Microsoft wants changing default apps in Windows to be less of a mess

The article forgets to mention that the way Firefox sets itself as the default browser was simply reverse engineered from the way Edge sets itself as the default browser.

Microsoft always wants to set rules on how applications can promote themselves and ignore those rules for their own applications.

They do this intentionally to force their own applications on customers. It used to be easy, the app showed a prompt and you said yes make it default and that was largely it and it would appear in the start menu and on the taskbar. If you went to a file you just opened with chose an app and it defaulted.

Nowadays every big Windows update seems to reset back to defaults, now this is thr 17th time I have said I don't want Edge as the default and even then the taskbar search has to go to Edge so that gets turned off. You have to go into the settings and there are loads of different categories for default apps and it doesn't always show the one you are using so you have to browse for it. They have hidden the Open With although it does at least give you Always or Just once as options when you select an app, but they intentionally group the Microsoft apps in a special area at the top and it gets reset randomly on some updates.

This all seems like the usual dark patterns from Microsoft to promote their own solutions. Seems odd to acknowledge it. They have consistently made many of these aspects worse in Windows on purpose to trick and confuse users. I am a little skeptical that they intend to fix it.