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Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

• heavyset_go 3y ago
  Looks like nothing much has changed on Microsoft's end. I posted this 2 years ago on HN[1] about how Microsoft goes out of its way to manipulate users when they search for "Firefox" on Bing using Edge: > Tangentially related, but I recently spun up a Windows VM and used Edge to search Bing for "Firefox" and this is result I got[2]. > It's a giant banner that says, "You're already browsing in Microsoft Edge. Keep using to get world class performance with more privacy, more productivity, and more value." > That banner is followed by another giant banner image telling me to get "Get Robux using Microsoft Edge. Join Microsoft Rewards and use Microsoft Edge. Get a 100 Robux eGift Card on us when you search with Microsoft Bing on Microsoft Edge for 5 days after you join." > I had to scroll to even see the relevant search results for my search term. I'm assuming most non-power users won't scroll because they were just assured that they were "already browsing in Microsoft Edge", which is apparently more private, productive and valuable than what they intended to search for. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517187 [2] https://i.imgur.com/blHGMgX.png https://i.imgur.com/blHGMgX.png
  • monero-xmr 3y ago
    I installed Windows on a media PC (all other laptops are macOS or Linux) and it was like the entire OS is a web browser without ad block installed. Just endless nags, pop ups, notifications, ads in my start menu, ads in the login screen, holy shit. Who actually likes this? It’s insane!
    • Nition 3y ago
      > Who actually likes this? Microsoft.
      • Ygg2 3y ago
        I don't think they like it. But their customers - advertisers - sure do.
        • PaulHoule 3y ago
          You can turn all of that crap off with some effort. Contrast that to the Linux desktop where you can't turn off the "it just doesn't work" (unless you mean just disable the GUI completely and only use the CLI), and the enthusiast who says they have it working just the way they want probably has "just not working" more thoroughly than the defaults. The thing is that those ads are: (1) almost always for other Microsoft products, (2) frequently are for MSN articles aimed at Trump Voters, (3) probably destroy Microsoft products more than they promote them. As an example of (3), consider how Microsoft launched a product called SkyDrive without doing a Trademark check, had to rename it OneDrive (just like they had to call the third XBOX the XBOX ONE, contrast that to Sony where even Mom can tell a PS5 is better than a PS4) then made Office save to OneDrive by default and leave you not being able to save at all if it couldn't connect to OneDrive. That's like killing your product with 900 cyanide laced bullets, if they ever want me to use OneDrive again there is no amount of heavy handed marketing tactics that will work, even if I have to click 500 times and edit 30 registry entries to disable OneDrive I'll do that.
          • 15457345234 3y ago
            > Contrast that to the Linux desktop where you can't turn off the "it just doesn't work" The modern Linux desktop is pretty damn usable, especially if you go with something like PopOS. It's got to be covering 99% of non-workstation-type of use cases out of the box.
            • Ygg2 3y ago
              Eh. It depends. If you have something exotic as analog mouse it just doesn't work on Linux. And Linux suffers from OS version of Lisp curse - i.e. whenever two nerds disagree you get a new distro with slightly incompatible behavior. Not to mention Linux breaks compatibility left and right, while Windows lives with its mistakes forever.
    • sshine 3y ago
      That’s what get when you don’t pay for... oh, wait.
    • midoridensha 3y ago
      >Who actually likes this? It’s insane! It's not insane at all, it's good for business. Who likes it? Microsoft shareholders of course. All these annoyances help to increase Microsoft's profits, so they're good by definition. If you don't like the modern Windows experience, it's simple: don't use Windows.
  • pxmpxm 3y ago
    They really need to fire whoever keeps ramming non-sequitur rewards stuff into the windows product. I have still don't understand what the rewards are for, despite having spent inordinate amount of time removing them from my windows machines, but it's bizarre that some product manager gets to piss a convoluted frequent flier miles scheme all over microsoft's premier product. That's akin to Ferrari covering their very exclusive cars with promo stickers hawking those ferrari licensed asus laptops.
    • chongli 3y ago
      They really need to fire whoever keeps ramming non-sequitur rewards stuff into the windows product. How do we know this wouldn’t lead to firing the CEO? Frankly, I’m inclined to believe that enshittification [1] is the primary strategy of the company right now. They’ve had decades to build Windows market share and now they realize that growth in software license sales has all but dried up. On the other hand, they’ve seen how hard the wind is blowing in the services and adtech direction. So they’re determined to monetize their Windows install case right up to the hilt. They know they won’t be able to sell these folks expensive software licenses anymore, so they’re selling their users to advertisers instead. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
    • staplers 3y ago
      Most "rewards" programs (including for grocery stores) are to allow payment method-based tracking. Right now it's illegal to track users/customers based on payment method. This is more than just an upsell.
    • p-e-w 3y ago
      > That's akin to Ferrari covering their very exclusive cars with promo stickers hawking those ferrari licensed asus laptops. No it's not, because Windows is not a "premium" or "exclusive" product, at all. It's the textbook example of a mass market product. There are (far) more Windows installations than there are cars in the world. The average Windows user is almost indistinguishable from the average human. And the monetization strategies reflect that.
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    As with any person or business, you have to judge them not on what they say but on what they do. You can assume that about 50% of whatever anyone says is either a straight-up lie, misleading, or bullshit.
  • jmkni 3y ago
    Ironically I think non-power users will begin every browsing session by typing "www.google.com" into the address bar, avoiding this issue entirely.
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• userbinator 3y ago
  the new version still aggressively prompts you with a captive full-screen experience on start-up IMHO that is the peak of user-hostile behaviour. The urge to pull the power cord or hit the reset button when I encounter things like that is very hard to resist because of how insulting it feels, but I do wonder if most of the user population have already been beaten into submission and consider it only a minor annoyance and almost trivial.
  • 8note 3y ago
    The big problem is the prompt, and the options. Most commonly browsers just open full screen as a captive experience nowadays. There's no need to force me to click buttons before getting it. The android experience does it pretty well. If you want a second view on the screen, you work for it
  • foxylad 3y ago
    Doctorow's enshitification is everywhere. I use Debian so haven't experienced Windows for twenty years, but I recently travelled for three months away from the Pihole that blocks ads on my home network. The web was practically unusable. I guess it's the boiling frog and most people have just got used to having to scroll past three pages of ads to see what they want, but suddenly experiencing "normal" ad loads literally stopped me browsing the web.
  • teawrecks 3y ago
    Not ever experiencing this stuff anymore on linux is the best feeling.
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• dc3k 3y ago
  Glad I switched to ReviOS and don’t have to deal with these shenanigans. https://revi.cc/ https://revi.cc/
  • brirec 3y ago
    Huh, I thought people around these parts knew better than to trust some hacked up Windows “distribution.” At that point you might as well just use an illegitimately-activated copy of LTSC — at least you can be sure it wasn’t tampered with. Especially since installing Windows using customized install media is explicitly prohibited by the EULA of almost all Windows editions. You have to have the same sort of enterprise support contract with Microsoft that would get you access to LTSC to legally use this thing anyway.
    • heywoodlh 3y ago
      Interestingly, they seem to address this on their legal page[0]. Despite this, it does seem like just installing Windows and then attemting to debloat post-install is the least risky option than just trusting a third party Windows installer. [0] https://revi.cc/legal https://revi.cc/legal
      • seanp2k2 3y ago
        I used to like Blackbird for this, but after breaking updates and the Store enough times I’ve learned my lesson. O&O ShutUp10++ is all I used to debloat now, in addition to MassGrave activation. NTLite is the nuclear option if you’re prepared to invest a few hours crafting your “perfect” image.
    • userbinator 3y ago
      I thought people around these parts knew better than to trust some hacked up Windows “distribution.” That's what the corporate propaganda wants you to think --- that you are to trust Big Tech unconditionally, including all their user-hostilities, because they are supposed to be "good for you" somehow. While I have no doubt that some customised ISOs may contain malware, in my experience the "official" malware is really no better, and I can't think of any well-documented instances of trimmed Windows distros actually containing third-party malware, so I suspect the campaign against them, much like the similar one against cracks/patches/keygens, is mostly FUD to advance the interests of Big Tech.
• spullara 3y ago
  Better than Google constantly asking me to switch to Chrome on google.com when I'm in Edge.
  • freeAgent 3y ago
    Is it, though? You can ignore that stuff and keep going. You cannot get around MS forcing links from the OS search, Outlook, etc. to open in Edge and nothing else.
• piyh 3y ago
  I gave my old parents the latest hand-me-up laptop and installed ubutntu on it because of windows 11. The install process and default configuration is so user hostile to someone that "just needs to use chrome". My niece & nephew have only known ChromeOS/iOS/Android. They will never use windows until a college course requires some specific software, or they get a desk job. I think they will for sure eventually "learn windows", but I don't think the generation behind them will. I get the feeling more and more that peak Windows is upon us.
  • RankingMember 3y ago
    > I get the feeling more and more that peak Windows is upon us. If only. I remember people saying the same when Vista came out.
  • nyanpasu64 3y ago
    Ubuntu is now bundling advertisements for their paid services in apt upgrade output and the GUI software sources manager, in packages which cannot be uninstalled because they're hard dependencies of the `ubuntu-desktop` metapackage. Plus they've replaced Firefox with a package which installs a Snap, which loads so slowly they added a "snap opened" notification.
    • physicles 3y ago
      This is one of the reasons why I stopped using Ubuntu and switched to pop os. Is there something keeping you from switching to another Debian derivative?
      • k12sosse 3y ago
        Honest question, why not just Debian and use a derivative instead? I took a 20 year sabbatical on Linux in the home. But with windows 11, I decided to go back. Stopped on debian, and chose Debian when I came back. I am super impressed with how it has matured and it seems to be built in a way that really does a fair job on looking out for you as a user, and as an administrator.
• taftster 3y ago
  Edge is insidious too, from a privacy stand point. There are literally dozens of settings that effectively send "tracking" data to Microsoft from Edge. All of the sync, shopping, points, url protection, etc. settings all effectively send data to Microsoft for evaluation. And they automatically sign you into your Edge profile (from your Windows profile). Ugh. I get that HTML has taken over the world and that most of Office now is effectively a web app. So Edge is definitely a required piece of library software on any Windows install. But the inability to just open simple hyperlinks in an alternative browser combined with Edge's insistence that every "feature" is basically Microsoft profiling you... I guess it just boggles my mind how they get away with this.
  • EMM_386 3y ago
    Edge was even automatically sending every image URL you viewed to their servers to "enhance" the images via the "Enhance images in Microsoft Edge" setting, which was on by default. It seems like this has since been removed, but what kind of crazy decision is that?
    • bandergirl 3y ago
      A literal MITM attack on by default. How that made it past legal we’ll never know.
    • heyoni 3y ago
      Have they reversed that yet?
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• fortran77 3y ago
  Horrible! At least Apple doesn't force Safari on iOS users.
  • freeAgent 3y ago
    They force the engine, which is bad, but much less bad (IMO, at least) than forcing a full-blown browser full of insanely privacy-invasive defaults on users.
    • voxelghost 3y ago
      And they only force the engine on iOS, not Mac OS, as far as I know.
      • freeAgent 3y ago
        Yes, on MacOS you can use whatever browser you like, engine and all, while being unmolested for favoring something not-Safari. That’s why, after a lifetime of being a Windows user, my most recent PC purchase was a MacBook Air. I would prefer to use Linux, but where I’m at in my life, I just want something that works relatively well out of the box, and I use some software that won’t run on Linux.
        • kbrosnan 3y ago
          There are still ads for Safari if you use something else. MacOS will pop up a notification recommending Safari for battery savings.
          • freeAgent 3y ago
            Yeah, they do ask you to stay, but compared to what MS does, it’s nothing. They could be better, of course, but they aren’t in the same league with MS/Edge nags and abuse.
  • koito17 3y ago
    They indeed don't; they force browsers to use the WebKit engine instead. And comparing iOS to Windows is a bit unfair: one is a mobile operating system whereas another is a desktop operating system. You should compare what Windows forces on its users with what Mac OS forces on its users. With that said, Mac OS isn't entirely innocent either, such as giving users a "Try The New Safari" notification when they run a non-Safari web browser on their machine.[1] [1] https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/TRYTHENEWSAFARI.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/TRYTHENEWSAFARI.html
• k12sosse 3y ago
  Microsoft only continue to make Windows desktop because businesses "need it", and it's a gateway to sell people azure and office. Eventually they will open source as much of it as they can, or rather, build a flavour of windows that is Linux and essentially distribute binaries for the directx stuff and other things they're not willing to fully release the code on. mark my words, Windows isn't dying a natural death, it's parent is suffocating it in its sleep as a mercy killing.. mercy from having to support it forever
  • physicles 3y ago
    I agree that windows is a gateway to sell people on office, but open sourcing it? Getting decades worth of apps and drivers working on the Linux kernel instead of, you know, doing nothing? I don’t see how either one benefits them. They’re just monetizing users as much as they can stand to juice revenue. No other explanation is needed.
  • elzbardico 3y ago
    Open sourcing windows probably would be so difficult that you could consider it a nearly impossible task. Over 40 years of licensing and patent agreements with thousands of companies and institutions with the unavoidable flux of acquisitions, merges and deaths, big customer agreements. You'll need an army of lawyers and sizable team of developers working in a multi-year project to secure all the paperworks and sanitize the code where you couldn't reach an agreement with the other party.
• owenpalmer 3y ago
  Windows 11 is awful. I'll continue to use windows 10 on my personal laptop for as long as possible.
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  • UberFly 3y ago
    Win10 requires a lot of tweaking to make it usable. Win11 just requires more. I'm guessing every windows version going forward will be on the same escalator. When it's un-tweakable it'll be time for me to go.
    • shmde 3y ago
      Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC. Smooth as butter, I love it. No app store, none of that candy crush stuff. Its what I expected Windows to be. Its a shame that I considered myself a power user but only learnt about it 2 years back.
      • janfoeh 3y ago
        I am currently building a gaming PC for my partner, and the OS is my biggest unsolved headache. Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC sounds perfect - can I ask you for a recommendation on where to get a license? I haven't had to deal with Microsoft licensing in over fifteen years, and unsurprisingly the topic doesn't seem to have gotten any easier since then.
        • shmde 3y ago
          > Can I ask you for a recommendation on where to get a license? You have to sail the high seas. Unless you are a business you cannot possibly get an LTSC license. Such a bummer that the quintessential Windows 10 experience cannot be bought by the average public.
          • janfoeh 3y ago
• netfl0 3y ago
  Who forced you to use Microsoft (at home).
  • CameronNemo 3y ago
    Can you actually switch the default browser with group policy? What if your team only has the bandwidth to support a couple browsers, and your users say they want Chrome and Firefox?
    • hug 3y ago
      If this is an honest question, then Microsoft's answer is that you use Intune to push the Chrome & Edge settings (via the same policy node, since they're the same engine, they just report their spying to different corporations) and import an ADMX for Firefox policy. That's two browsers worth of policy that you're supporting, but it actually handles three bits of software.
      • CameronNemo 3y ago
        This doesn't answer my question... If an admin does not want their users using Edge, is there an actual way to configure the default browser that doesn't end up opening links and such in Edge?
        • hug 3y ago
          Didn't realise that was what you were getting at. In short, no, you cannot stop deep-links for Edge from opening in Edge.
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• beebmam 3y ago
  Good! Chrome is a monstrous application, and it's good when people are coerced off of it.
  • sham1 3y ago
    I spot a flaw in this, aside from the fact that the way this coercion is done is highly unethical and illegal, and it's that Edge is functionally a Chrome reskin with some added Microsoft bells and whistles. People switching from Chrome to Edge won't help with the browser monoculture. And especially switching from Firefox to Edge will not help.
• post_break 3y ago
  Microsoft is also forcing office 365 support to end on windows servers in 2025/2026. It's going to be a blood bath if you run on prem.
  • retrocryptid 3y ago
    Meh. I just use text files and emacs. And I hacked sc to use emacs key bindings for spreadsheets. It's far from an ideal system, but it works for me. Simplicity can be nice.
    • post_break 3y ago
      It's like saying I'm having engine trouble on my big rig, and you telling me about how you upgraded your tennis shoes.
      • retrocryptid 3y ago
        Don't ask the question if you don't want the answer. And sheesh, dude, how many alts do you have?
        • post_break 3y ago
          I don't know what an alt is. And this is not user machines, it's not like they can't run Word on their desktops, this impacts RDP hosts, machines that use an office backend for server based programs, etc. Hospitals, accounting firms, etc all will be heavily impacted by this.
          • retrocryptid 3y ago
            Ah. There's the difference. In our organization, users edit documents on personal desktops, laptops (and sometimes mobile phones and tablets.)
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• biogene 3y ago
  I don't care for edge for the most part, but there is actually one integration with edge that I have come to like. When I click on an email link inside outlook, edge opens the link, and also displays a sidebar which displays the email. Super handy IMO. Somehow we need to find a balance that allows vendors to tightly integrate their apps but prevent abusing this. MS is everyone's favorite whipping boy, but I fear what kind of ads Google while shove through if they ever get a dominant market share in desktop OSs. Apple seems to be the only sensible alternative.
  • l33t7332273 3y ago
    Ubuntu is very usable for a desktop OS.
    • petre 3y ago
      Except they too pushed ads (ubuntu advantage) and snap and other annoying stuff.
      • diffeomorphism 3y ago
        Windows: ads in the start menu, candy crush, hey you are trying to install chrome and I don't like that. Ubuntu: one line message in the terminal about we released <new thing> thing, feel free to try it. Yeah, basically the same thing.
        • c0nducktr 3y ago
          It's the same thing, just one company has taken it further. I realize this is a slippery slope argument, but when there are countless examples of how this slopes is slippery, I think it's a valid point of contention.
          • l33t7332273 3y ago
            I think it’s a very different thing. The slope doesn’t seem particularly slippery. Choosing to be anti-user in your marketing seems like a form line.
• PaulHoule 3y ago
  ... If they could just do it to Chrome but leave Firefox alone.
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• cebert 3y ago
  I used to be a huge Windows fan, but shoving Edge upon me so aggressively has made me decide it’s time to move on. Moving forward, I’m only buying Apple or Linux devices.
  • dismalpedigree 3y ago
    I bought my pre-teen a prebuilt pc for gaming recently. Figured windows 11 would be easier due to compatibility with games and it being pre installed. After screwing with it for several hours to remove as much crap as possible, What I found was that every time it restarted there was a new prompt to reenable something, surreptitiously start using a ms service, etc. I gave up and installed Ubuntu. Not every game works perfectly, but most do, and its no longer a confusing experience for my kid. I mean what the hell. My kid just wants to play minecraft for Christ's sake.
    • jay_kyburz 3y ago
      I would love to see my kids using KDE on some flavor of Linux, but the two biggest games they play have issues. Roblox and Fortnite.
      • lionkor 3y ago
        Its such a shame, because from what I can tell, the only reason Roblox doesn't work is because they do some very goofy stuff to launch the game
    • FireInsight 3y ago
      Once Ubuntu breaks: https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/ https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/ It's a gaming distro built on top of Fedora Silverblue, making it stable as heck while having up-to-date official steam, and other goodies. Works on Deck too, if you want that.
      • 0dayz 3y ago
        I am happy that my teenage dream of an actual sub-genre of desktop PC usage is finally getting distros designed that particularly purpose.
• daft_pink 3y ago
  I like windows, but really considering jumping to NixOs. Edge really feels like spyware.
• doyouevensunbro 3y ago
  I’m using Windows 11 and nothing forces open Edge on my machine. Every link opens in Brave like I told it to.
  • antiframe 3y ago
    What happens when you press Win, type a query, then press enter, quickly? In Win 10 that opens a Bing search in Edge for me, no matter what settings I try. Very annoying when I type "(Win)chr(enter)" to open Chrome and get a search instead. If I do it slow it will sometimes work. I haven't tried it on Win 11 because that was what caused me to drop Windows altogether. (Everyone has their straw).
    • LilBytes 3y ago
      The last time I checked, you can't change this to use anything but Edge either.
    • valzam 3y ago
      I have the same issue but even worse: If I do it too fast it works! Somehow it takes longer to find the app than it does to suggest a websearch, so I need to wait 1-2 seconds after typing not to open edge...
    • doyouevensunbro 3y ago
      I launch apps from the Win key all the time, never ending up in Edge. The worst for me is ending up in “Internet Options” when I want to launch IntelliJ.
      • zo1 3y ago
        Try typing something that ends up doing a "search" is what they're suggesting.
    • stevage 3y ago
      I use Windows 10. I'm not sure what settings I applied (I did do quite a few), but I don't get that. If I do Win+aoeuaoeu+enter, nothing at all happens. It just sits with a search box open showing "No results for aoeuaoeu". I can't actually see any way of getting to a browser search window from there (whether my preferred browser or not). So I must have found some way to disable that behaviour completely. Keep trying? (FWIW yes that is the way I open my browser: win+fire+enter. Nothing bad happens if I do it too fast.)
• charles_f 3y ago
  Smells like typical knee jerk reaction for a product that doesn't perform to a vp's expectations. PM's asked to do something about it, and between making the product better to attract users, or implementing defaults and such to force it on them, they choose the expedient.
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• AraceliHarker 3y ago
  Most of the people who participate in Windows Insider are amateurs, they don't have several PCs for functional verification, they don't have in-depth knowledge of software testing, and there is no point in blaming them. On the contrary, Windows 11 is entrusted to these amateurs for functional verification instead of QA, so it is not surprising that Windows 11 has bugs in every update.
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  • midoridensha 3y ago
    Why should Microsoft spend any money on maintaining a QA team and doing functional verification? What's the business benefit? Leaving QA to a bunch of amateurs is a good thing: it saves MS lots of money, and so increases profitability, and increases shareholder value. Windows users aren't going to stop using Windows because of a bunch of bugs that a dedicated QA department would have caught, so there's no reason to avoid bugginess.
    • anticensor 3y ago
      Remember that those bugs and antifeatures may also cause those very Microsoft shareholders and employees to lose data (and money and time). It is not like Microsoft shareholders are forbidden to use Microsoft products.
      • midoridensha 3y ago
        I don't see the board of directors or other large shareholders complaining to Microsoft about their product quality.
• perryizgr8 3y ago
  This is such a non issue. Might as well complain about ios shipping with safari as default.
  • pacifika 3y ago
    But it’s not about it shipping edge by default.
    • perryizgr8 3y ago
      Yeah, it's not. That's why I said it is "like" complaining about shipping safari as default. Because it is not exactly the same thing, but comparable.
      • yathaid 3y ago
        No it isn't. Its like you ordering sushi and the restaurant gives you shoes because they know better.
        • jay_kyburz 3y ago
          More like, they bring the sushi, but also a pair of shoes. And when you throw the shoes on the floor because they are not what you ordered, they come back over and put them back on the table. On iOS they only sell shoes, you don't go there if you want sushi. (and too bad if you find yourself locked into the apple ecosystem / restaurant, because shoes is all they have.)
          • BizarroLand 3y ago
            Well, and when you use chopsticks to pick up the sushi and put it in your mouth, they come over, slap the sushi off your chopsticks, slap the shoes onto your chopsticks and stand there, patiently watching and waiting for you to start chewing. And so you bring your own chopsticks so they won't be allowed to touch them, since they're not the chopsticks that the store provides, and they tape your hands to the table and try to force-feed you the shoes with their chopsticks, so you have to unstick your hands from the table, re-grab your own chopsticks, and fend your waiter off with one hand so you can pick up the sushi you want and eat it. Only, the store is in your house. It's at your job, it's everywhere you go to eat and you can only get away from it by locking your access to chopsticks away in your own home. (Running linux on a personal computer and not having easy access to a lot of convenient software)
• ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  I'm surprised no one has brought up United States v. Microsoft yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... They were successfully sued for favoring their browser over others, and faced being broken up. Though their actions now are not as egregious as those actions 25 years ago, it's obvious that no lesson has been learned.
  • zeusk 3y ago
    They did learn a lesson; from Google and Apple.
  • charcircuit 3y ago
    Microsoft successfully appealed it.
  • perihelions 3y ago
    - "their actions now are not as egregious as those actions 25 years ago" Which part of the other case do you view as more egregious? They seem similar to me.
  • dns_snek 3y ago
    > Though their actions now are not as egregious as those actions 25 years ago How so? They still bundle a browser, but now they go a step further and actively ignore user-selected preferences for the default browser.
  • yard2010 3y ago
    > On June 28, 2001, the Circuit Court overturned Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft. This was partly because Jackson had improperly discussed the case with the news media while it was still in progress, violating the Code of Conduct for American judges.[24] The Circuit Court judges accused Jackson of unethical conduct and determined that he should have recused himself from the case. Lol.
• noobdev9000 3y ago
  It's their OS. Seems like an odd issue.
  • gleenn 3y ago
    Wasn't there a major lawsuit long ago between Netscape and Microsoft over software bundling. Pretty sure it Microsoft in reaction made Internet Explorer free to avoid the monopoly claim effectively. This bankrupted Netscape because their browser was their only revenue driver whereas Microsoft could still sell its other products. Mozilla the non-profit was formed and inherited Netscape's browser software which was then supported by Google paying for it's search engine to be the default browser page in Firefox and funding the majority of the donations to Mozilla for years. So it's actually a huge deal with seemingly exactly the same precedent from the same company only a couple decades later. Kind of surprising they keep trying so it must be very lucrative.
  • leshenka 3y ago
    See that's a problem. When you buy a license it should become YOUR OS.
    • yomlica8 3y ago
      But I didn't buy the OS. It was force installed while I slept after I failed a dark pattern check due to fatigue.
• charcircuit 3y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks it's expected behavior for microsoft-edge://bing.com to open in Edge as opposed to any other browser? Edge isn't being forced onto people. People are just opening a deeplink into Edge.
  • foota 3y ago
    Microsoft is the one generating the deep links.
• seanp2k2 3y ago
  Looks like they really learned a lot from that $613M EU fine. I hope they double it next time. How much exactly do they make from forcing IE down users throats? Apparently enough to justify this behavior given the past penalties, just mind blowing that they’re able to continue to do this and just pay fines. You’d think there’d be more backlash at the board level to this type of behavior.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    Browser domination is the Holy Grail. They will persist as long as the EXPECTED VALUE of the fine is less than the projected benefit - which is existential for the company.
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• withinrafael 3y ago
  Glad to see someone else chasing this down, and not surprised this is still not yet reproducible. Paul Thurrott and I were also scratching our heads with this one on August 25. After failing to reproduce the behavior, he wrote up our collective experience [1] the next day. We chalked it up to yet another Windows Insider screw up, marked it as an unsolved case, and moved on. I certainly hope the change eventually makes it into the OS before the Windows 11 "23H2" release is finalized (imminent). [1] https://www.thurrott.com/paul/287711/scaling-back-the-terrible-in-windows-11-and-other-stories-id-like-to-tell https://www.thurrott.com/paul/287711/scaling-back-the-terrib... (pay-walled)
  • eganist 3y ago
    I remember when we first found out that IE could be "uninstalled" from Windows 7 (it was a checkbox in an early build's programs list that let you have it removed, basically). Interesting seeing the about-face over a decade later. --- for those not aware, Rafael's almost a two decade long authority on the topic of smashing Windows internals to bits to see how it all works.
    • hnlmorg 3y ago
      I remember when we first found out that IE could be uninstalled from Windows 98 and thus what eventually lead the EU to mandate Microsoft give Windows users a choice of 3rd party browsers. Back then businesses were a lot more scared of the repercussions of anti-competitive behaviour than they are now.
      • rjbwork 3y ago
        >Back then businesses were a lot more scared of the repercussions of anti-competitive behaviour than they are now. Reasonably, too. Governments seem reluctant to actually regulate anti-competitive behavior these days, especially from tech giants. I think it must be a kind of technological "too big to fail".
        • midasuni 3y ago
• theusus 3y ago
  I want the Chrome to stop being the majority shareholder of the market. But not like this.
  • no_wizard 3y ago
    Edge is effectively chrome under the hood. It’s not doing much for browser diversity
    • martinsnow 3y ago
      Exactly. If anything Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers gives a false sense of healthy competition.
      • mherrmann 3y ago
        I view Brave as very healthy competition to Chrome and Edge. Yes, it's based on Chromium. But it disables the many egregious privacy violations, as well as other bad things.
        • mythhabit 3y ago
          And whatever Google decides they want to implement or support in Chromium will be the web default, even just how they interpret ambiguities or undefined behaviours - standards be damned. We have tried this before and it was not pretty. That is why we need competing browser implementations.
          • yard2010 3y ago
            I'd argue for the opposite - we need strong standards and some methods to strictly enforce them. Governments could do that but the level of incompetency and politics are huge roadblocks
            • mythhabit 3y ago
              We have strong standards - but if there is only one implementation, that quickly becomes the standard no matter the text in the actual formalised standard.
• TonyStr 3y ago
  I used a debloater on my windows 11 laptop which also removed edge. No big deal since Firefox is my browser if choice, but I'm a Web developer and need to test my apps in different browsers. I've tried to install edge multiple times, but I can never get it to work.
  • kristofferg 3y ago
    You can’t remove plankton and expect the whale to survive.
  • seanp2k2 3y ago
    Try the second set of instructions here https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reinstall-microsoft-edge-in-windows-10/ https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reinstall-microsoft-edge-...
  • toastal 3y ago
    Edge is still Blink+V8. Just test Chromium or Brave & forget about Edge.
    • robin_reala 3y ago
      That’s not exactly true, there’s a bunch of ancillary code too. For example, image handling, where Edge doesn’t support AVIF: https://caniuse.com/avif https://caniuse.com/avif
      • leshenka 3y ago
        But that's (+ AV1) about it. I wouldn't install edge just to test whether there are any files encoded with these codecs. (unless there are a LOT of media encoded in different ways e.g. youtube) Just test on chrome and keep in mind to avoid AVIF
        • toastal 3y ago
          …Which you should be using the picture element or image() to fall all the way back to PNG or JPEG in most scenarios anyhow. New & improved formats like JPEG-XL should be considered ‘enhancements’ rather than relied on.
• brucethemoose2 3y ago
  I used to be ambivalent about Edge. It actually has some nice integrated features I would normally need (slow) addons for, and better integration in Windows features (like better DRM for video streaming). I even used it in linux some. ...But I just recently tested it on a brand new Windows desktop, and I can't believe how slow and spammy it feels out-of-the-box compared to Thorium/Chromite now.
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  • ImaCake 3y ago
    Yeah the actual product is great. But the KPIs at microsoft have lead to some extremely distasteful dark patterns ruining the experience.
• khobragade 3y ago
  I ended up blocking Edge in the firewall so it would at least close quickly without loading any useless stuff. Even then the firewall rule would reset periodically so I made a new one that points to the Edge binary.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    how can one do this?
    • khobragade 3y ago
      Here's how... 1. Find out where the Edge executable is; copy its path. 2. Open 'Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security' 3. Select Inbound Rules (Left pane). 3.1 Click on 'New Rule' (Right pane) 3.2 Set the type of rule to Program, click Next and paste the exe path and delete the quotation marks. Click Next. 3.3 Set the Action to 'Block the connection' and then select where this rules applies (select all three options). Click Next. 3.4 Specify a name (and an optional description) for the rule. Done! I also made a blocking outbound rule, but I don't think it's necessary for this purpose.
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• Gud 3y ago
  Wasn’t this breaking the law the last time? I remember it was calls to split Microsoft into separate companies, one for the operating system and one for the internet divisions. Looks like it’s time now. Last time Microsoft had the default web browser they were horrible stewards of the web. I’ll never forget them delaying supporting PNG.
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• dietr1ch 3y ago
  What made you think they'd stop? I just want them to use clippy to force you into going from google sheets back to excel just for the memes. (and don't tell me to stop giving them bad ideas, I know the higher-ups love them)
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• radium3d 3y ago
  Microsoft Edge is a privacy nightmare. They have buried dozens of data-collection settings in so many menus under so many different names and categories it's insane. You literally need a book to know which settings to turn off, and even then they keep adding new settings at a very high rate hidden in "security updates"
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• nxpnsv 3y ago
  How’s this making ms any money?
  • reilly3000 3y ago
    More edge usage tends to translate to more Bing queries and clicks, more data, more targeting, more cross selling their services. Google as default search in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox is a major problem for #2 search engine.
• mrweasel 3y ago
  Microsoft is weird. People where pretty happy about Edge initially and Microsoft fail to capitalize on that. Why not just create a good browser, bundle it Windows, ensure it has excellent privacy features and if people use it then great, if not, to bad. I really fail to see Microsofts end goal here. They don't need people to use Edge, they don't need to spy on people... So why do they feel like they must?
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• nologic01 3y ago
  Windows continuously monitors what browsers users have installed. If you uninstall Chrome, it immediately tries to make Edge the default browser. And it never respects my wishes for a default browser. Any OS embedded help link will open Edge, wasting me time, memory and screen space.
  • jay_kyburz 3y ago
    One thing I really hate is that, I like to hit the windows key and start typing the name of an app I want to open, but if I mistype the app name, it searches the web for the misspelling... in Edge!
    • mackrevinack 3y ago
      they have to get those bing numbers up somehow!
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• clove 3y ago
  I deleted Edge from my new laptop installation. Yet I now have problems opening certain apps because they rely on Edge.
• baz00 3y ago
  I've stopped forcing myself on Microsoft. Works wonders. Moved my workflow off the platform over the last 6 months entirely.
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• lionkor 3y ago
  On my work computer there is Windows 11, and what we build can only be built on windows. So naturally, I just accept almost all defaults. If you just go along with their (sometimes mindbendingly horrible) choices, you get to actually get work done. Of course it's a wonderful moment to boot up my machine at home, which has ArchLinux on it, with KDE and all the things I chose because I like them, and I'm at least 2x more productive. Reading code is much easier without distractions, with the right font, with the right colorscheme that I'm used to. Writing code is much easier when the IDE doesn't hijack Tab to insert AI autosuggestions (which as I said, I leave on, because I dont want to fight MS as its a waste of time). I can use bash without 194728 incantations of setting up path variables and installing all the tools I want. Yeah this is a rant, but man, Windows does a lot of work to force its defaults on you, and man, theyre horrible.
  • lacrimacida 3y ago
    I go along with whatever our employer policies are and don’t even have much say in for example when windows defender agressively scans and scans and scans slowing my machine to a crawl when Im building a Visual Studio project. It’s infuriating at times but it ain’t on my dime, I try to go along with the program, go for a coffee or walk when building. From minutes it went to 1/4 or 1/3 hours. Good job Microsoft, you’re burning my company’s money on fire. At work I eventually stopped caring whether I use chrome or edge, since Edge sets itself as default link everytime after a machine restart. At home too I’m mostly on Linux.
    • olavgg 3y ago
      For 10 years ago I was in the position of both of you. I hate being ineffective, but because of company policies I just had to go along. Anyway, the madness inside made me quit and after that I've booted several successful startups. Quitting was the best descision I've ever made. It is a big leap for sure, but heck. If you're not happy with current work, you shouldn't continue.
      • lacrimacida 3y ago
        Great for you. Im still trapped for now and not ready for much risk as I have a young child to raise. But hope one day I’ll make a move unless I get neutralized and stop caring for good.
• qyron 3y ago
  I share all criticism on the subject but I must admit there is a killer feature that alone converted me to use Edge on MacOS - native vertical tab bar with tab grouping. It worked much better for me than all Chrome and Firefox extensions I tried before. I know Brave implemented it recently too so Edge is not the only player in town now, but it was the first! Hopefully the rest of browsers will follow the trend.
  • SadTrombone 3y ago
    Have you tried Vivaldi's vertical tabs? They seem quite powerful and I like the implementation more than Edge's.
    • qyron 3y ago
      More powerful does not necessarily means better. Vivaldi indeed allows much more customization, but for my tab-heavy browsing pattern Edge's (and now Brave's) way suits much more. For example some things I don't like in Vivaldi: - No colors. In Edge/Brave new color is auto-assigned when creating new tab group and can be overridden at any time. - When tab group is expanded, the group name/header is not shown. When you have many groups with similar tabs they are much less visually distinct from each other. - Moving new tab to one of previous collapsed groups can be easily done via context menu in Edge. In Vivaldi you'll have to expand the group and drag the tab. These are all minor inconveniences but together they make a big difference.
• lacrimacida 3y ago
  My wife’s laptop just upgraded itself to windows 11 pro form 10 pro unasked & unsolicited and all prefs were changed to microsoft traps including edge being the default. Dark patterns galore. Luckily I could revert back to the previous version.
  • dustedcodes 3y ago
    Good husbands don't let their wives use Windows.
    • lacrimacida 3y ago
      She needs it for some software at work so I decrapified as much as I could and decided to go along but it’s a never ending battle with Microsoft’s agressive force. I wouldn’t force her with Linux and Mac is not something I am familiar with.
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    • ClassyJacket 3y ago
      Good husbands don't force their wives to wrestle with random daily problems like screen brightness not working on Linux because of their personal tech politics.
      • dustedcodes 3y ago
        MacBook Air M2 should be the choice for any normal person who just needs to get normal work done. No politics, but clearly I've touched an insecurity here :/
        • stevemk14ebr 3y ago
          insecurity lol. You made an unbased claim and retort with 'insecurity' when challenged. All operating systems have pros and cons, and people have preferences.
• 0dayz 3y ago
  I am shocked a company with a very sketchy history with repeated violation with anti trust related to internet browsers. But to be serious, I wonder what sketchy nonsense Microsoft would do if they could only compete on Linux or MacOS. On steam and other stores they force you to login into Xbox services.
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• gotschi_ 3y ago
  I refuse to use browsers that come tied deeply with the os. Last one I used was IE6 Thats all I have to say about these tactics over the last decades
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• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "Freedom of choice for customers! Microsoft edge is bringing me inconvenience. Just because a product is good doesn't mean I'm obligated to use it. I as a customer do not like this browser. I like another one and I want to have the options very clear to download the browser you want. Your browser edge is almost like a virus does not let me download another browser and we know clearly that all this is not to benefit customers and to direct us to the microsoft download store. I can't download another product other than microsoft this seems to me like monopoly syndrome, I request a change to a list teaching me the steps to have other free browser options, I don't want to remove the edge any more than other options. This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread." Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/freedom-of-choice-for-customers/b5c507eb-9136-4804-a332-9b8a19f73e9b https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/...
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• dustedcodes 3y ago
  "Hey friends :wave:, I call everyone my friend because I am a creepy old Influenza(tm) on TikTok trying to advertise snake poison to young folks. Don't be afraid, I'm just an innocent friendly neighbour hood virtue signalling Microsoft advocate. Look, here I use Edge, here I use Windows 11 with some bullshit hack to run Linux in my terminal and then I use (innocently) a bunch of other toxic Microsoft software to advertise this spyware to you in an unsuspecting way." Yawn... I think people are slowly waking up to Microsoft and their antics and fake people.
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• ryzvonusef 3y ago
  I use Edge on my laptop (because of Bing Chat, easy to use on Edge, without faffing around on OpenAI), and Microsoft still won't stop trying to push it on me every once in a while. (on windows 10, because of TPM1.2, small blessings) Like chill, you already got me. I am not going to remove Chrome and Firefox, but you are the default browser already and I use Bing too, now go away.
  • fhd2 3y ago
    A: "Edge conversations are up 4%! What else can we do to increase them?" B: "Users that already have Edge as their default browser also see these, shouldn't we first fix that?" A: "That wouldn't increase Edge conversions, would it?" B: "No, but..." A: "Then we don't have time for that. What can we do to increase them?" Been there - not at Microsoft, but it's not particularly unique to them.
    • offices 3y ago
      Maybe B doesn't exist because B uses Chrome.
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      • fhd2 3y ago
        Yeah I was wondering if they even know about it :D You'd have to listen to users (at least accidentally) or do some specific data analysis to find out I guess, if nobody on that team uses Edge.
    • silverpepsi 3y ago
      There's a special place in the inferno for Booking staff who send me distracting notifications about the fact that the hotel I'm currently living out of having availability. These are especially insidious as I dare not turn off their notifications, I'm staying at a place so traveler hostil they texted me 4 hours before noon check in day and said if I didn't reply by noon they'd cancel my reservation. It is a 13 hr flight to Indonesia and free universal in-air internet just ain't a thing yet. A 4 hour window to respond is beyond outrageous and irrational. Even a tourist from Japan could be without internet the whole while.
• 6510 3y ago
  They finally convinced me to try bing chat. Made a shortcut like so: microsoft-edge:https://www.bing.com/search?showconv=1&sendquery=1&form=MY02CD&q=is%20microsoft%20forcing%20edge%20on%20people&pl=launch https://www.bing.com/search?showconv=1&sendquery=1&form=MY02... Can also use it to create your own bing chat links on your home page. They've promised not to do it anymore in the EU apparently.
• RektBoy 3y ago
  Win10 in professional use turned me into Linux user. Sorry but I always lol'd people, when their box stopped working because of pending win update, ridiculous. I'm running a lot of Win builds on VMs for debugging etc. and it's enough for me.
• oefrha 3y ago
  Last time I tested an extension of mine on Edge, I counted four or five distinct ways Windows and Edge tried to convince or coax me into setting Edge as default. (Coaxing includes but isn’t limited to full-screen one-click “finish setting up your computer” on boot which includes adopting “Microsoft-recommended” browser security settings which of course means resetting the default browser. It appeared on every reboot until someone told me about a setting to disable it.) Mind you, the four or five ways I encountered were from using Windows 11 Pro normally or opening Edge briefly; I’m not even counting additional conditional shenanigans like special banner on chrome.com, or asking you to use Microsoft everything (including on mobile devices) to bump up your position in Bing Chat waitlist. The brazenness and shamelessness is really appalling.
  • cutler 3y ago
    It always surprised me how even savvy devs bought WSL as proof of Microsoft's good intentions. If you lived through Microsoft's antics in the 90s and 00s you could never imagine them changing. Well, here's the proof - they haven't. WSL was introduced purely to grab a piece of the expanding Linux market and followed their attempts to extort money from Red Hat and Suse via their bogus Linux patents racket.
    • green_biri 3y ago
      WSL allows me to use Linux from Windows in the most acessible way since VMs. What drives you to claim that it is simply an extortion attempt?
      • sangnoir 3y ago
        I'm not parent, but you may have missed the word "followed". Patent is suggesting that WSL is a follow up to previous attempts to benefit from Linux by extortion.
    • cutler 3y ago
      This in turn followed their failed attempt to derail UNIX by bankrolling SCO's failed anti-UNIX lawsuit.
• sandworm101 3y ago
  Every day of bad new for Microsoft and Windows is another great day for Linux. You all have a choice. Make it.
  • HeavyStorm 3y ago
    Sorry, I don't have a choice. And I find it naive to think that I do.
    • Draiken 3y ago
      You work with a MS stack? My condolences. Yeah this is a point that a lot of people forget: we don't always have a choice. Same happened to me years back but with MacOS. CEO was high on how "startups" all used Macs, and forced me to use an old shitty Macbook instead of my Linux. What an awful experience. Thankfully I now WFH with my own equipment and was never again forced into any particular OS.
      • fhd2 3y ago
        So I'm not alone! Once worked for a Apple-only company using only Apple hardware and even their office and cloud stuff. Thought there can't possibly be a lot of those. To give Microsoft some credit, at least you can run Windows in a VM pretty seamlessly. Low bar, I know, but Apple doesn't allow you to run macOS on non-Apple hardware IIRC. Using a Windows VM for a client that has a Windows-only (for now :P) stack, and the experience is a lot better than at that Apple-only place back then.
        • Draiken 3y ago
          Mine was a cheap bastard... they gave me an old Macbook my boss had dropped from the top of a server rack. It still "worked" (with random freezes and other intermittent issues), so they thought: why not save a buck? I'm sure my experiences with that tainted my views of MacOS somewhat, but still nothing compares to having real control over your OS. In the long run, Linux always wins in that regard.
• mlazos 3y ago
  This stems from modern companies’ obsession with measurable impact. If it can’t be measured it might as well not exist. Unfortunately UX has to become very very bad before the effect is measurable (losing users) and by then it is much too late, especially when the company has near monopoly power. I hope they figure out that they need to make feedback easier to gather so that they can get back to making good products.
  • wildrhythms 3y ago
    I have seen firsthand these companies only promote based on 'new' UI. The higherups want to see new shiny features that they can take credit for; not an improvement on an existing design that their predecessor came up with.
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• smcl 3y ago
  Has to be pretty embarrassing for the Edge developers that something they've worked on is mostly known as a punchline or an annoyance shoved down people's throats, rather than a product that can stand and compete on its own two feet.
  • offices 3y ago
    And the strategy of your employers implies that your work to improve the product doesn't actually matter, only tricking customers into becoming users does. There can be no discussion about the relative quality of Edge without this subject in the foreground. The only word-of-mouth is from the tricked users who don't know the difference and just see it as the button for the internet. It doesn't matter if you introduce a regression that makes it slower, they'll just blame it on the 'wifi'.
    • smcl 3y ago
      Precisely. It totally undermines their engineering efforts. There are people I know who use Edge willingly, and their anecdotal claims are that it has reduced resource usage over Chrome (somehow, which is weird since it's using the same engine). It was also used by a few in the Geoguessr community for a while since it didn't hit some annoying Google Street View bug that Chrome did.
      • nobodyandproud 3y ago
        I used Edge 2 for some time as a replacement for Chrome; I dumped Edge for Firefox once it became a hostile experience. The AI integration is what put me off completely.
        • smcl 3y ago
          That's fair enough. I'm personally a Firefox user and I suggest my friends use it too.
          • nobodyandproud 3y ago
• water9 3y ago
  Microsoft and their stupid OneDrive needs to stop trying to co-mingle all my data all the time. It’s gonna start getting really hard to have all these affairs on the side /s
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• mkl95 3y ago
  Windows 10 is just fine for my needs. Yet every weeks my system is kidnapped on startup by a menu full of dark patterns that tries to lure me into installing Windows 11. Not only is it hostile and deceitful, but it fails to explain the advantages of upgrading to 11, which makes it useless.
  • raxxorraxor 3y ago
    I use bios to boot my system and Windows tells me I don't meet the hardware requirements (because I don't use UEFI/secure boot). That completely stops any messages bugging me to upgrade. I just think that the message is quite misleading, because it certainly can run on my hardware. I just need to reformat my drive and activate the TPM. Some people might be inclined to really buy new hardware...
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  • yomlica8 3y ago
    I'd just disable the TPM in bios. Although I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to force install it on unsupported hardware.
• alexvitkov 3y ago
  Microsoft probably has better data than me, but I can't imagine that that many people switch to Edge after Microsoft forcefully opens it when you try to search for a local file. Just show some fucking respect to your users, it will be worth more than the 0.003% market share you get from opening Edge when I click a pdf
  • eloc49 3y ago
    Same deal when Chrome opens mailto links in gmail.com in the browser instead of my default mail client. Stuff like this made my switch to Firefox even more of a no-brainer.
    • phartenfeller 3y ago
      I am totally pro-Firefox, but your case is not about Chrome being a bad actor. For websites to be registered as link handlers, the user gets asked and has to accept (like camera access)[1]. There is no difference between Chrome and Firefox in this case. [1] https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/set-gmail-as-browser-default-email-client-ht https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/set-gmail-as-browser-defa...
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• hospitalJail 3y ago
  This was one of the straws that finally got me to switch to Linux. Enough complaining about M$, change to Linux and email every company that isnt fully supporting Linux that they need to adopt to 2023 computing.
  • wtp1saac 3y ago
    This 100%. US regulation is woefully inadequate, and even if the EU has teeth, US companies are gonna treat them as toothless and see how far they can get screwing over the world. It’s time to fight back against Big Tech by refusing to use it as much as humanly possible. Especially those of us on the software side that could contribute to improving the FOSS space.
• anhner 3y ago
  Why would anyone assume they will stop?
• TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
  All these comments about coercing Windows into some semblance of usability. After several years of not having a PC, I recently bought a new one to use Windows to play ONE game that several of my other friends play on it, and it has been extraordinarily frustrating to configure. From the on-topic charade of browser choice, to denying Microsoft's many attempts to take over several other defaults, or install Office, to power management robbing me of the performance I paid for, to OneDrive and it's confusing integration with the awful Explorer, to all the nagware buried in all the drivers, to the giant FUCK YOU in the Bluetooth stack that shuts it down after a minute to save energy(!?) forcing me to plug in a keyboard and mouse to fiddle with it until I finally found the setting to turn that off... And then making you go through the routine of turning down all their attempts to take everything over again every time there's a Windows upgrade. Seriously, how does anyone with a choice put up with an operating system that continually slaps you in the face and treats you with so little respect? Or, God forbid, think this user experience is superior to macOS or Linux?
  • ubermonkey 3y ago
    IME, people who insist that Windows is somehow "better" are people with only a very very shallow level of experience with it, and who have zero or near-zero experience with Macs or well-configured Linux. But they're a LOT of those people, and so it gets repeated.
    • tallanvor 3y ago
      Macs aren't for everyone. I had a Macbook Air back in the days where they still came with spinning drives, and after dealing with random freezes for months, I finally discovered that the drive was failing despite there not being any warnings displayed. It was only when trying to upgrade to the next version of the OS that it told me it couldn't install on a failing drive... But it would have happily let me keep using the system without letting me know about it! Don't get me started on the people at the Apple service center not understanding SMART status....
      • ubermonkey 3y ago
• lofaszvanitt 3y ago
  Is it really that hard to innovate to differentiate yourself and steer the browsing experience somewhere else, away from this mess? Maybe the employee selection program is completely flawed at big companies like these or these people are purposefully suppressed. Because today's browsers, with their antiquated ui and the non existing user experience is really disturbing.
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• jacquesm 3y ago
  Edge is trash. If Microsoft wants to do something positive for the browser diversity landscape they should match Google $ for $ on support for Mozilla, with the stipulation that the funds can only be used for FireFox.
  • jmartrican 3y ago
    Why do you say it is trash? I use it regularly. I use it primarily to test and code (e.g. inspect and tweak styles) a few web apps I code. I really like some of its features. What I didn't like was how it kept asking me to make it the default browser every time it upgraded.
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• eloc49 3y ago
  > You may have read stories in the tech media celebrating that Windows will finally respect the default browser setting. As someone who hasn't daily driven Windows since Windows 7 this statement is hilarious, because back then, it did respect default browser settings.
  • hhh 3y ago
    You mean the same OS where the internet settings has a (default checked) toggle box for “Tell me if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser.”?
    • tmerc 3y ago
      As long as it stays off when you uncheck it, that's better. When you set your default browser to Firefox but using the search bar in task bar opens everything in edge, that's problematic.
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• josefresco 3y ago
  I use Windows 10/11 daily. The number of times Edge was "forced on me": 0 The number of times Edge launched when I expected or wanted my default browser (Firefox): 0 The number of times my browser default was reset to Edge: 0 I just don't understand this outrage. I spend 90% of my time in Firefox/Chrome - I've only started using Edge lately to play with Bing "AI" Chat. I had to search for it!
  • zvmaz 3y ago
    Are people hallucinating? If so, why? Mere prejudice?
    • josefresco 3y ago
      Tech bloggers looking for views find every single way (however improbable) that Edge will disrespect your choice. My experience as a "daily driver" shows these circumstances to be rare. Still waiting for the articles on iCloud.
  • archon810 3y ago
    I had Edge forced on me a number of times and had to change a setting to prevent it from happening. The most recent case in point, I updated my wife's Outlook to the latest version and it started opening all links in Edge. I had to Google it and found that Microsoft forced this change on everybody and I needed to tweak a setting. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297/microsoft-edge-force-outlook-teams-web-links-open https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297/microsoft-edge-fo...
    • josefresco 3y ago
      It's not forced if there's a setting to disable. "Reset my default" would be more accurate.
      • katbyte 3y ago
        That is literally forcing edge on people.. it is ignoring their choice, and forcing them to use edge or change the desired browsers. It is not forcing them to use it (mostly) but it is forcing edge on them in a dark pattern which needs to be called out.
• Pxtl 3y ago
  The only time I've felt Edge was forced on my was MS Teams has its own browser binding and defaulted to Edge. Otherwise? The system-level "firefox is my browser" seems to be working fine.
  • fuzzfactor 3y ago
    I just got Teams autoinstalled without warning on an earlier version of W11 for which it was not present. Promptly uninstalled it since I have no use for Teams. I don't think Windows is very suitable for the internet anyway, but I really did like last year's Edge for its built-in PDF handler. That's all I used Edge for, certainly not browsing the web, but for some reason I connected anyway and in came Teams. Now that the excellent old Edge PDF reader has been replaced by a built-in Adobe joint effort, Edge is now more useless than ever.
• e-clinton 3y ago
  Edge is my default browser on my Mac, and I get annoying when Safari gets launched somehow.
• RadixDLT 3y ago
  I'm trying to uninstall edge, but can't
  • doogieboo 3y ago
    I replaced msedge.exe with a blank, read only file. I was very surprised nothing ever fixed it. I've removed the exe before and it always magically re-appears.
• EMCymatics 3y ago
  Edge is fun to use but has too many ads.
• Crontab 3y ago
  This makes me mad because I actually do like Windows. I don't understand the need to make it crappy considering their market share.
• psyclobe 3y ago
  Every time I log into windows and that “Lets finish setting up your computer” wizard starts, I feel abused, betrayed, and forced into whatever bullshit Microsoft wants to shove down my throat. It sucks.
  • me-vs-cat 3y ago
    Have you tried not logging into Windows? It was a huge effort for me to switch. Now almost 20 years later, I don't regret it. Wish I had done it sooner.
    • survirtual 3y ago
      KDE skinned linux reminds me of the glory days of Windows, but modernized and upgraded. There is little reason for anyone of even modest technical abilities to be using windows now. Gaming was the last bastion of having Windows, but with Proton, Linux can run nearly any "Windows-only" game. It is a small effort to switch now. There has never been a better time.
    • psyclobe 3y ago
      Happily running Linux now that my job no longer requires windows development ;)