>It unsets your default browser, so next time you click a URL from a shortcut, you'll have to re-choose your default browser.
Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that would bring their hallmark antitrust case back to life?
Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that would bring their hallmark antitrust case back to life?
It's default behavior in Windows 10 to ask the user to confirm the default handler for certain URI schemes after a new application capable of handling them is installed. The same would happen after installing any other browser.
I can't verify now, but IIRC if you dismiss the dialog the default handler doesn't change, basically it gives you an opportunity to change your default without delving into Settings. Android does something similar.
IIRC no browser currently force-selects a default browser via private API, except for new Edge if you had old Edge as default (since old Edge is uninstalled at the same time).
I.e. If Firefox switched to Chromium I would expect the exact same behaviour "New Firefox" and "Old Firefox" is not a distinction.
You can make a consistent explanation for either side, as you have just done.
If it's the same browser, then transferring the default status is correct.
If it's a new browser, then asking what should be default is correct.
Chredge is doing both, depending on which one advantages them more.
Saying this as someone who mainly uses firefox and occasionally brave.
As you say, they have responsibility to their users;
If the URL handler was old Edge, and they didn't change it while removing old Edge, the user would have broken internet access and not understand why. That's no good.
If the URL handler was updated to quietly move to new Edge, they just swapped out a major piece of software for one which looks and behaves differently, with a different icon, without any introduction or warning or confirmation, which is an awful experience for users. Microsoft get accused of special-casing themselves and their browser, and it breaks the work Microsoft has done for years to stop programs changing file/protocol handlers without confirming it with the user. [see Raymond Chen writing about it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181016-00/?p=99... ]
If they decide a browser is not part of Windows and you have to install new Edge from the app store yourself, tens of millions of computers are now stuck on the last version of old Edge basically forever - because there's no Windows 11 on the way to replace it - and it becomes the new IE6 millstone for web developers. If they also remove old Edge at the same time, millions of people lost their browser and don't know why - and the only default one remaining is IE 11.
There is a new thing, the hypothetical user who had settled into Edge does need to know, however it got installed.
Well, afaik from 98 to XP it was just ‘put your shortcuts in the Quicklaunch folder’ (dunno about Vista and later).
I'm tempted to run Win10 just to see what happened to it in the past decade.
To be clear, an API for pinning apps now exists[0], but it asks confirmation to the user
[0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/shell/pi...
Your IT department can tell Edge to open intranet sites in IE so even if you open Edge, you’ll get to the site.
When you install Chrome or Firefox something similar happens, they ask to be default. Same thing happens on Android.
What's different here is that the user already has old Edge installed. This is new Edge which is arguably a different app so why not?
Idk... I think the full screen unescapable "Ad" that you have to click through for Edge pisses me off more than all the other crap.
Possibly the liberties they take in presuming to know better than you?
I think were the guided tours really annoy me is when they know who I am but insist on showing them to me across all my devices with no escape.
I actually got this update a few weeks ago on one of my machines and immediately rattled off bug reports to MS about the fullscreen BS and the importing of FF history. When I received the update on another machine a few days ago, the importing didn't occur. I assumed this was MS correcting an err in judgement but based on the reports that's not the case.
The just don't appear to be doing the import step to the same account twice across machines, that's nice I guess... but it's like not having diarrhea gravy poured on the second serving of shit sandwich you're being fed nice.
I personally suspect Microsoft will argue that reverting certain system settings to defaults every update is SOP because they've been doing it elsewhere.
For example: sound settings. My physical Bose headphones show up as 2 different logical bluetooth headphones, one with sound that sucks, and one with sound that doesn't suck. Whenever Windows chooses the one with sound that sucks, I go into sound settings and disable it. This prevents sucky audio for a few months until an update lands, the sound settings get reverted, and the sucky audio returns. Ugh.
The fact that I've been able to figure out what's going on and am therefore able to work around the problem with only minor inconvenience is neither here nor there. Most users with the same setup will not be in a position to understand or do anything about the problem. Microsoft will degrade their audio, and they will live with it. Same with Edge.
I had to unprotect a deep registry entry and clear out my audio devices, at which time the relevant entries came back after a reboot. Any normal user would have been stuck with reinstalling.
It’s quite amazing how many “edges” Windows still has. I’m very close to figuring out how I can have a Windows VM w/ graphics card passthrough just for games on top of Linux. It might have warts too, but at least I can fix it.
As of today I think no operating system performs this switch correctly. It's been broken in desktop Linux for a couple years now.
It used to work much better in the bluez4 era, about a decade ago, than it does now.
Do note these are Bluetooth profiles. This is irrelevant to ouput device switching.
Agree with you that I never got it working consistently in Linux. Just getting normal BT headphones to use A2DP rather than HSP was always a bit tricky. I've not dared try my gamer headphones...
If that behaviour is observed in Europe I suspect they'll get the European Commission on their back pretty soon.
Anyone can confirm / deny my hypothesis?