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Why doesn't Microsoft realize that Edge just isn't happening? I was a huge Microsoft fan boy for decades. Like, I eagerly awaited releases of the products I

Why doesn't Microsoft realize that Edge just isn't happening? I was a *huge* Microsoft fan boy for decades. Like, I eagerly awaited releases of the products I used like Windows and Visual Studio and Excel and on and on. It was thrilling to use NT with the Windows 95 skin when it was available in beta. Sorry to nerd out so hard, but I just loved their products. Now they're just making Windows worse and worse and worse. It's almost as if they want to harm Windows. The other day I had to help my 80 year old Dad with his Windows PC. Microsoft wanted him to "finish" setting up his PC that he has been using for 18 months. Okay, he accidentally clicked yes and then ended up somewhere that was trying to make him sign up for a Microsoft account. Yeah, my Dad doesn't even know how to do that! We had to turn off his PC to get out of it and then I had to look up how to make sure it never happens again. Why so many dark patterns MS? My Dad already paid you for Windows. Why do you need to collect more and more and more? HE'S 80 YEARS OLD! LEAVE HIM THE F** ALONE! As a result of all this, but especially the telemetry, my Dad's on Google docs, my Mom is on Google docs, my family is on Google docs. Never going to use 360. Nope nope nope. Sure, Google has dark patterns, but at least I know that about Google. Microsoft pretends that they aren't like that, or wants to have that brand image, and meanwhile, they're busy trying to suck up all your personal information and spy on you with telemetry and send your keystrokes to their servers. The funny thing is that my Dad only had a Windows PC so he can run one app: Chrome. His entire internet life is in Chrome. Everything syncs with his phone. It's just NICE. You can't even imagine how much easier this makes his life and ... mine :) So yeah, I don't want more Microsoft software in my life. I want less. Zero, would be ideal, but that's not the world I live in. Yet.

Double_a_92 2y ago
There wasn't even something wrong with Edge when it started. It was basically Chrome, but preinstalled. But now they had to fill it with bloat and spyware...
- moshegramovsky 2y ago
  It's unfortunate that the entire world is headed this way. I've been bullish about tech for my ENTIRE life. Since I was a kid. But it's a weird feeling, all the data collection. Europe has the right ideas about this.
- toast0 2y ago
  Edge was pretty bad before they replaced it with Chrome Edge. The rendering engine was nicer than ie, but they built a queue between the UI and the browser engine, so navigation including the stop button didn't interrupt the work in progress until it polled the queue, which could be seconds later when it had gotten stuck (as browsers do), and then it would go ahead and do the many actions you had queued up. Reskinned Chrome is less bad, I guess.
imiric 2y ago
> The funny thing is that my Dad only had a Windows PC so he can run one app: Chrome. So get him a Chromebook or a tablet? He doesn't need Windows to run a browser. If he does still want Windows for some reason, there are ways of de-bloating the installation. It takes some initial technical work, but in the end you can be relatively sure that it's free from all intrusive software. You still have to be vigilant of Windows Update, but you can also turn that off, and run it manually, or cherry pick the updates you want. Microsoft makes it difficult to run a clean version of Windows, but if you still want to use it there are ways of cleaning it up.
- djaychela 2y ago
  I'd echo this comment... years ago I got my mum (now 86) to switch to a Chrome device as the only thing she does is email, facebook and manage her bank account. Prior to this, I had quite a lot of tech support I had to do with her when she was running a Windows PC - for all sorts of things. Since then, never once have I had to do so, other than website help (i.e. what she's doing on a site). I'm no fan of Google (and use Firefox as my browser and have for years), but Chromebooks just work for these kind of use cases, and are the reliable appliance that computers should be.
alabhyajindal 2y ago
Have you thought about setting up Linux for him? Linux works great and if your Dad only uses web apps then Linux with Firefox should work perfectly for him!
KronisLV 2y ago
> Why doesn't Microsoft realize that Edge just isn't happening? I mean, they're basically outsourcing a lot of the heavy lifting to Chromium, which is a pretty rock solid piece of technology. Being able to do that while adding a layer of customization and metrics/analytics/telemetry/features/whatever on top of that with their branding is pretty much ideal from where they stand. Given that most people won't bother with switching away from defaults, it feels like a smart move to me. Most people aren't even aware that there should be alternatives to the dark patterns, nor have ever used an OS like Linux. Honestly, I recently got some Apple devices for a freelance thing and while their UI/UX is a breath of fresh air, I also ran into some weirdness, like Firefox not working with my VPN on the MacBook or not having uBlock Origin on the iPhone. Meanwhile, I'll be strongarmed with replacing my Windows 10 install with Windows 11 sooner or later, whereas Linux is generally nice, except some games and whatnot just won't work (sometimes due to lacking interest for Proton support, other times due to developers and anti-cheat), as well as there are the occasional issues (audio drivers and Wi-Fi drivers still come to mind, depending on the hardware, especially the cheaper netbooks I have historically been using for note taking). I'm getting a bit sidetracked, but feels like every OS and piece of software out there has some issues, for a variety of reasons, many of which we shouldn't be dealing with in the first place!

Why doesn't Microsoft realize that Edge just isn't happening? I was a *huge* Microsoft fan boy for decades. Like, I eagerly awaited releases of the products I

Double_a_92 2y ago

There wasn't even something wrong with Edge when it started. It was basically Chrome, but preinstalled. But now they had to fill it with bloat and spyware...

moshegramovsky 2y ago
It's unfortunate that the entire world is headed this way. I've been bullish about tech for my ENTIRE life. Since I was a kid. But it's a weird feeling, all the data collection. Europe has the right ideas about this.
toast0 2y ago
Edge was pretty bad before they replaced it with Chrome Edge. The rendering engine was nicer than ie, but they built a queue between the UI and the browser engine, so navigation including the stop button didn't interrupt the work in progress until it polled the queue, which could be seconds later when it had gotten stuck (as browsers do), and then it would go ahead and do the many actions you had queued up. Reskinned Chrome is less bad, I guess.

imiric 2y ago

> The funny thing is that my Dad only had a Windows PC so he can run one app: Chrome. So get him a Chromebook or a tablet? He doesn't need Windows to run a browser. If he does still want Windows for some reason, there are ways of de-bloating the installation. It takes some initial technical work, but in the end you can be relatively sure that it's free from all intrusive software. You still have to be vigilant of Windows Update, but you can also turn that off, and run it manually, or cherry pick the updates you want. Microsoft makes it difficult to run a clean version of Windows, but if you still want to use it there are ways of cleaning it up.

djaychela 2y ago
I'd echo this comment... years ago I got my mum (now 86) to switch to a Chrome device as the only thing she does is email, facebook and manage her bank account. Prior to this, I had quite a lot of tech support I had to do with her when she was running a Windows PC - for all sorts of things. Since then, never once have I had to do so, other than website help (i.e. what she's doing on a site). I'm no fan of Google (and use Firefox as my browser and have for years), but Chromebooks just work for these kind of use cases, and are the reliable appliance that computers should be.

alabhyajindal 2y ago

Have you thought about setting up Linux for him? Linux works great and if your Dad only uses web apps then Linux with Firefox should work perfectly for him!

KronisLV 2y ago

> Why doesn't Microsoft realize that Edge just isn't happening? I mean, they're basically outsourcing a lot of the heavy lifting to Chromium, which is a pretty rock solid piece of technology. Being able to do that while adding a layer of customization and metrics/analytics/telemetry/features/whatever on top of that with their branding is pretty much ideal from where they stand. Given that most people won't bother with switching away from defaults, it feels like a smart move to me. Most people aren't even aware that there should be alternatives to the dark patterns, nor have ever used an OS like Linux. Honestly, I recently got some Apple devices for a freelance thing and while their UI/UX is a breath of fresh air, I also ran into some weirdness, like Firefox not working with my VPN on the MacBook or not having uBlock Origin on the iPhone. Meanwhile, I'll be strongarmed with replacing my Windows 10 install with Windows 11 sooner or later, whereas Linux is generally nice, except some games and whatnot just won't work (sometimes due to lacking interest for Proton support, other times due to developers and anti-cheat), as well as there are the occasional issues (audio drivers and Wi-Fi drivers still come to mind, depending on the hardware, especially the cheaper netbooks I have historically been using for note taking). I'm getting a bit sidetracked, but feels like every OS and piece of software out there has some issues, for a variety of reasons, many of which we shouldn't be dealing with in the first place!