Microsoft’s ‘can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge’ support page | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft’s ‘can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge’ support page

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68 pointsfortran7777 comments

This is a pretty sane move on MS's part...

I find it reasonable that an OS doesn't let you remove what may be the only browser on the system, for a lot of reasons.

I read this as a push to really ditch IE in the very near future, and don't really mind at all.

In no particular order

- Something has to provide a native webview for desktop applications

- MS has no default package manager for users, and doesn't provide browser downloads on their "store" (or at least I wasn't able to find any, I may be missing something). So removing the browser may leave a user unable to bootstrap another browser onto the system (at least once IE is actually gone) without outside help or another machine.

- The browser itself takes up a pretty negligible amount of disk space, there isn't really any benefit to removing it (unless MS is playing dirty and starting it behind the scenes, but at least in my usage, I haven't seen this). So these users don't want it "GONE", they just want to desktop shortcut removed (and I actually agree, MS shouldn't push as hard here).

- There are lots of system integrations that expect at least one browser to exist, removing the only shipped browser may break these, or add a lot of complexity to some feature implementations.

Cant MS just provide a button somewhere that downloads and installs the browser? A computer doesn't need a browser to download something from the internet (such as a browser).

One plausible reason to provide a browser by default is to help debugging internet connection issues on new setups.

Happened with me once.

Can’t they use the Windows App Store to let users install their browser of choice?

I think it has a rule, that prohibits 3rd party browser engines. :/

It doesn't have to be a 3rd party. It could be Edge itself.

Why would it have that rule?

"Security": https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/store-p...

Does it prohibit the new Edge then?

The rules these guys set for others never apply to themselves.

I don't think it's that, rather it makes it nigh impossible because the browsers will have to be rewritten to use UWP APIs, which were quite limited when they first launched. Also they won't be able to compete with Edge which had access to restricted APIs

Windows Store allows non UWP apps for over 2 years now.

You can install Win32 apps from the store, UWP/WinRT is no longer a requirement: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/deskto...

Do I use that window app store to configure my router or internet connection? How about if you have a corporate account and log in through a connector like okta, which display a web page for login? How about when firefox and half your os gets infected and deleted by your av -will a windows install disk bring back your browser so you can download firefox again?

Being able to show a webpage is an essential function of all modern operating systems. the included browser is a part of windows, much like notepad and vi, or a package manager (programs control panel in windows), or regedit. You are free to add a browser of your choice. The one that's part of the base os image is not your choice, and is supported by the os vendor, as part of the os. You want an os interface to let you frankenstein your os with custom parts and make it unsupported? You have one. You, as an advanced user, can remove edge with powershell very easily.

re: router config - Windows has Captive Portal support and all routers which require config will intercept dns requests to msftconnecttest.com and redirect to the local IP of the router which Windows will show in a modal window

re: corporate account - The WebBrowser component (MSTML/Trident) will never be removed because it would require replacing a huge part of the OS that handles this, in too many places, and it won't be replaced with WebView based on CrEdge because that has no support for proprietary Microsoft controls.

They will remove IE, but not Trident.

Had to look it up, and I was wrong on connector needing a browser.

As far as routers, captive portal launches a browser on my pc, not a modal dialog. And none of the routers I have do what you say. I have to plug in a cable and go to the gateway ip. In a browser.

What if your router needs some manual configuration through the web interface?

I'm not convinced there is much to gain from letting Edge be uninstalled through normal means as long as it's not consuming resources other than some disk space when you're not using it.

Anything stopping them including the installer with windows?

But then what's the difference between edge being installed and merely not-yet-unpacked? Like, it's still there. The installer could just create a shortcut and say that it's installed now, would that be enough? Seems silly.

re: router config, see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24203962

I know it's not user friendly for the average person, but there is powershell. It can be used to download files from the internet.

https://blog.jourdant.me/post/3-ways-to-download-files-with-...

There's also always the option MS could have done, disable uninstall of the last browser on the os, whichever that may be. So if you have chrome, edge and firefox and you remove 2 of them, trying to uninstall the third one would give a warning or stop you or something.

this was already solved ten years ago when Microsoft was fined half a billion bucks by the EU for promoting their own browser this way and disadvantaging competition

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21684329#:~:text=Microso....

very simple solution: offer a browser choice window on first start.

There's not too much point in citing this ruling anymore since it would never go this way again. Every non-Windows OS ships with a default browser (including Linux distros!) and locked-down platforms like TVs, DVD players, iOS, consoles, fridges, you can't even install another browser.

That requirement ended in 2014. Now everything comes with a web browser, and most are even less changeable than in Windows.

The world is a different place than in 2014.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/196170-microsoft-is-fi...

the only dumb part is that they don't explain this in the linked help page. clearly users are looking for an answer of why they can't uninstall edge.

instead of the answer being you can't install edge because it's too awesome to be uninstalled, why not just tell people that you can't uninstall it because other apps would break.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what all the hate is about. MS shipping and updating their browser as an OS component is super reasonable and not unexpected at all.

Like there's plenty of reason to be mad at all the different ways MS pushes Edge in Windows but shipping it with Windows Update would be pretty low on my list.

> So removing the browser may leave a user unable to bootstrap another browser onto the system (at least once IE is actually gone) without outside help or another machine.

  Invoke-WebRequest 'https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=win64&lang=en-US' -OutFile firefox-latest.exe

> Invoke-WebRequest 'https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=... -OutFile firefox-latest.exe

A majority of Windows users can't be expected to do this. Think of the target demographic which uses Windows.

This could easily be packaged into a shell command by Microsoft and just let regular user click that to reinstall the browser.

Did you use a browser to get that command? And did you type it by hand, or copy pasting it?

Powershell.

It's like telling normal users "just apt-get."

Which is a complex string you need to google, as opposed to the cli command that easily uninstalls edge. How will you download this if you just moved out of your mom's house and bought a laptop and a router? How do you set up that router? Displaying a web page is part of the core os. You don't have to use explorer.exe as a file manager either, nor /bin/sh.

Let's not pretend we live in some Stone Age where only our hardlined desktops are able to access the internet.

Cool, let's not. Let's not pretend I want to to type that long thing from my phone simply because my os doesn't have a web browser. If you want to, no one's stopping you. I want the basic tools included and always working.

I think we have a very different definition of basic tools.

I can agree with this. To me, a computer being able to display a website, in 2020, is basic functionality. Something my phone and refrigirator can do is something a full blown computer should be able to do out of the box. For an os that includes basic photo editing software, hypertext editing, video and music players, and game system integration, displaying a webpage is a basic tool. Just like a basic toolset from lowes is expected to have a screwdriver.

I think you are defining a computer OS as a basic OS -like TRON on a microwave. It is not -it's a multi-GB platform, and a basic tool included in it is not a basic tool you'd expect from a microwave. But these days, some microwaves also include a browser.

Much like airbags are a basic safety feature, but were not 20 years ago. Much like vi was a basic feature. But why include vi, when all you need is ed?

Those PowerShell commands just kill me.

I call b.s. on that. Edge does actively check and scrape data from other browsers so it knows it isn't the last or default browser. You don't need a browser to use a windows workstation with pre-installed productivity apps. You might find edge itself is undesirable on your systems because people try to use it to access sites and you din't to support edge operationally or vulnerability management.

I thought the 90s anti-trust lawsuit against MS was exactly about this?

It does go full screen, lock focus, and pin itself to the taskbar on first launch. Some have reported that i copied in their settings/bookmarks from Chrome without user prompt too but it did not for me.

I even let Edge be the default browser.

That way, whenever an app opens a link, it opens in a browser I don't use, and it can't read any important information or browser fingerprint that matters.

I am still using Firefox for my browsing needs.

EDIT: It's more about my browsing habits: Now this browser has been opened. I can close it before the page loads and before I have read anything I really don't care about.

If you can't trust the apps that you're running on an unsandboxed system, getting fingerprinted should be the least of your worries. Since there's no sandbox, it could very well keylog everything you type, or steal your browsing history/login cookies directly from your browser.

Precisely this. “I’m worried about fingerprinting because a malicious app on my machine might open such a website!” sounds slightly out of touch.

Well, some applications open a webpage just when the uninstallation finishes.

Basically every single browser window that is open from an application, or its uninstaller, is an unwanted one.

It's not even about the fingerprinting, now that you make me think about.

It's more about my browsing habits: Now this browser has been opened. I can close it before the page loads and before I have read anything I really don't care about.

> Now this browser has been opened. I can close it before the page loads and before I have read anything I really don't care about.

... and if you're worried about not being fast enough, you could also add (to your firewall) an outbound "block everything" rule for the .exe.

Alternatively, configure it to always use a specific proxy server which doesn't exist.

I'm failing to see the reason for outrage here. Apple won't allow removing Safari from macOS without turning off system protection and then it will get reinstalled next OS upgrade. Heck you can't even remove the chess game on macOS without turning off system protection.

And then once you turn off SIP you could install Chrome and not be able to boot your computer....

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/15235262?hl=en

Yeah. I know it’s been corrected.

Maybe I’m in a minority, but it’s really a pretty good browser. I wish it supported a few more features with the PDF reader (such as text box annotations). However, it still has way more features in that space than most competitors.

I've briefly played around with it and it seems alright. I just don't trust Microsoft from a privacy perspective, and I don't want to reward their shitty behavior of pushing it on users.

Are you on LinkedIn? Using Github? Using Office 365? Outlook?

If 'no' to all of the above then you probably don't need to worry about Microsoft, but beware, they are in more places than you might think because they - very cleverly - keep these properties at arms length from a branding perspective. But that doesn't mean that there is a Chinese wall there through which no data could move.

Isn't it just a re-skinned Chrome?

Mostly, though they added tracking prevention, which is industry standard on every browser not made by the same company as DoubleClick.

Old Edge was the best Epub reader in Windows, by far.

That's the feature I want back.

I tend to agree. It's a great PDF reader, and seems snappy on the web overall. The only reason I'm sticking with Chrome for the latter is basically laziness and Google ecosystem buy-in.

Agree about the PDF viewer. I love how you can draw on PDFs which is a godsend in meetings. Edge will eventually become the de facto Chrome install on Windows 10, IMO.

I use it because it's super simple to have launchers for different profiles pinned to the taskbar. It's convenient to have one logged in to my personal account and one logged in to my MS365 work account.

I also use Firefox for tab containers, but Edge has been my default browser for a while now.

This is IMHO the really fun part (already posted on an earlier thread): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24178631

Interestingly enough, going to that URL with an unsupported browser (QTWeb) I got:

Your browser is out-of-date

You need to update your browser to use the site.

Update to the latest version of Internet Explorer

The hidden bigger news here is that IE11 (and legacy Edge) finally have an official EOL date of August 17, 2021. The true end of an era.

That was my take, too. I really don't mind if the vendor has a standard browser installed, as long as you can install others and make it the default. That's way more than Apple does on iOS!

AFAICT it's only support for IE11 on their product web sites like Office 365.

The strangest part is that they didn’t fully replace the behavior of the old version. If you place the OS in kiosk mode when the new Edge is installed and try to run a browser, it just goes into a loop trying to load the old one and blocking it. It’s not possible to use the new Edge for a kiosk, probably because it doesn’t use the Windows store. There is a separate kiosk browser in the store, but it isn’t integrated with the OS and lacks any simple configuration options. Maybe they just want people to use Linux kiosks instead.

Browsers became a functional part of an OS a long time ago. What is the real problem? If you are on windows and worried about bloat? WTF?

More like one day you turn on windows and it takes over your boot process, has a splash screen, walks you through "your newest browser", adds things to your desktop, changes associations to things.

Sounds good, right?

Given Microsoft's recent initiatives in the developer experience space they should have a developer edition of Windows. I can see why Microsoft would pull this crap on tech-illiterate Home users but Pro edition should be left alone

The user doesn't need to justify why they want to do something with their computer.

Question: Is it possible to uninstall Safari on macOS? (without shell commands)

Reasonable restriction.

Web browsers are so tightly integrated with so many software that they should be considered an essential part of the OS.

It’s possible to provide WebView APIs without doing what MS did with their browser as a whole.

There could certainly be a way to provide Edge via the Store and not force it on users. Possibly the reason it's not done that way is because there appears to be hard links to it. Despite setting Firefox as the default things still open in Edge, like from the Search in the Start Menu and from Settings help pages etc. Maybe there's a way to fix this but it feels wrong to me. And it also doesn't need to keep pinning itself to the task bar either.

Don't what to transform this to Whataboutism but it really annoys me that I can't uninstall the apps on OSX which are clearly optional: TV, Podcasts, Music, Garageband, Safari etc etc. Was actually excited about iTunes splitting into multiple apps because I was expecting to be able to split up the app size into optionals that I could remove - nope

Actually, you can do this. Disable System Integrity Protection, run ‘mount -uw /‘, and delete away.

i suspect that people not so much don't want the browser. they could ignore it if that were the case, but that they are annoyed by its invasive behavior.

if microsoft would just stop to shove the browser into peoples face after they have already said that they prefer another, then there wouldn't be so many complaints

I don't understand why this is an issue. You can't uninstall Safari on OSX( some people here in the comments say you actually can delete it, but this will probably leave you broken system) or ios. You can't uninstall Chrome on Android.

Why MS is so special in this regard?

It's an issue for the same reason not being uninstall Safari or Chrome is an issue.

I can't imagine too many people that actually care about something like this are using Windows.

Can you uninstall safari from macos? If you do what powers webviews after you do?

Didn't they get, like, sued for this once upon a time?

Need to make a heavy criticism on the article but: Maybe don't link the competitor's trends page as trustworthy information?

Google's been known to artificially demote industries/products they don't like and promote the crap out of their own. I am not asserting that it's the case here but it could be the case and non-shit journalism wouldn't ask a biased party for market data on their competitor.

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