About 20 years ago, Microsoft was found guilty and convicted, because they forced their browser on their users, driving out competitors by abusing their de facto monopoly on PC operating systems. These days, they are doing the exact same thing again, just on an even broader base. I don't even understand how this verdict took so long.
It makes perfect sense once you understand that regulators have only cared about stock prices for the last 40 years. The EU coming down on giant corporations is a new development
The fucking sad thing is, when they did it 20 years ago Internet Explorer became the gold standard. Now they are pushing super hard, annoying users, killing competition and they have a tiny market share. They aren't getting anywhere, just being assholes because they don't know how not to be.
Me for the rest of the week:
Is you regional settings set to a European country?
(by the way, life pro tip, setting your region to a European country solves a ton of issues people have with Windows, most complaints I see I never had a problem with even though I live in Canada, my settings are set to UK)
Interesting that setting your location to the UK gets you EU protections. Do the EU protections apply in the UK? They Brexited didn't they?
IIUC when they separated they basically ended up with a snapshot of EU regulations. So most of GDPR applies. But IDK if the DMA will apply as it was created after they split.
Yeah you better set it to Ireland or Malta to get full EU conformity.
Microsoft now permits
The benevolence! Letting people do what they want with their purchased software. wow!
This ought to happen everywhere. Either I'm the admin on my machine or I'm not. If it's not, I'm not sure how much longer I'll tolerate a Windows machine.
PSA: Once this rolls out into the actual downloadable Windows builds, everyone should be able to do this by reinstalling Windows.
European Economic Area PCs
As noted above, some functionality is only available in the EEA. Windows uses the region chosen by the customer during device setup to identify if the PC is in the EEA. Once chosen in device setup, the region used for DMA compliance can only be changed by resetting the PC.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Can we get THIS fucking comment on the front page please? Outstanding work, friend! Sincere thanks!
But I thought this was a crucial part of the operating system?!
The Internet Explorer system stuff is still there, the difference is that when it launches as a normal browser, it automatically opens Edge instead of IE. (iirc)
It is, specifically MS Edge WebView. For example new MS Teams and new Outlook client are using WebView. Widgets are using it as well as do many other things.
This uninstall will most likely still keep Edge present, it will just be somehow hidden / not as easily accessible.
EU regulation continues to be the only thing making big tech's shitty products somewhat usable. First USB-C, now this.
So where are the people saying edge couldn’t be uninstalled because it’s a core part of the system that other element depended upon. I swear I have seen this answer on every reddit post about uninstalling edge, yet Microsoft show its absolutely possible (although only in Europe, because dependencies don’t work the same in Europe 😂).
That's what they said about Internet Explorer right up until the moment where Microsoft wanted everyone to switch to Edge. Not only could you suddenly uninstall it, but it even started uninstalling itself!
Funny how that happens
Protip: Microsoft uses social media manipulation to shape public opinion. Some of those people claiming that were on a payroll.
Who puts up with this shit anyway? Go buy an Apple. You can eat it while installing Linux.
This need to be applied to smartphones
Imagine phones coming with a clean Android with the ability to install Google Play Services like a normal app 😌.
And documention to port other operating systems or new Android versions.
You just described GrapheneOS, by far the best mobile operating system IMO
It takes the EU to force Microsoft to act reasonable.
And they will ONLY act reasonable when forced.
These changes are only applicable to users in the EEA. For those outside the region, Windows will continue to function as it is!
You misspelled "Windows will continue to be as fucked up as it is!"
Props to EU keeping these assholes in check
Great news. Although it's bizarre that it took an entire continent passing a new law to get to this point.
Does this EU's Digital Markets Act also applies for Android and all the preinstalled apps by Google and the phone manufacturer?
Great! Now please also make manufacturers give us the option to uninstall/change webview & other such services on android devices.
how about fucking autopilot too instead of having to find a registry to disable it.
Edit: I'm dumb and don't know what I was even being mad at. I should have said copilot, that’s what I actually meant. I didn’t realize autopilot was a thing.
Meh, I purged windows from my systems last month. I will never be forced to (re)install Edge, use the garbage search, or link my pc to a gd Microsoft account again. I've had enough of Microsofts bullshit.
One drive is the one that really ruffles my feathers.
It turns itself back on randomly, which wouldn’t be too much of a problem except for that it fucking remaps the desktop.. a file that was previously located at C:\user\desktop\ is now at C:\user\One Drive\desktop…
Note the space in the path, they didn’t even have the decency to use an underscore… \one_drive\… even though it’s one of their own rules in powershell scripting.
For those of us using powershell to automate stuff this remapping is a nightmare and should be illegal.
Too bad I am in the US and will just have to continue to get support calls from time to time when a users desktop gets remapped behind the scenes.
Maybe there is a way using powershell and windows scheduled tasks to check to see if one drive turned itself back on, then auto turn it off and remap the desktop back to normal.
The absurdity of having windows check to see if windows screwed itself up, then if so have it fix itself is just laughable.
Being able to uninstall OneDrive is a game changer. That thing annoys me so much
Finally! Always glad to see the EU forcing Tech Giants to be user friendly
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
