Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

How is apple allowed to do this? Would MSoft have escaped the legal trouble back then if they had simply insisted that Netscape had to run like IE?

I game a lot, I haven't rebooted into Windows in well over a year. Luckily I don't really play games that require stupid DRM/anticheat (although, that is being worked on)

I would probably start playing Apex Legends again if they allowed EAC Linux support. Epic added support, the devs just need to support it -.-

Most business settings have some absolutely critical custom software written in Winforms or something that can't be ported, plus an entire machine of IT personnel and software tools that would be just as costly to convert.

That has not been my experience (though I wish it were).

Excel on MacOS still feels clunky and has significant performance problems with big files - including crashes.

- In Windows 10, they already made it harder to change your default browser. You have to explicitly open the Settings app and go to the relevant page (maybe if you're lucky the app you're using can link you there at least), and then when you try to change your default browser it will try to push you to try Edge.

- In Windows 11, they went even further: you now have to change the default apps separately for every single protocol and file extension, rather than having an option to set an app as default for everything it supports. The concept of a "default web browser" that's easy to understand for the average user no longer exists.

- When Firefox decided to implement a hack to let users directly change their default browser with a single click, Microsoft decided to patch it because "it can be used by malware to hijack your default browser". Which would be a completely reasonable explanation if we ignored the context this is happening in, but they're making their ulterior motive painfully obvious.

- And now, they're going even further by injecting unwanted and unprofessional self-promotion into third-party websites without the user's consent. It's quite different from what Google is doing, because they only suggest you to switch to Chrome when you visit Google Search, they don't try to stop you when you try to download Edge or Firefox from Chrome.

I seriously hope Microsoft gets hit with an antitrust lawsuit again, they completely deserve it. Looks like they haven't learned from last time.

If MS really cared about security as they claim rather than competition, they could very easily implement a popup dialog that shows up when an app tries to change your default browser. Heck, maybe even make it part of UAC for extra security. That way, it would only take two clicks and be also far more secure than whatever they're doing right now.

Also, I'm not entirely sure about this, but I remember reading somewhere that MS is also doing the same on Firefox downloads. While Google may somewhat deserve it (though that doesn't make MS's behavior any less user-hostile), Mozilla definitely doesn't deserve it as Firefox already has a quite low market share.

Windows blatantly ignores your preferences and settings to push Microsoft's own products. It started with little popups about Edge and previews of Microsoft Office, but every month the intrusive crap gets worse. Now computers come with some kind of debt scam installed by default into the browser that is VERY hard to get out of without technical knowledge or the help of someone with it.

Firefox had to reverse engineer Microsoft's system twice now to simply allow setting a browser as a default, and Microsoft has said to "patch out" their latest approach. Even still, the default browser won't open when you accidentally click a link to Microsoft's help; that opens in an ms-edge link that Microsoft keeps strictly to themselves. I consider that to be hostile.

I usually disable fast startup, and it sounds like she should disable it too.

Whoever set it up so that you have to reboot to shut down should have realized that the way they were implementing this was a bad idea.

I agree with you, but I think that "for common users" pretty much all OSes are interchangeable these days anyways. The biggest headache for most folks isn't the occasional need to resort to an expert (which they'd always have to do), but the unnecessary headache of learning the quirks of a different OS. Easier to just stick with what you know, which is usually Windows.

There are many many distributions. When I started Linux, I first tried Ubuntu because that was recommended to me. Ubuntu is installed with Xfce which looks and basically is clunky and outdated. Setting up WiFi was a PITA because my laptop doesn’t even have an ethernet port, and i couldn’t do much else without wifi. I had to configure some stuff via the command line because there were no settings for it, and install a new trackpad driver. Eventually I gave up Ubuntu because it was too hard to use with my trackpad.

Later on I installed Debian which IMO should be recommended. But i couldn’t properly install regular Debian. After some research I had to install “nonfree” Debian from some confusing site, because my computer needs a nonfree Wifi driver (again, no Ethernet port). Setting up Wifi was an even harder PITA.

At least Debian was usable and had good trackpad support once I set up. Plus I have to admit the graphics are way better than even macOS and Windows. It’s also very noticeably faster than macOS, running the same programs. But actually installing it wasn’t easy.

That's unnecessary, reboot will always skip Windows's "Fast Startup". It can be a bit unintuitive because back in the day people used to recommend a full shutdown+boot cycle instead of a reboot as it could fix more issues. But it makes some sense, because generally when you reboot it's either because of an update or issues that probably won't be resolved if the kernel is just hibernated rather than fully restarting.

When a Linux update fails (which can happen automatically; for example, Ubuntu 16 reserved a very small boot partition and upgrading it to the latest version leaves it with too little space to keep the normal amount of kernels available), you end up digging through files and configuration and terminal commands. This is different from Windows where you have four buttons to click, and if all of those fail, you either reinstall the entire OS or reverse engineer Microsoft's logic and directory structures.

When Windows fails, the OS usually detects the issue and reverts all the work. Their self repair is excellent. Sure, Windows Update may be broken for a while and the forced restarts make the whole process annoying, but the system still works.

Linux can easily leave the system unbootable while Windows has the necessary recovery options. Boot recovery and System Restore are some features that definitely improve Windows' stability. Timeshift with a CoW filesystem and some GRUB hooks can somewhat replicate the effect, but I haven't seen any distros enable all of those by default yet.

For example: I enabled encryption in the installers of both Ubuntu and Manjaro and hibernation simply didn't work. I managed to make it work with some config tweaks on both, but out of the box my laptop simply shut down and lost all of my work when the battery got low. My laptop also had no sound, stuttery video and no working microphone because of missing drivers for Nvidia, Intel and Realtek chips. Udev rules broke sound every time I unplugged my HDMI drive or let it go to sleep.

Windows sometimes breaks down because of shitty drivers, but I've never seen it happen this severely.

This was probably all related to the manufacturer's decisions about board configuration, drivers, and other proprietary crap, but the end user doesn't care whose fault that is and neither should they.

When you Google for "Windows 11 sound not working" the first result I get is https://www.makeuseof.com/fix-no-audio-windows-11/ which is much more user friendly.

The system itself is one part of the problem, and that's the part that has been improving for years. The community providing technical help is another; Linux help forums are often full of technical users advising technical users whereas Windows help threads are usually novice users asking help and getting it in simple terms.

I'm a Delphi Developer who moved to NZ in 2005 and several programs are still live and running in UK factories. A tribute to the Win32 sub-system rather than my programming I assure you :-)

But in both cases, actual user interaction required is very little and decreasing with time.

I will admit though, that if something doesn't work immediately with Linux, there's a good chance you won't be able to get it working with Linux.

No one cares about HDR. How about some decent data retention?

I get better frame rates in Linux running wine than I do in windows 10 since the 2020 updates.

The train wreck starts there. Who wants a system that auto upgrades itself without the user permission?

Prime majority of users don't upgrade BIOS, or don't even know what it is.

11 will be a short lived release just because of that, and them not only needing to backpedal, but to entice users into biting into a new bait, as all what is actually good in Win11 been kind of mentally displaced by the fiasco.

A supposedly sucks less Win11.1 will not do it to attract more users. A completely new release is coming.

It's crippled compared to Win10.

Aside from that, and a couple of UI annoyances (the placement of the start button and the re-arrangement of the start menu) I'm happy enough with Windows 11 that it will be a bummer for me if I have to go back.

For me it's little things like the way the context menu is cleaned up -but the old one is still available, and the file manager is similarly cleaned up. I also like that WSL is better than it was on Windows 10 (running gui apps are now an option without grafting a separate and half-assed X implementation ).

So yeah, I'd say "trainwreck" is a hyperbole -especially for anyone who had to use Windows 8!

I think 11 is more about changing hardware requirements, requiring a TPM. The UI garbage seems more like an opportunity to try new things, they'll figure out that people don't like these new things.

Talk about timing...

8 and 8.1 were the last death throes of decent design, and then they started making a mess of everything in Windows 10. Not only didn't they reverse it with Windows 11, they doubled down on it when they had a perfect chance to rebrand with a "back to the classics" comeback to Windows 7-like UI without backlash.

Their trajectory is locked in. Barring a miracle and re-prioritising on their users, "good" Windows releases are dead forever. Looking forward to the LGR Retrospective on "Windows 7, the last good version of Windows" in about 10 years time.

I switched a year ago and I was emotionally prepared to fight a rough battle with problematic websites, incompatible apps and so on. I was very positively surprised. The only major PITA was the fact that I had to define MIME types for downloadable documents that I wanted to save by default - the usual box "remember this option" was missing for .mkv and the like. So far, this was the only major complaint on my part. Everything else was very positive, especially the containers, no forced Google logins everywhere, the availability of extensions that Google doesn't like (like Ad Nauseam) and so on. I wouldn't go back even if someone paid me (OK let's be honest: I'd do it if I was paid more than €1000 a year).

...Because apparently Safari no longer exists...?

I imagine the telemetry is extremely important. Knowing every activity done by every user is valuable to Google, or Microsoft, or whoever gets the chrome feed. Of course this is why I like brave, FireFox, safari and others as there is no similar telemetry.

as a casual reader, I know this is false.. several HUGE efforts, have failed to gain the eyeballs of readers . repeating that there is only one choice, is not useful or constructive right?

That's the thing. I don't WANT a browser that's actually different. The web is a duopoly between Apple and Google, and everything else is a second-class citizen. The era of an "open" web came and went, passing us by as capitalism took over. Firefox offers no meaningful freedom when all the content it's supposed to consume was designed by and for big companies targeting other big companies' products and customers.

Using Firefox introduces a lot of headaches and subjects you to frequent, meaningless UI updates that add partner extensions against your will and show you recommendations that I don't want to see... Mozilla is desperately trying to stay relevant and has introduced a lot more dark patterns than Chrome has, all while adding no value beyond some vague, lackluster appeal to a libre web... too little, too late.

Google, for all its faults, makes a darn good browser. The only downside is that they track my habits. So what? I'm not particularly exciting, and the only real cost I've noticed, beyond needing an ad blocker, is that my Google News feed gets cluttered with shit I don't care about derived from my browsing history. But other than that Chrome is just wonderfully simple and clean compared to the bloated Firefox (and its lookalike clones, Opera and Edge).

Instagram's log-in to view anything (even public pages) is everywhere now. If you go to Twitter and click a person's name or click a tweet, you get a log-in pop-up.

Let Caeser have his awful stuff. We can all push for fun, and free computing.

Personally, I'm looking into Vivaldi; though I haven't switched over yet.

Microsoft hasn't been in the news as much, at least not regarding privacy matters. They're often seen by the public as the solid company behind trusted products like Office and Windows.

> "with the added trust of Microsoft"

Hijacking a competitor's page demonstrates that Microsoft lacks integrity and cannot be trusted

But really I feel like people jump to the antiauthoritarian rhetoric really quickly nowadays. I know your making a joke, but damn if I'm not worried we're kind of normalizing the concept

To circle back to your point, I now feel Google’s Don’t be evil was a deke, a fake and was all about building reputation which they leveraged for market share.

On the opposite, I started using Discord recently and they manage their funny tone very well, but it is used consistently through the application. And it stays informative.

I call it "meme speak". It's the style of writing used on meme image captions or in tweets designed to generate the most number of shares and "likes".

Do you have a source for that? I remember them being sued and losing simply because they bundled the browser with the OS, but don't recall any sort of the "detect user attempting to use competing browsers and kill them" mentality that they now have.

But after spending so many years, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, getting shit from a bunch of khaki wearing, corporate butt kissing MSCE types about how Linux is "get what you pay for" and constantly mocking that all this "free software can't do anything"

and then sitting back and watching Linux empowering cloud computing, Unix/Linux being the basis of all our mobile devices, being the base for most IoT, watching the explosion of Docker and tons of other toolsets all initially rooted in the Unix/Linux ecosystem, watching Unix/Linux become a tool that developers heavily relied on either Linux on the server or Linux/MacOS on the desktop/laptop...

watching Microsoft do things like making Notepad use Unix EOL characters, supporting MS SQL on Linux hosts, expanding PowerShell to perform all kinds of tasks easily done by Unix/Linux for over a decade, creating a knock off of apt and yum with "win-get", making it super easy to install a whole Linux ecosystem within Windows itself, doing everything they can to make using GIT on windows, an easy experience, and so forth and so on..

and i just can't help being figuratively stick up my middle finger. Not just to MS as a company but to all the clowns that mocked Linux and Unix guys for literally 20 some odd years. Not just peers and co-workers, but managers, upper level managers all the way to CTOs who reluctantly realized Linix solutions were a better fit in some areas and were won over by lower management.

At this juncture - i don't even particularly like desktop computing, no matter the flavor. It's all frustrating in their own ways - including my precious Linux.

But F* windows and F** windows people in IT. The whole lot of em

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210

"Did you know that personal files can disappear just like that, just like that? Oh, I just noticed you are downloading Chrome. By the way, you sure those backups are working? You have backups, right? Just saying."

Sure! I mean it's working so well at changing corporate behavior, why would we want to stop now?

Things like this are why I advocate for Corporate Jail time and a Corporate Death Penalty.

So to have a successful browser you need to invest to have a visitor count rivaling the largest search engine, video platform, and online mail combined? I think that’s a very large hill to climb even for Microsoft. Your statement leads to only a Chrome hegemony. In terms of sites with Google’s reach, maybe Facebook could make their own browser but that’s about it.