MS is literally back to square one its about damn time.
They're even worse now and aggressively pressure you to use edge if it's not the default.
As it's based on chromium, I'd call what it has a handicap and just keep on using Firefox.
Ooo what about safari on mac? Isn't it the same thing but just not as hated?
An out of the box OS should include a browser. Microsoft takes a ham-fisted approach, however, Apple makes it entirely possible to uninstall Safari. You do have to jump through the hoop of disabling System Integrity Protection to remove it, but it's simple as trashing the app and deleting the data. I speak from experience. Very easy to do.
It would be if Mac’s held the dominant market position for computers, yes.
They should make second dominant subject to such laws too.
I’m not defending Microsoft… but if we’re going to go after a tech company for leveraging their other assets to give themselves an unfair advantage can we also go after Google?
In the first releases of Edge, Microsoft tried to build a new web browser from scratch to compete with Google Chrome. By google kept changing YouTube’s code so that videos would playback janky on Edge. Microsoft eventually gave up trying to fix for YouTubes ongoing changes and now Edge is based on Chromium (the same open source web browser maintained by Google, that chrome os built on). Google leveraged YouTube to prevent completion from Edge.
And now Google is blocking ad blocking extensions so that users are forced to see more google ads in their browser.
Microsoft’s has leveraged their unfair advantage to get a little over 5% market share.
Google’s leveraged their unfair advantage to get 66% of the market.
Both companies need a hard smack down, but I want to see Google taken down too.
Any source that YouTube is the reason that Edge switched to chromium?
I'm betting it's just cheaper and easier than making their own engine.
They’re was never any evidence of google’s wrongdoing, the accusation came from former MS edge developers:
https://www.developer-tech.com/news/edge-developer-google-youtube-chrome-browsers/
Officially Google denied it:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18148736/google-youtube-microsoft-edge-intern-claims
You may be right, this could have been MS couldn’t make a better browser and pulled the plug, and the devs just blamed google.
Old Edge was a better browser
more responsive/lower overhead
Please, please do act on google too. Didn't knew about YT thing, but god I loved Spartan Edge. It was soo...resource unintensive. It...simply did it job, was quick, low resource, looked good... :( I switched to it from chrome and then it became chrome.
YT does a lot of sneaky sneaky stuff. My Firefox constantly lagged on YT pages until one day I installed UserAgent-Switcher and pretended I was a Chrome. The lag went away.
And no it doesn’t work now.
running "winget install firefox" in an elevated powershell gets you a better browser without ever opening edge. but then you still cannot uninstall it and all the other shit about it still stays active.
never used it here. microsloth has enough claws in me as is
I agree with going after the Edge Lords and making things more fair...but I'm guessing Chrome is the most used we browser by a long shot even on windows so the “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge's unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows." part feels like users are comfortable stepping over Edge's corpse to download chrome anyway.
It's true, although chrome has gotten a significant boost from Google promoting it in search and every Google app (which I don't know if they still do).
So chrome beats edge on users, but it's also likely largely because of the unfair advantage it receives/received from that promotion. Those options are not really available to other browser developers (unless Amazon or meta also decided they want a browser for some reason).
It's like the mid 90s all over again. Let's see if anything happens this time.
I want that Web to die, die, die.
Gemini is a step in the right direction, but the new Web should be both non-extensible by design and transparently allow distributed storage, distributed untrusted computation, and separation of the concepts of a site and a machine that serves it. In other words, serverless, where websites and services and even web applications are identified cryptographically, and anybody can contribute their computing power (or storage) to a site\service\application, out of desire to help or for money. With smart contracts, ghost keys and other buzzwords I have no real idea about.
And fuck Microsoft.
...and we all know what that advantage can do! (Covertly looks in IE's direction)
As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice.
What's the actual alternative they want here? That users look up download URLs on other devices and download their browser of choice via command line using ~~cURL~~ Invoke-WebRequest? That ISPs provide browser installers on USB sticks?
Also, it's not like MS is cornering the market on browser share here. Even with this "unfair advantage" they've only scraped together a 5% slice of browser usage.
Invoke-WebRequest
To comply with the court decision, Microsoft have added a super easy to use PowerShell command to install your favourite browser!
ps> Get-Browser-That-Isnt-Microsoft-Edge -Q -Browser Firefox -NumberOfNags 0 -RevertAfterUpdate False -When Now -Why BecauseTheCourtsToldUsWeNeededTo
For a while when you installed Windows, the first time user setup gave you a choice of popular browsers and it handled the download and install.
Now Microsoft is actively trying to sabotage other browsers with popups and office apps bypassing the default browser setting.
Basically either offer users a dialog box asking which browser they'd like to use or offer the browsers in the Microsoft Store.
And stop telling me that "The Internet is better using Edge", Microsoft.
IMO edge coming pre-installed isn’t a big deal. But I’d like to be able to uninstall edge and not have Windows periodically try to trick me into setting edge as my default browser again.
I'd settle for them being force to offer links to alternatives when you first install Windows.
AND being forced to stop the bullshit every few updates where they force you through choosing options. One of which is "update to recommended browser settings for security?"... Which just defaults the system to use edge.
AND being forced to stop the bullshit every few updates where they force you through choosing options
Just turn it off. Settings → Notifications → Windows Welcome Experience or some such.
I guess it could be said that Edge has an unfair...edge?
Please submit a second copy of that letter, but replace Windows with Android, PC with Mobile, Microsoft with Google, and Edge with Chrome.
Please submit a third copy of that letter, but replace Windows with iOS, PC with iPhone, Microsoft with Apple, and Edge with Safari.
why go after microsoft.
Go after fucking google.
Chromium is the plague, not Edge.
Makes you wonder if these companies bringing the complaint are getting kickbacks from Google. Free search rank boosting for their respective companies comes to mind.
It's possible to go after both. M$ has some fucked up practices that trick the user into using edge that shouldn't be okay
It's possible to. Are they? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're not. They're going after Microsoft and not Google.
Not that it makes any difference since Edge is just reskinned Chrome now anyway. If it was still it's own thing I'd be rooting for Microsoft, at least up until they start to become bigger, then I'd turn on them.
Theres like 2 or 3 commonly supported browser engines and the people who run them are complaining about unfair monopoly by a browser whose main purpose is to find another browser?
Not to forget than when using bing, if you look for words like Firefox or Chrome, you get a large banner saying to use Edge instead. Super shady stuff
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