Windows 10 asks to use a verified app, when attempting to install Firefox | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10 asks to use a verified app, when attempting to install Firefox

support.mozilla.org

21 pointsffpip19 comments

All of this is after forcefully pinning edge to every window's user's taskbar and warning firefox is not secure.

MS advertises privacy to attract users but it is worse than Chrome on privacy aspects.

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

If the developer that implemented the 'edge pinning to taskbar feature' is reading this, fuck you. Don't mess with my taskbar.

This type of dark pattern needs to stop.

Pushing your browser this hard is just going to piss your users off to the point they are going to avoid your product.

I actively switch people away from edge now because of this bs.

It's interesting to me that this is almost exactly the flow for installing Firefox on macOS as well, and yet on a Mac it's not used as an opportunity to convert users to Safari (yet?).

macOS requires user explicit user interaction to install and use an app from outside the store (same), and prompts with a system security prompt the first time you do this (same), and if desired this functionality can be turned off at the system (same).

The difference is that the security prompt on macOS makes no mention of browsers, App Store apps being more "trusted" or anything like that.

While it's not a security prompt, macOS does pester you about switching back to Safari: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/how-to-osx-try-safari-promotion....

The title should probably be changed to the title from the article, 'Windows 10 warns [users] to use a "Microsoft-verified" app [when attempting to install Firefox]'.

Okay. Changed since people felt it was clickbait.

I do not think it was and I gain nothing from people clicking on it.

I think it's more that just Edge. They force their "Microsoft store". This is just another step in their plan to limit execution of programs that come from other sources.

Edge isn't available on the microsoft store. It is still 'Verified'?

Damn, you're right! I was tricked by their search, it shows it in the search along with the other apps, however it's not in the store.

This is such a click bait title. Could it not just say what Microsoft is actually doing rather than getting us to click through?

Agreed. Actual title of the KB article:

Windows 10 warns me to use a "Microsoft-verified" app

What is clickbait about it? They have been doing this for years. This is just a new method.

https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/12/microsoft-intercepting-fir...

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/f0r8y9/not_cool_mi...

Also, I gain nothing from people on HN clicking it. It's not even my site. It's mozilla's.

Still, I'm changing it.

What was clickbait about it is that I couldn't know what the article is about until I clicked.

Thanks for changing it, this is much better.

What do you think Microsoft is doing?

Their efforts work. I set up Firefox on my parents' Windows computer. A couple days (days!) later they were using Edge, and had no idea "when" the switch happened.

Their new update forces edge to open full screen, import bookmarks and pins to the taskbar.

You can't close edge without setting it up.

The default browser is also removed. They ask you to set it again.

Windows seems to be getting more and more user-hostile everyday. It didn't used to be this way.

MicroSoft is shit, has been shit for years, and presumable will always be shit. Stop using their software and tell your gloating friends that win10 is horrible piece of shit and they know it, most of them are in denial.

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