormegil 4y ago
Yeah, it used to be that way until Microsoft noticed this good idea of browser syncing accounts… So now it goes in the same direction: https://imgur.com/a/wLcljDK https://imgur.com/a/wLcljDK

sandworm101 4y ago

As had been said many times, every bad day for microsoft is a great day for linux. There is a way. That way is freedom.

wildmXranat 4y ago

Wait until you find out about the trap that is "default page or home page" in Edge... What poop show. I installed Windows 10 LTSC and am not looking at a regular, retail level Windows ever again. They are shoving distractions and spyware into every app

password4321 4y ago

Occasionally Edge works up the nerve to force logging into my Microsoft account to continue with a modal login dialog that cannot be avoided unless I terminate the process. I'm not sure what triggers this or if there's a way to disable it, but it doesn't appear if I restart a new instance.

eh9 4y ago

So, in the same way pixels have been found to illegally transmit protected health information (PHI) back to the social giants, MSFT is just sending any data in text boxes to their servers…? They’ll just deal with the class action when it comes…?

dboreham 4y ago

I use an arm surface when traveling (google doesn't ship an arm binary for chrome so I use edge). This has driven me nuts. To stop Edge from displaying ads and add-inducing news stories on a new tab, you have to install a third party extension. Microsoft disables that extension every few weeks.

uni_baconcat 4y ago

I quite like MS365 and Edge works great together. But there’s just too much adverts and unrelated content from MSN.com pushed to the index tab. Also, they ruined the PDF experience when changing the engine from EdgeHTML.

soundnote 4y ago
Old Edge was a really nice ebook reader.

psyclobe 4y ago

This Edge bullshit pushed me off the edge; I'm all Linux now.

Kwpolska 4y ago
Microsoft does not force you to use Edge. There are some places where it will launch Edge instead of the default browser, like the start menu search or widgets, but they are quite pointless anyway. For all your other web browsing, you can just switch to Firefox and forget Edge is a thing.

dreamcompiler 4y ago

What worries me is that I know there's some VP at Microsoft right now trying to figure out how to convey the Windows/Edge crapware/adshit/tracking bloat experience to Github. One day it will happen.

graycat 4y ago

There is a LOT of discussion here about the Microsoft Web browser Edge and Windows 10/11. I have some questions. Background: At present I'm a heavy user of Windows 10 Home Edition, Firefox, KEdit, Rexx, etc. From a move, I have a Windows 7 Professional system in a box and am eager to get it running. That system has the 100,000 lines of code for my Web site I'm eager to get on-line. I'm considering plugging together a desktop computer for a Web server, with, say, some 16 core AMD processor, solid state memory for much of the file system, e.g., the SQL part, running some version of Windows Server 2019. (1) Simple question: This thread has many mentions of a widget. What is a widget? Maybe I use them nearly hourly, but I don't know just what they are, what the definition is. (2) My understanding is that with Windows Server, can turn off the automatic updates. Is that true? Hopefully. (3) I am guessing that with Windows Server I can still run software that has long, commonly run on Windows, e.g., KEdit, Firefox, Rexx, some IBM code in Fortran for the classic applied math of linear programming, a Fortran compiler, Adobe's Acrobat PDF reader, Knuth's TeX mathematical word processing software, .... Is this true? (4) I'm guessing that Windows Server will have less of the intrusive, unrequested popups, suggestions, recommendations, etc. about shopping, weather, travel, news, celebrities, etc. than Windows 10/11 have. Is that true? (5) Generally, if I want or need to leave Windows 7 Professional, I hope to move to some version of Windows Server and just stay away from Windows 10/11. Is that doable? Thanks!!

graycat 4y ago
What is a widget? Google search software widget has some good descriptions, examples. I was surprised that Google had such a good description of widgets. It turns out that I am not a heavy user of widgets and would not much like them. Okay, that answers my question about widgets. Anyone have any information on the questions about Windows Server?

oneplane 4y ago

If you accidentally click on the Sign In button in Edge, it locks into an infinite loop asking for your credentials until you either enter them or kill the process in task manager. No amount of clicking cancel actually cancels it, and since it's a modal dialog you also can't continue using the browser.

Frenchgeek 4y ago

I've never used Edge: I usually use my Windows machine solely for gaming so I've had no need for it. But one day, that browser started itself to tell me of all the new.. Well, whatever it was, I killed the process before it could end its spiel. So now, I'll never use Edge. I don't know what their marketing department believe their core business is, but selling adware and spyware isn't a viable long term strategy.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

happybuy 4y ago

Wrote a similar article for Safari's Dangerous Defaults: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safaris-dangerous-defaults/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safaris-dangerous-default... These articles came out in the same week, so it looks like one inspired the other or was just serendipitous timing.

Neil44 4y ago

It’s all very well turning these off but they’ll get reset at some point when there’s an update anyway.

siliconc0w 4y ago

My next compute 100% won't be a windows computer, I am so done with this horseshit. Steamdeck is good enough(if not better) for gaming which was the main motivator.

thallavajhula 4y ago

Wow, what a coincidence. I literally changed all of these just yesterday. I found the clutter extremely annoying and wasn't sure why Edge was going for the early 2000s "install the search bar" vibe on Internet Explorer. That's just awful UX and taste.

Mikho 4y ago

This huge blue Bing icon in the toolbar near the address bar is really abusive. It's too big and really provides no real value except offering users to sign up for a waiting list. There is a hack to remove it. The simplest option is to: Step 1: Add in the properties of the shortcut icon that launches the Edge browser additional flag: --disable-features=msEdgeSidebarV2 So, it would look something like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --profile-directory=Default --disable-features=msEdgeSidebarV2 Step 2: Disable in the browser's Settings in the "System and performance" section "Startup boost" for it to not launch the browser in advance without the flag. Step 3: Restart the browser. P.S. I used to love the Edge and switched everything to it from Chrome. But OMG! Microsoft with every update ruins the experience even more and tries to shovel an even more irrelevant introduction to other services that have nothing to do with a browser. Microsoft abuses users' trust. I already think about abandoning Edge. I've read recently that next it will try to integrate a crypto wallet into the Edge.