4 ms·

Microsoft Edge is a unique type of prankware. Whoever's in charge of its development should at least be assigned, there is no excuse for how wildly user-hostile

Microsoft Edge is a unique type of prankware. Whoever's in charge of its development should at least be assigned, there is no excuse for how wildly user-hostile that thing is.

wkat4242 3y ago
The weird part is they didn't even wait until it built up a marketshare before they thoroughly enshittified it. It's actually worse than Chrome now with unrequested coupon and loan schemes.
- georgemcbay 3y ago
  Yeah I actually switched to Edge pretty early on as a way of trying to disentangle some of my online identity away from Google because I wasn't (and still am not) happy with how much power they had over it. Not that I trust Microsoft any more than Google, but I figured they were less inclined to violate my privacy in the name of advertisers and other third parties since that wasn't their main business. Only lasted on Edge about 6 months before I abandoned it as it quickly ended up just as intrusive as Chrome, if not more so, while also being a far worse user experience.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Try Firefox. Despite Mozilla's (and especially Mitchell Baker's) best efforts, it's still a decent browser and not too bad for privacy..
- bmicraft 3y ago
  They have other means of acquiring a user base, namely resetting you default browser every other major windows update.
mistrial9 3y ago
it is lawyers
windowsrookie 3y ago
Microsoft Edge is so disappointing because it was and can be a great browser. I recently had to use a low-spec computer (Celeron 6305, 4GB Ram, Windows 11), and Firefox just did not run well on it. I switched over to Edge and it loaded webpages much faster, and used much less RAM and CPU while doing it. The problem was I also had to go into the setting and turn at least 10 different things off. Shopping assistants, copilot, sidebars, etc. The average user is not going to know or feel comfortable turning all of these "features" off, leaving them a browser constantly showing them adware and sending tons of data off to Microsoft. TLDR: On low-end computers Edge runs great, but Microsoft has also injected it with a bunch of crap.
- rjst01 3y ago
  I would be tempted to switch to edge for the sake of "super duper secure mode" [1] but they have violated my trust in so many ways that I can't bring myself to do it. 1: https://microsoftedge.github.io/edgevr/posts/Super-Duper-Secure-Mode/ https://microsoftedge.github.io/edgevr/posts/Super-Duper-Sec...
  - akyuu 3y ago
    You can disable JIT in Chrome (which also enables CET [1], just like in Edge) by executing it with --js-flags="--jitless" You can also disable JIT in Firefox by setting javascript.options.baselinejit, javascript.options.ion and javascript.options.native_regexp to false in about:config, although you won't get CET. [1] https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/12c232c43ce7324d308afab5349b38b7707d8226/content/browser/renderer_host/renderer_sandboxed_process_launcher_delegate.cc#L107 https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/12c232c43ce7324d30...
    - rjst01 3y ago
      Oh that's useful, thanks!

Microsoft Edge is a unique type of prankware. Whoever's in charge of its development should at least be assigned, there is no excuse for how wildly user-hostile that thing is.

wkat4242 3y ago

The weird part is they didn't even wait until it built up a marketshare before they thoroughly enshittified it. It's actually worse than Chrome now with unrequested coupon and loan schemes.

georgemcbay 3y ago
Yeah I actually switched to Edge pretty early on as a way of trying to disentangle some of my online identity away from Google because I wasn't (and still am not) happy with how much power they had over it. Not that I trust Microsoft any more than Google, but I figured they were less inclined to violate my privacy in the name of advertisers and other third parties since that wasn't their main business. Only lasted on Edge about 6 months before I abandoned it as it quickly ended up just as intrusive as Chrome, if not more so, while also being a far worse user experience.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Try Firefox. Despite Mozilla's (and especially Mitchell Baker's) best efforts, it's still a decent browser and not too bad for privacy..
bmicraft 3y ago
They have other means of acquiring a user base, namely resetting you default browser every other major windows update.

mistrial9 3y ago

it is lawyers

windowsrookie 3y ago

Microsoft Edge is so disappointing because it was and can be a great browser. I recently had to use a low-spec computer (Celeron 6305, 4GB Ram, Windows 11), and Firefox just did not run well on it. I switched over to Edge and it loaded webpages much faster, and used much less RAM and CPU while doing it. The problem was I also had to go into the setting and turn at least 10 different things off. Shopping assistants, copilot, sidebars, etc. The average user is not going to know or feel comfortable turning all of these "features" off, leaving them a browser constantly showing them adware and sending tons of data off to Microsoft. TLDR: On low-end computers Edge runs great, but Microsoft has also injected it with a bunch of crap.

rjst01 3y ago
I would be tempted to switch to edge for the sake of "super duper secure mode" [1] but they have violated my trust in so many ways that I can't bring myself to do it. 1: https://microsoftedge.github.io/edgevr/posts/Super-Duper-Secure-Mode/ https://microsoftedge.github.io/edgevr/posts/Super-Duper-Sec...
- akyuu 3y ago
  You can disable JIT in Chrome (which also enables CET [1], just like in Edge) by executing it with --js-flags="--jitless" You can also disable JIT in Firefox by setting javascript.options.baselinejit, javascript.options.ion and javascript.options.native_regexp to false in about:config, although you won't get CET. [1] https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/12c232c43ce7324d308afab5349b38b7707d8226/content/browser/renderer_host/renderer_sandboxed_process_launcher_delegate.cc#L107 https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/12c232c43ce7324d30...
  - rjst01 3y ago
    Oh that's useful, thanks!