I completely understand where this is coming from, but I'm just a little confused about what the solution would be. For the average consumer and certainly the target users for Windows, shipping with a browser is the expected norm, and none are expected to open a terminal, much less run tools like winget. I guess you could have a setup dialog of major browsers to choose from?
You could say the same about Android and iOS. They are preloaded with a web browser not many people change. In fact I've noticed that many users (mostly older) using Android don't even know what browser they are using, since they just type shit into Google widget on their home screen.
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.
The issue isn't how it's built or based on its that Microsoft can use its control of the os to make it extremely difficult to avoid it.
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.
The early versions of edge were absolutely terrible and didn't support modern standards. I fully believe that YouTube didn't work on Edge but I don't believe it was anything to do with Google and everything to do with Microsoft not being able to build a web browser.
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.
Don't have any of the switcher things ony my firefox deskrop and mobile.
The only modifications I use are uBlock origin.
I don't know does any lag on YouTube using Firefox
Ooo what about safari on mac? Isn't it the same thing but just not as hated?
Forget mac, it's even worse on iOS/iPadOS, where all third-party browsers must use Safari's rendering engine too.
Haven't they been told they've got to stop doing that now?
I thought the European commission had forced them to allow other browsers to actually use their own render engines
I'm not 100% but I do vaguely seem to recall reading something about that being the case.
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.
Seriously, showing a pop up confirmation if the user tries to uninstall the last browser on the device is all that is needed.
It would be if Mac’s held the dominant market position for computers, yes.
They should make second dominant subject to such laws too.
Would not be Linux then? I'm pretty certain Mac OS isn't even in the top three mostly because their os is tied to computers and their computers are stupidly expensive and only westerners can really afford them with any degree of regularity.
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.
It's like the mid 90s all over again. Let's see if anything happens this time.
I guess it could be said that Edge has an unfair...edge?
Take your upvote and gtfo. Lol
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...and we all know what that advantage can do! (Covertly looks in IE's direction)
why go after microsoft.
Go after fucking google.
Chromium is the plague, not Edge.
Isn't Edge also chromium?
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
never used it here. microsloth has enough claws in me as is
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?
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