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Comment by stby | Hacker News Reader

I guess I'm somewhat OK with protecting microsoft-edge:// links, maybe an argument for security could be made for application-specific protocols. But they absolutely should not use https:// for links that just open Bing and MSN. After all, those are just normal websites and work perfectly fine in Firefox, and of course in Chrome or Opera as well.

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microsoft-edge links are just https links Microsoft wants to open in Edge.

> microsoft-edge links are just https links Microsoft wants to open in Edge.

or... user wants to open in Edge.

the user didn't write the link

They could, though. win+r `microsoft-edge://` should open Edge.

it does work that way on Windows 10

Any protocol should open the app the user chose. And msedge.exe works in your case.

My point is that applications themselves overriding URI protocols (that already have an app set) is an anti-pattern; in my opinion, MacOS' "Use Chrome/Keep Safari" prompt is the best way to handle this, as it allows the browser to prompt for change while ultimately letting the user choose. This would help in general, even for other protocols like https or mailto.

Microsoft overrode users' choices. Not anyone else.

EdgeDeflector just changed microsoft-edge links to https links so they would open in the browser the user chose. Users had to choose to install it.

Firefox and Brave just added microsoft-edge to the protocols they supported. Users had to choose to make 1 of them the default browser.

Why would you be ok with this? There is no conceivable reason for below-average web browsers to be propped up by polluting and bastardizing URLs like this.

Imagine if Apple tried this. People would riot.

I mean, at least on iOS Apple did something way more drastic.

Anyway, I feel like the bigger problem is that Microsoft does not use https to open some simple websites. And people, including me, are upset about it. If they just used https instead of microsoft-edge, we wouldn't have any of those problems and everybody would be happy (probably excluding a hand full of people at MS). They could still use their own protocol to open some Edge-specific setting page or whatever.

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