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Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

Am I alone in absolutely loving Edge? It has finally unseated Chromium for me. It has all the benefits of the latest Chromium build without having to rely on sketchy binaries uploaded to some website, or giving Google total ownership of my web browsing. Sure Microsoft now fills that role, but they already own my OS anyways, so I'd rather reduce my "privacy surface area" as much as possible. Plus it has great built in privacy features like automatically deleting all browsing history after every session, and built in adblocking. I agree that the behavior outlined in this post is annoying, but the reality is that heavily managed automatic updating is the future for consumer grade software, and for good reason. If you're not a fan, just use Linux or an LTS Windows release.

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Your conclusion strikes me as a bit defeatist. Managed systems might be 'better' for users now, but in the long term, they leave users with almost no agency, and that becomes a great opportunity for companies to abuse their position of power.

I also thing think that saying that something is annoying is dismissing what is actually a pretty dark pattern. What comes to mind is how modern day censorship works the internet. If you outright block someone's ability to visit a example.com, they will spot the censorship and try to find workarounds. If on the other hand, you simply introduce a 5% packet loss to example.com, people will blame the _website_ and not potential censorship.

What's to stop Microsoft for adding another 5 minutes of hassle to install chrome or firefox? You couldn't sue them for it, but it would be enough to destroy every other browser on the market.

> how modern day censorship works the internet.

It sounds like you're talking about something specific, are there examples of this happening that you can point to?

This sounds like a reference to the Great Firewall of China. (Though, on second thought, the GFW disrupts much more than 5%.)

There's two parts, I believe. One is the outright blocking of certain websites. The other is the throttling of every foreign website because the exchange points coming in/out of china are always congested. If both netflix and comcast's streaming service are similar in price and catalog, but netflix is always buffering because comcast is throttling netflix (intentionally or otherwise), then you might be inclined to go with comcast just for less hassle.

Or because the average person is more likely to blame Netflix than Comcast in that scenario.

> Am I alone in absolutely loving Edge?

I'm not even giving it a shot.

It'd be one thing if word of mouth built up enough positive vibes for me to consider trying it for awhile. It's entirely another for my first experience with the latest Edge to be additional tech support requests from concerned and confused relatives in the middle of a goddamn pandemic. My mother has been a bit paranoid of Edge ever since scammers tried to get her to use it when Chrome blocked the malware she was being tricked into running - so Edge suddenly trying to take over her computer with no obvious way to close out of it made her understandably concerned! Fortunately we were able to muddle through it despite me not being able to see her screen over the phone, but this is another reminder that I should be strongly considering trying to switch her to a different platform, and poisons my perception of Edge to it's very core.

> Am I alone in absolutely loving Edge?

Isn't that besides the point that you love Edge ? I think the problem here is that they installed it without user consent.

> I think the problem here is that they installed it without user consent.

That depends. The post doesn't clarify whether Edge was already installed in its legacy incarnation. If so, and they received an update, that's not ""installing without user consent".

I recently installed the Chromium version of Edge manually and didn't encounter any of this behaviour. It's a shame that Microsoft are doing something Windows Update-specific, although maybe people who are the most averse to this behaviour are the more technical crowd who will have already grabbed an installer for themselves anyway?

"shoving Edge down our throats" to me implies without consent. But as you say, it could be that the user consented long time ago but doesn't remember :)

It's rather complicated I guess, but I've heard rumors of a concept of consent where it's something that can be revoked. Sometimes people get quite vehement about it.

I couldn't understand where it came from. Turned off updates.

Edge was installed as part of a previous update, 1905.

Mac OS and iOS install Safari, Android installs Chrome. It's a system component that was never removable to begin with. And now they updated it.

I'm sad to see any Chromium based browser installed on my PC, but it's hardly harmful that they're upgrading a system component to the latest version.

> Android installs Chrome

Does it? I don't even have Chrome on my phone. Even the webview component is now customizable, I think (or maybe it's the "embedded browser" component, but apps are definitely opening things in a popup Firefox window for me).

not all android redistro uses Chrome, but they all use webview components afaik from like android4 on -- so you're getting most of the engine.

>not all android redistro uses Chrome

Preinstalled Google's proprietary apps on GMS Certified Android Hardware are Google Search, Google Chrome, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Play Store, and more. If your devices are not certified, you will not have access to any of Google’s proprietary apps.

It's all or nothing. So if the OEM has certification from google, Chrome is compulsory. Also, the manufacturer MUST release ALL their phone models with it. They cannot release some models with the open sourced android.

AFAIK, Google and Microsoft are using the same playbook. Google simply learned from MS's mistakes early and created illusion of choice with open source.

Microsoft in turn, has learned from Google and is gluing "must have" services to open source VScode.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-oem-licensing-345806... https://socialmobile.com/gms-certified-devices/

Big difference between open sourcing an Atom clone vs a browser engine and operating system. Microsoft only open sources the minimum to try to attract developers away from Linux and get them working in a Microsoft bubble.

>It's a system component that was never removable to begin with. And now they updated it.

that's only true in recent Windows history, and it's obviously just another way to follow suit and go for the 'walled-garden' approach that the other platforms seem to be reaping the benefits of.

"You can't remove the browser, it's a part of the system architecture." should be followed up with : "Is that a legacy feature, and if not -- what can be done to remediate it?"

If someone told me that file locking was a concept you're stuck with in Windows -- yeah, sure. I agree. That's something that requires nearly a bottom-up re-write; these browser dependencies are new in the case of M$.

IE has been inseparable from Windows for well over a decade prior to the launch of Edge, when they let you uninstall IE. But Microsoft has generally made one web browser mandatory.

Mac OS has never said to me "hey, you're using Firefox, are you sure you wouldn't like to use Safari instead"? And I hope and trust it never will.

MacOS absolutely does this. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/153379/how-do-you-...

On the other hand, I don't want any web browser on my phone. I want it for maps, messaging, calls, and alarms. Nothing else. And yet I literally cannot uninstall Chrome.

The problem is the dark patterns used to trick less technical users into accidentally setting Edge as their default browser.

It’s the same kind of scummy behavior that dodgy websites use to set themselves as your homepage, or change your default search engine.

They install it even if you uninstalled the previous Edge (there's no uninstall for this one now), they pop up a full screen modal with no X or cancel then they add Edge to your desktop and system tray. Then when you use your normal browser, they ask if you're sure you want that as the default.

They did this just after making it impossible to manually skip updates ("to prevent confusion"), and also shipped it to Windows 7, which is supposed to be EOL'd.

It's never been possible to uninstall Edge from a Windows PC.

Am I alone in absolutely loving Edge?

You are now that Microsoft has done this.

Seriously, forcing user preferences is terrible and completely unrelated to the virtues of Edge.

Google does exactly that in other ways. Hats off to Micros~1 for fighting fire with fire.

I am delightfully amused you ~1’ed Microsoft because it’s 9 characters.

Let's presume for a moment that the new edge is like... Nirvana, it's the promise land, it's browsing utopia, let's assume that it really really is.

Do you earnestly believe it will stay that way if an actual sizable chunk of the market starts using it?

Or do you think Microsoft will do exactly what it did as described in this very article, which is use it's monopoly position to enforce its own interests to the detriment of society at large?

Microsoft is considered the lesser evil to Google?

Possibly the best fit I’ve ever encountered for the adage “out of the frying pan into the fire”.

Microsoft at least doesn't have a reputation for permanently removing access to all of your data because you did something horrible like dispute a false charge. Google, on the other hand...

yet.

No you're not alone. I also recently tried Edgium and I think it's a really nice browser. However, I'm going to keep using Firefox cause FOSS and whether I like the new Edge or not is besides the point. I don't like it when Microsoft changes things in an update that clearly only benefit them.

I was initially hesitant to try it out. But now that I gave it a shot, I am liking it since it is very similar to Chrome but without being tied to Google. I am currently using it as a secondary browser, but if I was forced to switch I wouldn't mind. Extension support is still lacking though.

You can use all chrome extensions directly from chrome Web store, plus install from Microsoft which has most of the popular ones already published.

IMHO the worst part of Edge is the UI and relative lack of configurability. I suppose you'd like it if you were already used to Chrome/ium, but I abhor the dumbed-down featureless "flat" trend that's infected everything "modern" these days, along with the lack of things like user stylesheets and zone-based security settings (both of which IE has had for a long time, and which I have used to much benefit.) I'd be far more welcoming of a new rendering engine in the normal IE UI, along with all the configurability it had.

(Disclaimer: long-time IE user --- as well as Firefox and (pre-webkit) Opera.)

New Edge is Chromium.

> but the reality is that heavily managed automatic updating is the future for consumer grade software

That's not even necessarily a bad thing (given there are ways around it) ... But that isn't what Microsoft did here.

I have switched to Edge, not because it is necessarily a better browser, but because Google has become abusive.

Consider for example, this Chrome setting: Settings > Sync and Google Services > Allow Chrome sign-in. The description says "By turning this off, you can sign in to Google sites like Gmail without signing in to Chrome".

Turn this feature off and sign into Gmail. Chrome will sign you into the browser as well -- regardless of your setting -- so now the browser knows who you are.

This is pretty abusive. For this reason I have made Edge my default browser.

Chrome developper here: do you have details about this? If it happens that's definitely a bug.

I wanted to like it, but its new tab page has a bunch of MSN cookies associated with it. To Edge's credit, it blocks some Bing cookies (giggle) and cookies from a 'scorecardresearch.com', but I'm still unimpressed.

Putting my web-developer hat on, I _am_ happy that I'm not going to have to worry about Trident-in-Edge ever again.

You're not alone. I like it. I _really_ like that Windows ships with a Chromium based browser by default, and I am running the canary build as my day to day, and it performs great on Windows 10 ARM (I have a Galaxy Book S, which is also awesome!).

Firefox is also fantastic! It's good to have some options besides Google Chrome these days!

I'm on W10 with the latest Firefox, Chrome and Edge.

Edge is the ONLY browser that doesnt consistently freeze my entire computer (and require a hard reset) when I watch Netflix. I have no idea why but its a common issue if you Google it.

For that alone I am glad Edge exists.

Well Edge is using Microsoft's PlayReady DRM as opposed to Google's WideVine DRM. I assume PlayReady has better HW support.

I do not know about absolutely loving Edge, but I just setup a new work computer and am using edge exclusively. I cannot promise that this is forever, but it is working for me right now.

I wouldn't say I love it, but it's the best experience with multiple profiles. It's super simple to log into multiple MS accounts and have each one pinned to the taskbar.

There's also some integration with MS365 if you log in the an Azure AD domain.

Not absolutely loving but I do definitely am replacing Chromium TP distributed binaries with it.

Does it really matter? By nature, all web browsers are essentially the same, with identical features, except some are open source and others are not.

I disagree. I find many browsers to be significantly different.

They don't all have the same engines and some of what they do have is non-standard.

Meanwhile from a user perspective some browsers differ in extensions and configuration etc. So if you get a monoculture which causes sites to start relying on non-standard features of only specific browsers, it makes it harder for people to use or create other browsers that aren't bug-compatible with the only one anybody is targeting.

The "fast iteration" browser makers like is also damage, because it causes cruft to accumulate. Once you add a feature, sites start using it and you're stuck with it basically forever. See how long it took to get rid of Flash. But now they add features at such a pace that Chrome is now like 35 million lines of code, all of which is attack surface which causes all browsers to have disproportionately many security vulnerabilities.

Having multiple independent browsers requires new features to go through a standardization process that requires buy in from multiple implementations before sites can rely on them, which causes the changes to be fewer and more carefully considered -- a good thing for something you'll be stuck with ~forever.

If you think that, it's a testament to the skill of the web developers who have spent countless hours battling browser bugs and poorly or non-implemented standards to ensure that their site works and looks the same on every browser.

i like it ok. it's better than ie. i don't like bing as much as google but overall i found it redundant to have both edge and chrome installed, and i just use edge. if i used gsuite or was a youtube uploader it might be different. i really should use firefox again though. i think edge's novelty is wearing off. and chromium in general.

I love it. I even use it on my iPhone and my Mac...I can’t wait for default browser settings in iOS14

No, I also use it quite a lot and have it as part of my checks for Web page validation.

The text-to-speech on Edge is fantastic!

Select any text, and speak it. Jump anywhere in the page. Works on both, regular web pages, and PDFs too.

It works even better than what’s on the iPad Safari. And Chrome doesn’t have any working feature like this.

I'm using Chrome on OS X right now. I can highlight text and select "Speech -> Start Speaking" and it reads whatever I highlight. It also works fine on a random PDF file I found.

I believe that’s a system-wide macOS feature whenever you select text in any program.

It is. Neither Discord nor Visual Studio Code have this feature surfaced, but they're both Electron apps that probably (accidentally) bury it.

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