Microsoft To Stop Forcing Windows 11 Users Into Edge in EU … – Slashdot

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now get IOS to stop the webkit lock in as well!
I just hope they include the UK in the EU for this. While we are sadly no longer in the EU, we did retain quite a lot of EU rules, and look set to simply copy what the EU does in the future.

forcing users into Edge and a new dedicated widgets area that also ignores the default browser setting
This is the era of the hostile and adversarial software people.
Before, say 2000, this would have been unthinkable. Programmers felt a duty to create software that gave users choice and did what the users wanted as best as possible.
Nowadays, the software vendors brazenly run their shit however they wish on YOUR computer because they don’t have any qualms considering their users their property to do as they please with anymore, and you can’t do a goddamn thing about it.
Microsoft never was an angel, but they were never that in-your-face about it in the past. This is just stupendous. I never cease to marvel at the shitty future we ended up with. This certainly isn’t the future I was promised when I was a kid. Something went badly wrong at some point in the late nineties… If someone had told me that back in the days I’d end up basically distrusting any commercial piece of code as a matter of computing behavioral sanity, I would never have believed it.

Microsoft never was an angel, but they were never that in-your-face about it in the past.
Yes they were, and more.
What, just plain openly disregarding what the user wants? I don’t remember them doing that in the past.
I remember them doing plenty of nasty anti-user things sneaky-sneaky, for sure. But not like “This is how we ro-ro, like it or not we don’t give a fuck” like this is.
So you don’t remember Internet Explorer, and how it absolutely super-duper couldn’t be uninstalled from Windows? And certain Windows shit would only work in IE, or would automatically use IE even though you had a different browser setup as your default? And the US Government sued them over it under antitrust laws?
This is exactly the same shit, just round 2.
You’re right, I didn’t remember. Then again I was already more or less using Linux full time back then.
There is a difference with today though: this wasn’t industry-wide.

You’re right, I didn’t remember. Then again I was already more or less using Linux full time back then.
There is a difference with today though: this wasn’t industry-wide.
Good grief, you should know then, the free and open source software movements, the war on proprietary software? It didn’t start with oppressive proprietary software in the year 2000.
If you were so absorbed in Linux and never paid for software, I can see how you might have missed it, but uh, yah, those weren’t the good old days of software liberty.

So you don’t remember Internet Explorer, and how it absolutely super-duper couldn’t be uninstalled from Windows? And certain Windows shit would only work in IE, or would automatically use IE even though you had a different browser setup as your default? And the US Government sued them over it under antitrust laws?
This is exactly the same shit, just round 2.
This,

They’re just doing embrace, extend extinguish with a new step added in the “extend” phase were they try to trick people into using Microsoft Chrome… erm… I mean Edge.

And yes, Apple should get smacked down for similar behaviour (but wont because they aren’t a monopoly, especially in the EU).

What, just plain openly disregarding what the user wants? I don’t remember them doing that in the past.
I remember them doing plenty of nasty anti-user things sneaky-sneaky, for sure. But not like “This is how we ro-ro, like it or not we don’t give a fuck” like this is.
You obviously weren’t around for the early internet and the Browser Wars [wikipedia.org], or the U.S. v. Microsoft [wikipedia.org] case. From the moment Gates stole the code for MS-DOS [pcmag.com], it was quite clear what kind of company Microsoft was going to become. Of course, 99% of companies are focused on profits at any cost, but MS is one of the worst, and, IMHO, can be attributed to most of what’s wrong in the software world, and it’s spillover to the hardware sector, today.

Of course, 99% of companies are focused on profits at any cost, but MS is one of the worst
Not even. If MS were focused on profits, it would be a different company.
They are focused on control and dominance. If you would give a profile of MS to a psychologist, they’d be diagnosed with narcisstic personality disorder. They truly believe the rules don’t apply to them, that everyone has to dance to their whim and that they and only they are important.

Programmers felt a duty to create software that gave users choice and did what the users wanted as best as possible.
Disagree completely. Programmers don’t feel a duty, there is not professional code of conduct or other element of programming that makes them put the user first, there’s no Hippocratic Oath. Programmers do what they think is best for them and their business. In some case that is foster collaboration, in some cases that is create highly proprietary specific locked in code. This is as true now as it was in the past. The difference is before 2000 software was small and independent and not part of a larger integrated service or collection of groupware. You didn’t get this kind of lock-in because the ecosystem was small and didn’t support it, nothing more, nothing less.

there is not professional code of conduct or other element of programming that makes them put the user first, there’s no Hippocratic Oath.
That’s not actually true. The Association for Computing Machinery has a clear Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct [acm.org] , which not only addresses professional duty, as asked but other things too. It has a completely reasonable non discrimination clause, for example. It has a whole load of material about quality and security.
Of course, I’m not a member of the ACM, nor, likely are you and most programmers probably haven’t even heard of it, even though they probably use the results of their work every day. We’

That’s not actually true. The Association for Computing Machinery has a clear Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct [acm.org] , which not only addresses professional duty, as asked but other things too.
I guarantee you most programmers here on Slashdot either haven’t heard of them or aren’t members of them. It *is* true. There’s no regulations that require you to be a member of the ACM, and no one is bound to them in any way. I wonder what else is in your post.

Of course, I’m not a member of the ACM, nor, likely are you and most programmers probably haven’t even heard of it
well … I rest my case.

even though they probably use the results of their work every day
PETA as an organisation exists. That doesn’t mean people don’t have house pets just because they have heard of them.

I guarantee you most programmers here on Slashdot either haven’t heard of them
/raises hand
> Programmers felt a duty to create software that gave users choice and did what the users wanted as best as possible.
Programmers have no say in the design of software, generally, any more.
Programmers are being told what to implement, and they are building to that spec.
They are essentially working with the free-to-play model but not offering it for free.
I am honestly surprised they haven’t just offered Windows as free for non-OEM/non-business users. (Not that it hasn’t always been for those with a modicum of know-how)

Before, say 2000, this would have been unthinkable. Programmers felt a duty to create software that gave users choice and did what the users wanted as best as possible.
Internet Explorer would like to have a word with you.
Before year 2000, M$ was exactly the same. Its spots have not change the slightest.

Nowadays, the software vendors brazenly run their shit however they wish on YOUR computer because they don’t have any qualms considering their users their property to do as they please with anymore, and you can’t do a goddamn thing about it.
Gonna spit a little uncomfortable truth to this now from the devil’s perspective. The average software vendor doesn’t support a consumer base who knows how to operate a computer. They support a consumer base who knows how to touch it and make it go wheee. I’d challenge you to prove the overwhelming majority would know how to do a goddamn thing with it, even if they could.
Kids wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with setup.exe armed with both mouse buttons and ChatGPT. Brazen attitudes are welcome in busin

forcing users into Edge and a new dedicated widgets area that also ignores the default browser setting
This is the era of the hostile and adversarial software people.
Before, say 2000, this would have been unthinkable.
This is the era huh? You should make a meme with the CEO of Microsoft in Borg makeup to show how hostile and adversarial they’ve become, and call everyone here a Microsoft shill if they admit to using Windows.
I’ve never been more embarrassed by the current /. audience. Millennials deserve everything they get, that’s the price you pay for being ignorant of history.
What do you mean “current”? Slashdot has been using that since it’s founding.
Are you trolling? Microsoft has been waging browser wars since 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… [wikipedia.org]

Before, say 2000, this would have been unthinkable.
Welcome to this reality. You may not have noticed that you fell through a crack in whatever parallel dimension you are from.
On this Earth, meanwhile, Microsoft in particular has been pulling those kinds of stunts pretty much forever.

they were never that in-your-face about it in the past.
Oh yes, they were. Windows 95 came with adware, nagware, spyware and other kinds of malware. I don’t remember 3.1 or 3.11 good enough to tell for sure if that was already the case back then, but even MS-DOS didn’t exactly try to make the best user experience, it played hardball
If you are not a heavy graphics gamer, no need to use Windows, use any other OS. And only use Windows if you are playing a game.
I wish the US and the balls to do what the EU is doing to protect the privacy of their citizens. But the US politicians want their bribes. I use to use ^H to be funny, but since Citizens United, there is no hiding the Bribes the politicians and the Supreme Court Judges get these days. Nice gig if you can get it.
> I wish the US and the balls to do what the EU is doing to protect the privacy of their citizens
Because you think redirecting your search queries to Google is going to do your privacy any good ?
Just disable the windows search bar and use the google bar then.

If you are not a heavy graphics gamer, no need to use Windows
You seem to think the only thing computers are used for is gaming and editing office documents. Sorry but there’s many applications that people are *required* to use that have no Linux alternatives, or have Linux alternatives that they can’t / aren’t allowed to use do to not suiting the workflow / organisation.
Gaming isn’t the only thing keeping people on Windows.

If you are not a heavy graphics gamer, no need to use Windows
You seem to think the only thing computers are used for is gaming and editing office documents. Sorry but there’s many applications that people are *required* to use that have no Linux alternatives, or have Linux alternatives that they can’t / aren’t allowed to use do to not suiting the workflow / organisation.
Gaming isn’t the only thing keeping people on Windows.
Yes. I have one program that is Windows only. It was two specific programs until a year ago. I also have some programs that are Mac only, like FCPStudio. So I use both. Now except for that one program, I’d be MacOS and Linux exclusively.
No, but it’s the only thing keeping me on Windows. Everything else is Mac and Linux. And I’m hardly the only one.
Apple won’t rest until you’ve migrated to iCloud.
I still get nagged by the settings app to sign in to iCloud, and afaik you can’t turn it off.
To quote an 80s band: “Freedom of choice is what you’ve got. Freedom from choice is what you want.”

If you are not a heavy graphics gamer, no need to use Windows, use any other OS. And only use Windows if you are playing a game.
We’ve got some 170,000+ users in our organisation. Guess which OS (or one of it’s recent iterations) can run all of our applications?
Hint: It’s not any form of *n*x.
Using ‘best of breed’ resulted in costly integration and support hell over a couple of decades, so in the early twentyteens when the decision to stay on that or standardise on a ‘good enough’ MS based platform came up, guess what happened.
Licence costs aren’t much different, support costs are down (by about half in our subsection), user experi
To run a URL in the default browser, you Shell Execute that URL. That’s it.
You need to go out of your way to run it in Edge only.
20 years ago, there was a war for the browser. The company that controlled the browser controlled the HTML and HTTP standards. But today, Microsoft just copy/pastes the source code to Chromium and slaps an IE logo on it. Why do they fight to control the browser if they aren’t really even making one? What does it gain them at this point?
Because it defaults you to crap like bing, which they do make money on.
Again? Just fine them hard. They were explicitly forbidden to do this with IE for the exact same reason, so they did this openly knowing they would be fined.
Edge wants me to register before it will let me browse.
This is on my employer’s PC.
Register what? I’ve never seen or heard about Edge registering anything. It sounds like your employer didn’t set something up correctly.
The account needs to be registered with microsoft in order to sync the browser.
When you install, choose “world” as your location. Almost all adware that comes with the basic install (most of it is icons on your start menu on first start that will install crap from the store when clicked and some preinstalled garbage) is country specific, so almost none of it gets shoved in if you don’t choose a specific country.
You will have to mess around with location settings after installing to get correct currency and decimal settings, but it’s way less time than having to delete all the adware icons and uninstall all the promotional bloatware for your region.
Question is, if you use the “English (World)” trick when installing, and then later change your settings to some EU country, will it let you open links in something other than Edge?
What percentage of machines will be replaced by then because Windows craps itself anyway? I bet it’s well into double digits…
This means M$ has again learned nothing from fair business practices (gasp!) and is being forced in EU, by law, to comply. They will not do this across the world, as it will affect their motive to continue to push Edge on people who don’t want it.
This is not a “New Microsoft” as so many have touted in the past few years. It’s a pig in cheap lipstick that’s smearing.
Microsoft was never “new”. They always were the crappy, dishonest and incompetent vendor that by historical accident got a quasi-monopoly.

This is not a “New Microsoft” as so many have touted in the past few years.
There is a “New Microsoft” just not in the way you think. I don’t know any example of anyone claiming that Microsoft is pro user choice or pro privacy. There are however many people who have used “New Microsoft” in the context of a company that is incapable of executing the classic EEE model, and a company that has realised the benefits of open source (i.e. they can monetise it) rather than fight it.
Being “new” doesn’t mean that everything changes.
What about other areas on this planet? People just have to eat whatever crap Microsoft is trying to force down their throats?
How much functionality is lost by ripping Edge out by the roots in Windows 11, or is it even possible? I got rid of it on the one Windows 10 computer I am forced to use by following instructions in Tom’s Guide, which can be found here:
https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-uninstall-microsoft-edge [tomsguide.com]
Differentiate. Are you talking about Edge the front end browser? Or Edge the underlying rendering engine. There’s no reason Edge the browser needs to exist on Windows 11. There’s however no way of separating the rendering engine underneath from the OS since these days it is responsible for drawing countless parts of the UI including all WebView2 based applications, which make up a significant portion of Windows and Microsoft’s 1st party apps.
As long as the part that keeps trying to make itself the default when I have specifically chosen other programs for whatever purpose, I’ll be happy. The specific situation that annoyed me involved a pdf file.
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