4 ms·

You know what is more frustrating? Edge is nice browser (it would be even better if they allowed you a way to remove all the bloat they insert it), Microsoft di

You know what is more frustrating? Edge is nice browser (it would be even better if they allowed you a way to remove all the bloat they insert it), Microsoft didn't need these dark patterns.

moonleay 3y ago
What does Edge do, what Firefox or Chrome for that matter, cant do? In my experience there is little to no changes bysides the added microsoft bloat.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >What does Edge do, what Firefox or Chrome for that matter, cant do? Much better memory and power efficiency on Windows devices. Plus the Copilot/Bing AI mumbo jumbo.
- unsignedint 3y ago
  Actually, there's one. Not insisting on using the last profile used to open an external link, which is the reason I'm using Edge myself. In other word, I can't designate a profile as default profile for external links. It seems like Chrome's not interested implementing this.[1] [1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/110870809/default-profile-for-external-links?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/110870809/default-p...
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  Versus Chrome: tab groups, vertical tabs, collections, much better sleep/offloading of tabs, great synchronization across devices, "CoPilot" built in. I use Edge across Windows, macOS, iOS and iPadOS because of the collections. At the time Chrome was trialing tab groups but they were broken garbage and I haven't checked since. Invariably someone is going to note that with this extension and that extension and various canary flags you can do similar things, but I'd rather not have the nuisance. Edge actually has its uses. It is unfortunate that Microsoft is tainting it -- something the company just seems unable to stop itself from doing -- as it should sell itself.
- pxmpxm 3y ago
  It used to be faster in Windows and you could disable omnibox suggestion and autocomplete stuff (google won't because they need that traffic for ad revenue). Then microsoft started adding MSN type of bullshit to it (rewards, bing chat gp nonsense, reset new tab page / privacy settings / games (wut?) / shopping suggestion). Switched back to firefox after using edge for around two years.
janice1999 3y ago
A study from 2020 found Edge to be the worst browser when it comes to privacy, in a separate category of privacy invasion shared only with Yandex the Russian browser. > From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are qualitatively different from the other browsers studied. Both send persistent identifiers than can be used to link requests (and associated IP address/location) to back end servers. Edge also sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft and Yandex similarly transmits a hashed hardware identifier to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete. https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf
- baal80spam 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing this report. According to it, Brave is on top. Just reinforces my decision.
- coffeeling 3y ago
  I was really excited about Chromium Edge when it initially landed, but grew tired of the dark patterns. Seeing that grim report (or one very much like it on the ieee site) a few years back was an eye opener.
- hexage1814 3y ago
  Not everyone care about privacy, it's that simple.
lxgr 3y ago
If a browser is "nice if it weren't for all these dark patterns and annoyances", it's arguably not that nice, especially given that it's not open-source and there's no real way to patch out these bad behaviors.
- hexage1814 3y ago
  The software itself is pretty good, you can see that they put enough work on making something more than just a chromium skin. It's a optimized version of chromium that runs pretty well, especially in Windows. And they implemented very cool features, such as their vertical tabs, which I believe to have its best implementation compared to other chromium browsers, their sidebar which enables you pin sites on it, and its side by side mode, which is something that I would love to become a standard features in browsers. I think people are getting too cared away on things such as "open-source" or "it invades my privacy", or some weird deep hatred for Microsoft aspect, when most people don't care with that. It's not even a parameter for them to judge if a browser is bad or not, because they simply do not care. So you have to see the situation through the average people's eyes. I don't use Microsoft Edge, but I'm not some radical free-software absolutist either, I'm capable to see that most people don't care with that and make a fair observation about a piece of software. If you are worry with privacy/open-sourceness, there is Firefox, there is LibreWolf, etc...
  - lxgr 3y ago
    I wouldn’t call myself a “radical free-software absolutist” (and I hope you’ll agree that there’s a lot of ideological middle ground between an RMS and the average happy/dispassionately content Microsoft user), but one big advantage of open source in this context is that it’s a kind of insurance policy against the developer/owner taking things into a direction I don’t appreciate. I’d be much more likely to run a fork of Edge without the incredibly annoying/distasteful coupons and rewards it keeps trying to push on me, for example.
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    > I think people are getting too cared away on things such as "open-source" or "it invades my privacy", or some weird deep hatred for Microsoft aspect, when most people don't care with that. It's not even a parameter for them to judge if a browser is bad or not, because they simply do not care. So you have to see the situation through the average people's eyes. That is... an odd take? While it's true that society, as a whole, don't care much about, and I cannot stress this enough, many things, outside whatever may have some direct effect on everyday everyone's lives, someone needs to do the job of informing them about why something is actually more important than they may think. Thus, Edge users who are fine with the software, for a variety of reasons, may not understand why the browser is better or worse than the competition, if they choose to ignore the facts about it, regardless of it being open source or not. I think privacy is a big one. Perhaps I wouldn't choose Chrome over Edge, but I would absolutely not choose Edge over pretty much anything else. Privacy violations do have a larger effect on people lives than they may think, and they choosing Edge just because they can have vertical tabs, is a bit like choosing to smoke because it "calms the nerves".

You know what is more frustrating? Edge is nice browser (it would be even better if they allowed you a way to remove all the bloat they insert it), Microsoft didn't need these dark patterns.

moonleay 3y ago

What does Edge do, what Firefox or Chrome for that matter, cant do? In my experience there is little to no changes bysides the added microsoft bloat.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>What does Edge do, what Firefox or Chrome for that matter, cant do? Much better memory and power efficiency on Windows devices. Plus the Copilot/Bing AI mumbo jumbo.
unsignedint 3y ago
Actually, there's one. Not insisting on using the last profile used to open an external link, which is the reason I'm using Edge myself. In other word, I can't designate a profile as default profile for external links. It seems like Chrome's not interested implementing this.[1] [1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/110870809/default-profile-for-external-links?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/110870809/default-p...
llm_nerd 3y ago
Versus Chrome: tab groups, vertical tabs, collections, much better sleep/offloading of tabs, great synchronization across devices, "CoPilot" built in. I use Edge across Windows, macOS, iOS and iPadOS because of the collections. At the time Chrome was trialing tab groups but they were broken garbage and I haven't checked since. Invariably someone is going to note that with this extension and that extension and various canary flags you can do similar things, but I'd rather not have the nuisance. Edge actually has its uses. It is unfortunate that Microsoft is tainting it -- something the company just seems unable to stop itself from doing -- as it should sell itself.
pxmpxm 3y ago
It used to be faster in Windows and you could disable omnibox suggestion and autocomplete stuff (google won't because they need that traffic for ad revenue). Then microsoft started adding MSN type of bullshit to it (rewards, bing chat gp nonsense, reset new tab page / privacy settings / games (wut?) / shopping suggestion). Switched back to firefox after using edge for around two years.

janice1999 3y ago

A study from 2020 found Edge to be the worst browser when it comes to privacy, in a separate category of privacy invasion shared only with Yandex the Russian browser. > From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are qualitatively different from the other browsers studied. Both send persistent identifiers than can be used to link requests (and associated IP address/location) to back end servers. Edge also sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft and Yandex similarly transmits a hashed hardware identifier to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete. https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

baal80spam 3y ago
Thanks for sharing this report. According to it, Brave is on top. Just reinforces my decision.
coffeeling 3y ago
I was really excited about Chromium Edge when it initially landed, but grew tired of the dark patterns. Seeing that grim report (or one very much like it on the ieee site) a few years back was an eye opener.
hexage1814 3y ago
Not everyone care about privacy, it's that simple.

lxgr 3y ago

If a browser is "nice if it weren't for all these dark patterns and annoyances", it's arguably not that nice, especially given that it's not open-source and there's no real way to patch out these bad behaviors.

hexage1814 3y ago
The software itself is pretty good, you can see that they put enough work on making something more than just a chromium skin. It's a optimized version of chromium that runs pretty well, especially in Windows. And they implemented very cool features, such as their vertical tabs, which I believe to have its best implementation compared to other chromium browsers, their sidebar which enables you pin sites on it, and its side by side mode, which is something that I would love to become a standard features in browsers. I think people are getting too cared away on things such as "open-source" or "it invades my privacy", or some weird deep hatred for Microsoft aspect, when most people don't care with that. It's not even a parameter for them to judge if a browser is bad or not, because they simply do not care. So you have to see the situation through the average people's eyes. I don't use Microsoft Edge, but I'm not some radical free-software absolutist either, I'm capable to see that most people don't care with that and make a fair observation about a piece of software. If you are worry with privacy/open-sourceness, there is Firefox, there is LibreWolf, etc...
- lxgr 3y ago
  I wouldn’t call myself a “radical free-software absolutist” (and I hope you’ll agree that there’s a lot of ideological middle ground between an RMS and the average happy/dispassionately content Microsoft user), but one big advantage of open source in this context is that it’s a kind of insurance policy against the developer/owner taking things into a direction I don’t appreciate. I’d be much more likely to run a fork of Edge without the incredibly annoying/distasteful coupons and rewards it keeps trying to push on me, for example.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  > I think people are getting too cared away on things such as "open-source" or "it invades my privacy", or some weird deep hatred for Microsoft aspect, when most people don't care with that. It's not even a parameter for them to judge if a browser is bad or not, because they simply do not care. So you have to see the situation through the average people's eyes. That is... an odd take? While it's true that society, as a whole, don't care much about, and I cannot stress this enough, many things, outside whatever may have some direct effect on everyday everyone's lives, someone needs to do the job of informing them about why something is actually more important than they may think. Thus, Edge users who are fine with the software, for a variety of reasons, may not understand why the browser is better or worse than the competition, if they choose to ignore the facts about it, regardless of it being open source or not. I think privacy is a big one. Perhaps I wouldn't choose Chrome over Edge, but I would absolutely not choose Edge over pretty much anything else. Privacy violations do have a larger effect on people lives than they may think, and they choosing Edge just because they can have vertical tabs, is a bit like choosing to smoke because it "calms the nerves".