6 ms·

Updates to Windows for the Digital Markets Act

66 points by nixass 1y ago

cptcobalt 1y ago
How kind of Microsoft to feature Arc, an end-of-life browser, in their screenshot for browser defaults.
- nxrabl 1y ago
  Unfortunately there are no web search providers besides Bing for them to show in the search screenshots.
  - jjmarr 1y ago
    Except Kagi, which Edge keeps removing as my default search engine.
- xnx 1y ago
  And wth is Contoso Web Search Microsoft is number 1 or very close for most/worst dark patterns.
schlipity 1y ago
I have a great deal of respect for the legislation that the EU have passed/enforce. They are ensuring that they get the best version of Windows and are forcing Apple products to interoperate better. As an American, my next OS will not be Windows.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  >As an American, my next OS will not be Windows. I've used linux as my OS of choice for the past ~ 25 years. I recently installed windows 11 after building an AI/ML/gaming workstation because I wanted to run some of the more complex bethesda mods that required you to run windows executables (i.e. downgraders, etc). The only thing that's made it tolerable is the fact that I mostly live in the WSL shell, but I cannot get past the sneaking worry that I simply don't know what my OS is doing behind the scenes. For all I know, it's logging every keystroke or snapshotting my desktop back to MS hq. As I get older I've gotten more and more concerned about privacy and data retention. IMHO the question you have to ask yourself is not 'do I trust $megaCorp or $currentAdministratioin' it's 'do I trust every possible future permutation of corporation or government indefinitely in the future'. In my case, absolutely not. There's no way we don't someday reach the point where an authoritarian administration turns AI lose on the absolute mountain of data corporations and governments have quietly squirreled away on each and every one of us to identify 'undesirables'. At least back before the computer age this took manpower and effort. Now and in the future it just takes a little electricity and compute.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > do I trust every possible future permutation of corporation or government indefinitely in the future People need to learn to do this in government. The party in power switches every 4-8 years. When the other guys get in, you wish you'd done something to limit executive power. Then when you get in again and actually have the power to add some new limits, well, you're the ones in office now, so why would you limit your own power? Think ahead by more than the end of the quarter. You want subsidiarity and checks and balances to protect yourself from them tomorrow. Is it really so bad that it would also protect them from you today?
  - wang_li 1y ago
    >I've used linux as my OS of choice for the past ~ 25 years. This is kind of a useless statement. You might as well say "I use an operating system." Someone will say "how have you solved problem X or feature Y?" And someone else will say "Oh, that's available in Ubuntu." And then "What about Z?" And the answer is "OpenSUSE has that." And so on. Ultimately, all the Linux advocates will say that Linux is parity with Windows, but the reality is that there is no distro that has 80%+ coverage of Windows features.
    - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      That's ...quite an odd statement. Linux is linux. The big distinguishing feature between most distros these days is the number and freshness of packages available to install, and how user friendly the default desktop environment is. Especially with recent advances in running windows games / apps via proton, there's never been an easier time to adopt it. I grant you, some people do not really have the skills to use linux, but my ~ 70 year old mother gets by perfectly fine with linux mint. I would expect anyone on hacker news to be able to do the same unless you had windows specific specialty apps (autocad, etc) that you needed to run.
    - johnb231 1y ago
      No, all of the major Linux distros have practically 100% feature parity with each other. The differences are mainly in the default packages and settings, package management tools, release schedule, release QA process, enterprise support contracts, etc.
- dale_huevo 1y ago
  The world has been waiting for the Dunning-Kreuger bottle cap engineers to start meddling with operating system design. If it weren't for them, I could reuse all my lightning cables rather than re-buying them all as USB-C.
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  The gaming gap for Linux has definitely gotten a lot better recently, due to Valve's efforts on top of Wine. Nowadays it's mostly just certain competitive multiplayer titles that won't work on Linux (due to anticheat).
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    Yep. I had issues with mods (downgrader exe's, etc) that I couldn't figure out how to run with wine, but the games themselves worked perfectly.
Arainach 1y ago
To be explicitly clear: Microsoft is spending the time to build basic features like "links clicked actually open in your default browser" and still blocking access to these features in most of the world. That's not an antipattern, that's simply evil.
- the_snooze 1y ago
  It really shows that they don't see their users as customers to serve, but as resources to exploit.
  - paxys 1y ago
    In this case you can't even use the "it's free so you're the product" excuse, because people are literally paying hundreds of dollars for this crapware.
- dale_huevo 1y ago
  That's a rather melodramatic interpretation. Have you opened a lot of .mht or .shtml files lately? What about ftp:// links? (Most browsers have removed FTP support and if HN is to be believed, FTP users should be beaten and locked in a cell with the uneducated, mouth breathing http:// http:// users). And in doing so, not cared enough to immediately go into control panel and change the file association manually, as you could for the last 30 years; rather, insisting you need an Easy Button (tm) to do this in one click? This impacts like 0.001% of users.
  - Krssst 1y ago
    The start menu opens Bing in Edge. Pressing Win+F1 opens Bing in Edge.
  - AshleysBrain 1y ago
    They were referring to some apps ignoring your default browser preference and opening Microsoft Edge whenever you click any link in the app. That's not a niche case, it's an everyday interaction.
zb3 1y ago
As a linux user, this is fun to watch.. isn't it ridiculous that they enable basic features only because they're forced to do so by the law, and of course only for the regions where this law applies? I couldn't imagine being an US customer, what a farce..
- charcircuit 1y ago
  As a Linux user do you even have basic features like a search bar that searches the internet? It's somewhat hypocritical to complain about Microsoft not doing extra work to expand the capability of features when you don't even have those features in the first place.
  - treyd 1y ago
    Yes! Ubuntu had it a long time ago! Now it exists as: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1057/google-search https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1057/google-search
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      I can't find evidence that Ubuntu had it. Searching only shows a search bar that can find local apps. The extension you linked doesn't even have any real code in it, and the reviews complain that it doesn't work.
      - graemep 1y ago
        It certainly existed and worked in multiple DEs in the past. It exists in KDE right now too - I just tried it. I usually have it disabled though, and I imagine most people do.
  - thomastjeffery 1y ago
    Yes, if you want it. I don't, because I prefer to open Firefox. The most important feature to me that Windows is missing, is the option to not include features I dislike.
dataflow 1y ago
> In the EEA, apps can provide web search results in Windows Search Anyone figured out how to disable web search without breaking local search or other features?
layer8 1y ago
Is there any information on how Windows determines whether it is “in the EEA”? I’m in the EEA, but I like to use en-US locale (aside from some adjustments like timezone and date/time formats).
- Symbiote 1y ago
  If you're using a European date format anyway, you might as well use Irish or British locale.
  - layer8 1y ago
    I don’t really want the British spellings, and also the UK isn’t part of the EEA anymore.
deburo 1y ago
The changes are pretty tame and most Western users who dislike the current web features built in the shell can safely feel like they're not missing much on anything.
- dmonitor 1y ago
  Uninstalling the Windows Store and custom apps giving start menu search results are pretty huge. How the hell do I get this on my machine in the US
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    I wonder if I could spoof my location or something while still using a US tz?
solarkraft 1y ago
It’s crazy that they have to be forced to act normally. They should be ashamed, but that they are stating it this clearly indicates that they don’t. They are proving that all the harshness is entirely warranted. Thanks, EU.

66 points by nixass 1y ago

cptcobalt 1y ago

How kind of Microsoft to feature Arc, an end-of-life browser, in their screenshot for browser defaults.

nxrabl 1y ago
Unfortunately there are no web search providers besides Bing for them to show in the search screenshots.
- jjmarr 1y ago
  Except Kagi, which Edge keeps removing as my default search engine.
xnx 1y ago
And wth is Contoso Web Search Microsoft is number 1 or very close for most/worst dark patterns.

schlipity 1y ago

I have a great deal of respect for the legislation that the EU have passed/enforce. They are ensuring that they get the best version of Windows and are forcing Apple products to interoperate better. As an American, my next OS will not be Windows.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago
>As an American, my next OS will not be Windows. I've used linux as my OS of choice for the past ~ 25 years. I recently installed windows 11 after building an AI/ML/gaming workstation because I wanted to run some of the more complex bethesda mods that required you to run windows executables (i.e. downgraders, etc). The only thing that's made it tolerable is the fact that I mostly live in the WSL shell, but I cannot get past the sneaking worry that I simply don't know what my OS is doing behind the scenes. For all I know, it's logging every keystroke or snapshotting my desktop back to MS hq. As I get older I've gotten more and more concerned about privacy and data retention. IMHO the question you have to ask yourself is not 'do I trust $megaCorp or $currentAdministratioin' it's 'do I trust every possible future permutation of corporation or government indefinitely in the future'. In my case, absolutely not. There's no way we don't someday reach the point where an authoritarian administration turns AI lose on the absolute mountain of data corporations and governments have quietly squirreled away on each and every one of us to identify 'undesirables'. At least back before the computer age this took manpower and effort. Now and in the future it just takes a little electricity and compute.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > do I trust every possible future permutation of corporation or government indefinitely in the future People need to learn to do this in government. The party in power switches every 4-8 years. When the other guys get in, you wish you'd done something to limit executive power. Then when you get in again and actually have the power to add some new limits, well, you're the ones in office now, so why would you limit your own power? Think ahead by more than the end of the quarter. You want subsidiarity and checks and balances to protect yourself from them tomorrow. Is it really so bad that it would also protect them from you today?
- wang_li 1y ago
  >I've used linux as my OS of choice for the past ~ 25 years. This is kind of a useless statement. You might as well say "I use an operating system." Someone will say "how have you solved problem X or feature Y?" And someone else will say "Oh, that's available in Ubuntu." And then "What about Z?" And the answer is "OpenSUSE has that." And so on. Ultimately, all the Linux advocates will say that Linux is parity with Windows, but the reality is that there is no distro that has 80%+ coverage of Windows features.
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    That's ...quite an odd statement. Linux is linux. The big distinguishing feature between most distros these days is the number and freshness of packages available to install, and how user friendly the default desktop environment is. Especially with recent advances in running windows games / apps via proton, there's never been an easier time to adopt it. I grant you, some people do not really have the skills to use linux, but my ~ 70 year old mother gets by perfectly fine with linux mint. I would expect anyone on hacker news to be able to do the same unless you had windows specific specialty apps (autocad, etc) that you needed to run.
  - johnb231 1y ago
    No, all of the major Linux distros have practically 100% feature parity with each other. The differences are mainly in the default packages and settings, package management tools, release schedule, release QA process, enterprise support contracts, etc.
dale_huevo 1y ago
The world has been waiting for the Dunning-Kreuger bottle cap engineers to start meddling with operating system design. If it weren't for them, I could reuse all my lightning cables rather than re-buying them all as USB-C.
TulliusCicero 1y ago
The gaming gap for Linux has definitely gotten a lot better recently, due to Valve's efforts on top of Wine. Nowadays it's mostly just certain competitive multiplayer titles that won't work on Linux (due to anticheat).
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  Yep. I had issues with mods (downgrader exe's, etc) that I couldn't figure out how to run with wine, but the games themselves worked perfectly.

Arainach 1y ago

To be explicitly clear: Microsoft is spending the time to build basic features like "links clicked actually open in your default browser" and still blocking access to these features in most of the world. That's not an antipattern, that's simply evil.

the_snooze 1y ago
It really shows that they don't see their users as customers to serve, but as resources to exploit.
- paxys 1y ago
  In this case you can't even use the "it's free so you're the product" excuse, because people are literally paying hundreds of dollars for this crapware.
dale_huevo 1y ago
That's a rather melodramatic interpretation. Have you opened a lot of .mht or .shtml files lately? What about ftp:// links? (Most browsers have removed FTP support and if HN is to be believed, FTP users should be beaten and locked in a cell with the uneducated, mouth breathing http:// http:// users). And in doing so, not cared enough to immediately go into control panel and change the file association manually, as you could for the last 30 years; rather, insisting you need an Easy Button (tm) to do this in one click? This impacts like 0.001% of users.
- Krssst 1y ago
  The start menu opens Bing in Edge. Pressing Win+F1 opens Bing in Edge.
- AshleysBrain 1y ago
  They were referring to some apps ignoring your default browser preference and opening Microsoft Edge whenever you click any link in the app. That's not a niche case, it's an everyday interaction.

zb3 1y ago

As a linux user, this is fun to watch.. isn't it ridiculous that they enable basic features only because they're forced to do so by the law, and of course only for the regions where this law applies? I couldn't imagine being an US customer, what a farce..

charcircuit 1y ago
As a Linux user do you even have basic features like a search bar that searches the internet? It's somewhat hypocritical to complain about Microsoft not doing extra work to expand the capability of features when you don't even have those features in the first place.
- treyd 1y ago
  Yes! Ubuntu had it a long time ago! Now it exists as: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1057/google-search https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1057/google-search
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    I can't find evidence that Ubuntu had it. Searching only shows a search bar that can find local apps. The extension you linked doesn't even have any real code in it, and the reviews complain that it doesn't work.
    - graemep 1y ago
      It certainly existed and worked in multiple DEs in the past. It exists in KDE right now too - I just tried it. I usually have it disabled though, and I imagine most people do.
- thomastjeffery 1y ago
  Yes, if you want it. I don't, because I prefer to open Firefox. The most important feature to me that Windows is missing, is the option to not include features I dislike.

dataflow 1y ago

> In the EEA, apps can provide web search results in Windows Search Anyone figured out how to disable web search without breaking local search or other features?

layer8 1y ago

Is there any information on how Windows determines whether it is “in the EEA”? I’m in the EEA, but I like to use en-US locale (aside from some adjustments like timezone and date/time formats).

Symbiote 1y ago
If you're using a European date format anyway, you might as well use Irish or British locale.
- layer8 1y ago
  I don’t really want the British spellings, and also the UK isn’t part of the EEA anymore.

deburo 1y ago

The changes are pretty tame and most Western users who dislike the current web features built in the shell can safely feel like they're not missing much on anything.

dmonitor 1y ago
Uninstalling the Windows Store and custom apps giving start menu search results are pretty huge. How the hell do I get this on my machine in the US
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  I wonder if I could spoof my location or something while still using a US tz?

solarkraft 1y ago

It’s crazy that they have to be forced to act normally. They should be ashamed, but that they are stating it this clearly indicates that they don’t. They are proving that all the harshness is entirely warranted. Thanks, EU.