9 ms·

Microsoft keeps shooting itself in the foot with Edge

59 points by redbell 3y ago

bunnyfoofoo 3y ago
http://archive.today/5FhyK http://archive.today/5FhyK
verisimi 3y ago
> Microsoft Edge wants you to do things its way Should be > Microsoft wants you to do things its way It thinks it owns your data, owns any interactions with you, like all corporations do. This is all supported legally. Once it has an online only OS, this will be obvious. It's a choice to go along with this nonsense, isn't it?
- Angostura 3y ago
  > It thinks it owns your data, owns any interactions with you, like all corporations do. Mozilla is a corporation. Do you hold the same opinion of Firefox?
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    Of Mitchell Baker's Mozilla, Inc. the answer is probably "yes" in some way even if that corporation seems to be more bent on manipulating your political opinion than the contents of your wallet. Of the Firefox browser project the answer is "no" notwithstanding some controversial choices related to the way self-hosted Firefox sync has been deprecated and the shenanigans around Pocket integration.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    Yes. Do you think it wouldn't/doesn't hand over your data, if requested to do so by, say, a secret court? I use ff btw.
- fifteen1506 3y ago
  Yes, but until it actively blocks people's typical day, it will be low on people's priority list. Those of us that, for whatever reason, see it coming, should keep calm and steady and keep ocasionnaly presenting our view in a non-confrontational way, and support groups or legislative efforts which may be allies. If you, like me, don't have the mental bandwidth for all of that, just try to keep frustration to a low when possible and keep rowing for the good side.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    > Those of us that, for whatever reason, see it coming, should keep calm and steady and keep ocasionnaly presenting our view in a non-confrontational way Yes. > and support groups or legislative efforts which may be allies. No. Legislative bodies are part of the problem. Most groups too . The governance structure is fascistic already - it is government and corporations working together. The tanker cannot be redirected, it's not a case of voting someone else in. If that's negative, sorry, but don't blame me. I'd rather deal with reality than a false hope. The deeper answer for me, lies with each individual. Each of us gets to choose.
    - fifteen1506 3y ago
      I see your point. I counter with: Societies abhor power vacuums. Someone will fill that niche. So, increased accountability is what's needed. More good newspapers/magazines with good research/investigation. More literacy. More time to do those things. More money to support good work.
      - verisimi 3y ago
        I see the vacuum issue with societies. But this talks to the heart of the issue - who has authority over the individual? Is a social structure (laws, convention, the understood history provided by that society, religion etc) superior to an individual and their lived experience? Can we say it is right for society to forcibly extract wealth and resources from those it purports to govern, for the greater good? Or is all that self-serving nonsense, to justify slavery? And then you might wonder what the purpose of this experience is for oneself. Is it to accommodate oneself to power in the best way one can, accepting it as inevitable, thereby tacitly consenting to the system we find? Or do we even embrace the system, to get all the goodies we can? Or does one grasp at something more intangible such as doing right and being guided by truth and love, trying to recover or even improve one's soul?
- mrjin 3y ago
  As long as there is no better alternatives, we don't really have a choice, do we? But I can see all those BS are about to come to an end. To me, Windows have turned into an entertainment system from a production system. Most of the computers I own already run Linux, but I do play games/videos on Windows, once I get rid of those last bits, why would I care what M$ wants?
Jenk 3y ago
Par for the microsoft product course. They are the 80%ers - all of their products achieve ~80% of their potential. Some might argue that's just being prudent and shipping only the minimally marketable features but my riposte to that is the layer upon layer of shit they continue to apply whilst ignoring broken core features on many of their products.
jve 3y ago
> If you search for "Google Chrome" through the address bar, it will bring up Bing's search results with a Microsoft Edge header banner claiming that "there's no need to download a new web browser." People forgot what it was to Google back in the day, where google was always showing a notification box to download their Google Chrome. So MS now uses their tactics. But they have grater leverage - they control OS and browser. And in this way they are not shooting themselves in the foot, but trying to keep the casual user base who doesn't care what color their internet gatway is. The only pity would be Windows not respecting default browser choice when opening links. And talking about Manifest V3 is some kind of mistake from MS... well, it is a chromium browser, what would you expect? Guess MS doesn't want to fork too deep from chromium. If users care about Manifest V3 then MS greatest competitor - Google - is also out of equation.
- ExoticPearTree 3y ago
  Yes, but back then the other option was Internet Explorer and literally anything else was better than it. Right now MS is playing the browser game again. And it is beyond me why it thinks people want to use Bing for search. Sometimes I have this impression that Microsoft has some collective amnesia where they think they’re in the 90s-00s again where they dominanted the market with their tactics. Quite curious why it hasn’t been sued yet by the DOJ.
  - petre 3y ago
    Google is bad enough these days that Bing could be seen as an "improvement". M$ might have a shot to make it even better by integrating OpenAI features and not involving their marketing division too much. Of course, their objective is not to create great software but to monopolize whole sectors and extract value = techno feudalism.
  - jve 3y ago
    Bing assistant which is maybe GPT3.5 comes out handy when searching for something. That was the time I started using Bing and it ain't bad.
    - 3y ago
elorant 3y ago
Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38831673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38831673
bpbp-mango 3y ago
Edge is pretty good. I'd like Firefox to pick up a few of the nice quality of life features Edge has introduced. The obvious example is saving credit card details. Apparently Firefox does this but only in the US?? Bizarre.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Chrome Autofill of my credit card does hit my card with some sort of £0 soft check. It also requests the CVC then doesn't fill it in on the webpage. I guess there are some expectations of Visa/MC that nobody wants to violate. 1Password, at least a couple years ago, did let you store your full CC details.
  - sp332 3y ago
    Are you sure it's not some kind of malware? Chrome doesn't ask me for the CVC.
    - Daneel_ 3y ago
      Chrome asks me to verify the CVC prior to it filling in the card details. I’m surprised yours doesn’t.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    > 1Password, at least a couple years ago, did let you store your full CC details. It still does.
- andyjohnson0 3y ago
  > he obvious example is saving credit card details. Apparently Firefox does this but only in the US?? Bizarre. I am in the UK, use Firefox on Windows and Android, and it constantly asks me if I want to save card details. Annoying.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    Check the settings.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vezycash 3y ago
Edge will die in two years if Microsoft keeps using it to increase views for Bing and MSN. They should remove useless features like news section, bing background image... or at least make it easy for users to disable them.
- djmips 3y ago
  These are not only useless they cheapen the product. It would be like if you were trying to sell a nice car but it came covered in tabloid headlines and advertisements for chicken.
- mcmcmc 3y ago
  Internet Explorer's not even dead yet, Edge will 100% be staying in the top 3 for desktop browser market share as long as long as it keeps Chromium as a base and maintains feature parity with Chrome.
  - e40 3y ago
    Absolutely this. The shit people will put up with is mind boggling and MS knows this.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  The Edge team is attached to the Ads division. It will only get worse.
bambax 3y ago
> The problem is that Manifest V3 will affect every browser that currently uses Chromium as a framework Is this true? Why shouldn't Chromium-based browsers be able to maintain V2 indefinitely?
- ghusto 3y ago
  My guess is because the company making that browser would then have to maintain (and patch) those parts of the code once Google stops supporting it?
- toyg 3y ago
  Because it's not like it's just a matter of commenting out a line with "if (version > 3){ explode(); }". The whole point of v3 is that it disables a ton of features and extensions points, changing a whole bunch of stuff in various places. Maintaining parallel v2/v3 compatibility will likely be an ever-increasing burden on Chromium forks.
fuzzfactor 3y ago
What bothers me is the updates are far too frequent, and every time after it updates you need to check every single setting to find which of your privacy-oriented configurations have been freshly compromised. And of course to bring yourself up-to-date with each newly introduced disappointment.

59 points by redbell 3y ago

http://archive.today/5FhyK http://archive.today/5FhyK

> Microsoft Edge wants you to do things its way Should be > Microsoft wants you to do things its way It thinks it owns your data, owns any interactions with you, like all corporations do. This is all supported legally. Once it has an online only OS, this will be obvious. It's a choice to go along with this nonsense, isn't it?

Angostura 3y ago
> It thinks it owns your data, owns any interactions with you, like all corporations do. Mozilla is a corporation. Do you hold the same opinion of Firefox?
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  Of Mitchell Baker's Mozilla, Inc. the answer is probably "yes" in some way even if that corporation seems to be more bent on manipulating your political opinion than the contents of your wallet. Of the Firefox browser project the answer is "no" notwithstanding some controversial choices related to the way self-hosted Firefox sync has been deprecated and the shenanigans around Pocket integration.
- verisimi 3y ago
  Yes. Do you think it wouldn't/doesn't hand over your data, if requested to do so by, say, a secret court? I use ff btw.
fifteen1506 3y ago
Yes, but until it actively blocks people's typical day, it will be low on people's priority list. Those of us that, for whatever reason, see it coming, should keep calm and steady and keep ocasionnaly presenting our view in a non-confrontational way, and support groups or legislative efforts which may be allies. If you, like me, don't have the mental bandwidth for all of that, just try to keep frustration to a low when possible and keep rowing for the good side.
- verisimi 3y ago
  > Those of us that, for whatever reason, see it coming, should keep calm and steady and keep ocasionnaly presenting our view in a non-confrontational way Yes. > and support groups or legislative efforts which may be allies. No. Legislative bodies are part of the problem. Most groups too . The governance structure is fascistic already - it is government and corporations working together. The tanker cannot be redirected, it's not a case of voting someone else in. If that's negative, sorry, but don't blame me. I'd rather deal with reality than a false hope. The deeper answer for me, lies with each individual. Each of us gets to choose.
  - fifteen1506 3y ago
    I see your point. I counter with: Societies abhor power vacuums. Someone will fill that niche. So, increased accountability is what's needed. More good newspapers/magazines with good research/investigation. More literacy. More time to do those things. More money to support good work.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      I see the vacuum issue with societies. But this talks to the heart of the issue - who has authority over the individual? Is a social structure (laws, convention, the understood history provided by that society, religion etc) superior to an individual and their lived experience? Can we say it is right for society to forcibly extract wealth and resources from those it purports to govern, for the greater good? Or is all that self-serving nonsense, to justify slavery? And then you might wonder what the purpose of this experience is for oneself. Is it to accommodate oneself to power in the best way one can, accepting it as inevitable, thereby tacitly consenting to the system we find? Or do we even embrace the system, to get all the goodies we can? Or does one grasp at something more intangible such as doing right and being guided by truth and love, trying to recover or even improve one's soul?
mrjin 3y ago
As long as there is no better alternatives, we don't really have a choice, do we? But I can see all those BS are about to come to an end. To me, Windows have turned into an entertainment system from a production system. Most of the computers I own already run Linux, but I do play games/videos on Windows, once I get rid of those last bits, why would I care what M$ wants?

Jenk 3y ago

Par for the microsoft product course. They are the 80%ers - all of their products achieve ~80% of their potential. Some might argue that's just being prudent and shipping only the minimally marketable features but my riposte to that is the layer upon layer of shit they continue to apply whilst ignoring broken core features on many of their products.

jve 3y ago

> If you search for "Google Chrome" through the address bar, it will bring up Bing's search results with a Microsoft Edge header banner claiming that "there's no need to download a new web browser." People forgot what it was to Google back in the day, where google was always showing a notification box to download their Google Chrome. So MS now uses their tactics. But they have grater leverage - they control OS and browser. And in this way they are not shooting themselves in the foot, but trying to keep the casual user base who doesn't care what color their internet gatway is. The only pity would be Windows not respecting default browser choice when opening links. And talking about Manifest V3 is some kind of mistake from MS... well, it is a chromium browser, what would you expect? Guess MS doesn't want to fork too deep from chromium. If users care about Manifest V3 then MS greatest competitor - Google - is also out of equation.

ExoticPearTree 3y ago
Yes, but back then the other option was Internet Explorer and literally anything else was better than it. Right now MS is playing the browser game again. And it is beyond me why it thinks people want to use Bing for search. Sometimes I have this impression that Microsoft has some collective amnesia where they think they’re in the 90s-00s again where they dominanted the market with their tactics. Quite curious why it hasn’t been sued yet by the DOJ.
- petre 3y ago
  Google is bad enough these days that Bing could be seen as an "improvement". M$ might have a shot to make it even better by integrating OpenAI features and not involving their marketing division too much. Of course, their objective is not to create great software but to monopolize whole sectors and extract value = techno feudalism.
- jve 3y ago
  Bing assistant which is maybe GPT3.5 comes out handy when searching for something. That was the time I started using Bing and it ain't bad.
  - 3y ago

elorant 3y ago

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38831673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38831673

bpbp-mango 3y ago

Edge is pretty good. I'd like Firefox to pick up a few of the nice quality of life features Edge has introduced. The obvious example is saving credit card details. Apparently Firefox does this but only in the US?? Bizarre.

lozenge 3y ago
Chrome Autofill of my credit card does hit my card with some sort of £0 soft check. It also requests the CVC then doesn't fill it in on the webpage. I guess there are some expectations of Visa/MC that nobody wants to violate. 1Password, at least a couple years ago, did let you store your full CC details.
- sp332 3y ago
  Are you sure it's not some kind of malware? Chrome doesn't ask me for the CVC.
  - Daneel_ 3y ago
    Chrome asks me to verify the CVC prior to it filling in the card details. I’m surprised yours doesn’t.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  > 1Password, at least a couple years ago, did let you store your full CC details. It still does.
andyjohnson0 3y ago
> he obvious example is saving credit card details. Apparently Firefox does this but only in the US?? Bizarre. I am in the UK, use Firefox on Windows and Android, and it constantly asks me if I want to save card details. Annoying.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Check the settings.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

vezycash 3y ago

Edge will die in two years if Microsoft keeps using it to increase views for Bing and MSN. They should remove useless features like news section, bing background image... or at least make it easy for users to disable them.

djmips 3y ago
These are not only useless they cheapen the product. It would be like if you were trying to sell a nice car but it came covered in tabloid headlines and advertisements for chicken.
mcmcmc 3y ago
Internet Explorer's not even dead yet, Edge will 100% be staying in the top 3 for desktop browser market share as long as long as it keeps Chromium as a base and maintains feature parity with Chrome.
- e40 3y ago
  Absolutely this. The shit people will put up with is mind boggling and MS knows this.
nullindividual 3y ago
The Edge team is attached to the Ads division. It will only get worse.

bambax 3y ago

> The problem is that Manifest V3 will affect every browser that currently uses Chromium as a framework Is this true? Why shouldn't Chromium-based browsers be able to maintain V2 indefinitely?

ghusto 3y ago
My guess is because the company making that browser would then have to maintain (and patch) those parts of the code once Google stops supporting it?
toyg 3y ago
Because it's not like it's just a matter of commenting out a line with "if (version > 3){ explode(); }". The whole point of v3 is that it disables a ton of features and extensions points, changing a whole bunch of stuff in various places. Maintaining parallel v2/v3 compatibility will likely be an ever-increasing burden on Chromium forks.

fuzzfactor 3y ago

What bothers me is the updates are far too frequent, and every time after it updates you need to check every single setting to find which of your privacy-oriented configurations have been freshly compromised. And of course to bring yourself up-to-date with each newly introduced disappointment.