- Mozilla has issued a warning about Microsoft’s design practices, claiming that the company uses harmful design tactics to influence users to switch to its Edge browser.
- The report highlights how Microsoft interrupts the installation process of Google Chrome on Windows devices, promoting the security and privacy benefits of Edge.
- Mozilla calls for regulatory action to restore browser choice and competition across major platforms.
Archive link: https://archive.ph/koBY6
Chrome
Windows
Well there’s your problem!
The worst thing Microsoft has done with Edge, was how they tried telling everyone it wasn’t Internet Explorer, while using very similar icons for the longest time. Edge functioned a lot like Internet Explorer in how unstable and shitty it was.
Still is.
Edge is just a modified Chrome, so it’s not all that bad now, but Microsoft needs to stop micromanaging what people do with computers. The consumer bought it. It should be their PC, not Microsoft’s.
Microsoft are still better than Apple in this regard. But they’re both far from acceptable.
Seriously, Microsoft needs to get out of their own way with the marketing and just make a good product instead of trying to force all these things on people. They’d get a lot less negative attention if they just focused on the browser. The times I’ve tried it, it wasn’t bad but I now refuse to use it out of spite for their forcing it on you.
This is also a problem with them overall. They’ve improved so many things in modern Windows under the hood (e.g. we’ve gone from installing drivers for every component to needing practically nothing installed manually due to it doing it for you, it rarely bluescreens anymore in my experience, winget is nice) but then they ruin it with stuff like going backwards on the default apps screen (in 10 it was easy to set for common apps like browser/email/media/etc, in 11 its per protocol/file). Making it difficult to switch browsers or using Edge anyways for some things and ignoring the default just pisses people off for no good reason.
Um, then go Linux then and shut up.
You clearly don’t understand how that works. We can’t shut up once we moved!
Ahem, I use arch BTW
Can the EU just Thanos snap Microsoft out of existence with a quadrillion euro fine?
google as well, while we’re at it.
Here!
That would be a sure fire way to get Microsoft to pull completely out of Europe leaving thousands of companies without support and a heafty unpaid fine setting on the table.
It would actually be beneficial for Microsoft to abandon the server farms and offices leaving workers with an email stating the situation and their new job status.
I would love the mayhem that would ensue from Microsoft leaving Europe completely. Dumb fuckers in all those incompetent IT departments that have wasted countless hours of mine because they don’t understand jack shit of what they’re doing would be having strokes, and us geeks would be having a field day keeping essential stuff alive, like medical technology and power plants.
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You think they make no profits in Europe? Why would they be here if they didn’t?
I think it’s fair to assume their profits are less than 1 quadrillion euros
Heh, didn’t take that number literally I guess
You think Microsoft has no assets in Europe? Asset seizure is a sure fire way to get paid when companies refuse to cooperate.
If it’s a choice between abandoning assets or going bankrupt I think they’d choose abandoning assets. The only exception to that rule is if they have the majority of their company there and that’s just not the case being an American company.
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No, they do have assets in Europe.
Indeed - about every 2nd EU politician is a Microsoft asset. ^^
Oh no, it’s the consequences of my actions by putting all my eggs in one basket and giving a corporation incredible leverage.
Maybe they should derisk their infrastructure then…
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How could they pull out of Europe if they straight up didn’t exist? I’m suggesting the European Union should fine them enough to go bankrupt.
They wouldn’t pay the fine that would bankrupt them they’d just cut there losses and abandon anything that was seised. They’re an American company and the Asian market is what there after nowadays anyway.
If you could cut a dead limb off to save the body, wouldn’t you? At the end of the day it depends on how the US and Europe handles civil cases across borders and Microsoft has a lot of ties with the US government.
Just a shame the US government’s been completely captured. It’s all rot from the top down.
It’s not all bad just the federal for the most part. We’re working on that but are politicians are as old as the hills. I believe they spend more time listening to corporate lobby pitches than reading the damn news but that’s our problem to deal with.
Most of the biggest tech giants have picked up jobs from homeland or the NSA at one point in time or another, Microsoft is just the most prevalent along with Facebook (meta).
I’m stuck with one of the most fucked state governments, too. Actually, it’s so bad I’ve been aiming to leave for a while, and I’ll likely be gone within the next six weeks ish.
Well I wish you luck. Moving is no fun IMO
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I love how Mozilla is warning you that you’re gonna have trouble using Chrome? It’s Forbes so I’m not bothering clicking but I can only assume that Mozilla is also warning that you’re gonna have a bad time trying to use Firefox.
Microsoft really wants someone to remind it of these days:
Honestly surprised Opera and Mozilla don’t strike again together
Opera gave up a long time ago when they abandoned Presto. Today it is owned by some Chinese company, and they are just chasing the latest buzzwords, crypto, AI, you name it.
There are talks in the EU with the DMA about bringing this back.
Yup, they already forced Google to announce that they’ll add such a choice screen for the search engine and web browser on Android: https://www.neowin.net/news/google-will-add-new-search-and-browser-choice-screens-for-android-phones-in-europe/
It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft does so too.
I like that part of firefox’s summary was that it’s free. Uh, yeah, they all are. Thanks Mozilla!
Well, its not proprietary
Opera originally wasn’t free.
Also, while it is chromium based, Vivaldi is excellent and is essentially a bunch of old Opera team members.
No, they are all available at no cost. Only Firefox is free software.
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There’s a name for free software with proprietary bits added: Proprietary software
It is the only Free software in that dialog though.
I don’t remember that. Where is it from?
Microsoft never liked competing browsers (not even in the pre-IE6 era when all they had was crap), so it’s hard to believe it came from them.
EU fined the sh1t out of them, and somebody in the regulatory body at the time realized that was not enough. So they were ordered to present the user with a choice of a browser during the OS install.
What I really want to know is why and how it went away.
sh1t
You can say “shit” here, nobody is going to be a cunt about it.
No, but apparently people are going to be a cunt about it if one chooses not to say it.
Because it’s looks stupid to use the word whilst censoring it, say it or don’t say it. No point in trying to pretend you’re not saying it.
I’d say I got a good habit. Too much of the internet randomly filters “obscenity”. Whenever that happens it seems the devs are too fvkin damb to properly implement it.
Yeah god damn the censor shit, even on fucking picture, they censor the swear words to fucking hell by scribing over it
Its verry much a good habit. However, You are free to speak your mind here. The fact you use
sh1t(falsely) implies the idea thatyourthe community is not allowed to speakyourtheir mind. So people got mad 🫤.EDIT: grammar / clarity
you’re* not allowed.
“Your under arrest for misuse of grammar” BANG! Oof! Ya got me! 🔫🤕💀
INAL but my understanding was a lot of the fines and penalties hung on IE being part of the OS. I think it was the update functionality but don’t quote me.
So with some legal technicalities, later versions of windows made it “not” part of the OS just a bundled application. A legal distinction without meaning but it meant they didn’t need to do these things anymore.
The great joke is they are making the same mistakes again with edge, unfortunately the American justice system is a shambles these days so it’s probably down to the EU to take the moral high ground.
Microsoft appear to be exposed to monopolistic penalties in several markets currently: browsers, AI / search, teams and office come to mind (although competitors are lacking, here)
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Could be I’m Not A Lawyer. We call that an “IANAL Contraction”
I know what it means, but everytime I think it sounds like screaming a new Apple product.
iAnal, now that’d get the Apple fanboys going.
I think it will be back this March with the new laws (Digital Markets Act).
What I really want to know is why and how it went away.
The move was in place because of the fear that IE was becoming a monopoly. Now Edge is very very far from the most popular browser, and Google Chrome is looking like the overwhelmingly dominant player, there’s no reason to make MS prompt people to download rival products anymore.
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I didn’t think anyone on this platform would be dumb enough to use Google Chrome anyways.
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I remember, something like 8 years ago, if you searched “chrome” on internet explorer, before showing you a proper link, they would show a patrocined link from microsoft that would install a “browser configuration protector” that would prevent you from changing any configuration, including of course the default browser.
Microsoft:
Microsoft really trying to get away with what it did in the browser wars again, but it’s probably gonna turn out on for them this time
The clickbait in this article is so bad, I thought it was a security vulnerability or something, but it’s just something else related to Mozilla again.
I’m still genuinely curious if Mozilla is going to actually accept a renewal for the search deal with Google, or if they’re actually going to start practicing with a praise and try implementing that search engine selection screen.
or if they’re actually going to start practicing with a praise and try implementing that search engine selection screen.
You already can change the default search engine?
You can, but that’s not the point. The idea is to ask users to choose upon opening the app for the first time. It’s an already common statistic that most people never actually change any settings beyond basic personalization. It’s part of why Google spends so much money on setting Google Search as the default engine.
I recently set up Firefox on my Windows PC and it asked me on the FTUE wizard what search engine I wanted to use as my default.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s a weak argument. If Microsoft bundled Edge with Windows and stopped at that, nobody would be complaining about it. The problem is how annoying it is at nagging users to try Edge.
Same with Firefox. If a user changed the search engine, only for Firefox to “forget” that choice one hour later, or if it had popups saying “Hey you have DDG as your search engine. Do you want try Google instead?” [ Yes ] [ Ask me again in an hour ]," then I for sure would have a fucking problem with that.
practicing with a praise
Not sure what you mean but maybe you were going for “practicing what they preach”?
What is this clickbait bullshit? Here I was expecting more arguments I could use to move people away from Chrome, but the warning is just typical Microsoft trying to promote their own garbage browser.
Sorry, team nobody on this one. You both suck and need to stop what you’re doing.
That’s small thinking. While Chrome is bad, this pop-up nonsense is much worse.
I would disagree about it being worse.
Whenever I’m forced to use Edge for work it reminds me of old IE that your grandma installed the Ask toolbar in. Functions about the same too.
Is there any material difference between Edge and Chrome? I’m forced to use either of them for work and as far as I can tell they perform the same
Edge can do 4k netflix
Functionally they are the same. People that claim one is slower are just parroting what they’ve heard or experienced before
There are small annoying differences. The way it handles downloads is irritating. The settings menus are not well organized. There’s a big stupid Bing button unless you remove it. It randomly fails to honor the option to open PDFs in an external program. It’s nothing big, but if you’re forced to use it for work, it’s constantly annoying.
With Edge, MS decided to re-implement some stuff through their own library. I don’t have an exhaustive list, but one particular thing is that for a while, SubtleCrypto (used for various operations within JavaScript) was present, but some mandatory algorithms were not available in Edge while they worked fine everywhere else (and maybe even in the non-chromium based Edge, which I don’t remember testing).
So, yes, there are differences beyond the integration of MS services. They are unlikely to matter to most people, but for dev it does reintroduce some weird quirks, as MS does.
Yeah MS has never done anything like that before…
Looks at MS Word in early nineties…
Look at what they did with Internet Explorer. Same shit.
