Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome
theverge.com
theverge.com
I have Chrome installed on my Windows machine but haven't launched it in months. I also have Edge installed and set as the default browser, but guess what? The other day, I needed to test some work related to web-sev on Chrome, and the moment I clicked its icon in the taskbar, windows showed up a pop-up notification that read something like: "use Edge instead, a fast, secure.. bla bla browser".
Edit: I definitely agree that Google is behaving the same, in a way or another but what pains me in the Microsoft’s case is that I already paid for my Windows license, so I expect some level of freedom unlike using Google for free.
What's the legal argument that could apply to one but not the other? Chrome has a better case of being called a monopoly in the browser space.
Searching in Chrome for "Microsoft Edge download" results in no nudges to keep using Chrome (on my MBP). Same for Safari - no nudges to keep using it when I search "Firefox download" or "Chrome download".
So, MS is using their dominance in the desktop OS market to drive use of their browser. And then adding friction (via nudges and surveys) to retain that browser marketshare.
The FTC has been finally doing it's job recently, so unless the other side wins the next election and guts them, I think the tech industry might actually have a future that isn't just more miserable dystopia.
I live in constant fear that the Arc team (my beloved browser) will start chasing revenue with these privacy invasive services. Can I please have the option to just pay for the software? I’m so tired of being the product.
Both of those things together basically guarantees they'll try to squeeze out as money as possible from their users as soon as the "growth" phase has been completed.
There's a new .exe that runs on browser launch, blasting users with very, very loud sound. There's no obvious way to disable it. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=opera+loud+startup+site%253Areddit...
When trying to upload a file, one might expect a file picker. Instead, Opera pops open a small window with some pictures of earlier downloads. There's no option to navigate to the file you need. There's no evident path to exit the experience or even a window title to indicate what it's called (easy-files). In short, you're stuck.
But, what is the user supposed to feel is the reason? I feel like the only reasonable explanation is that they're trying to rope more product in to sell data but they don't even seem to be trying to hide it. I just feel like I can't think of an alternative reason any company would care if we used their specific browser.
It's all about targeted ads.
If only Chrome could do the same thing to Edge than people might be clamoring back for Firefox.
That said, Firefox would have the least ability to stop this... if it gets to all out mudslinging the only option that would be "safe" is Safari on MacOS using duckduckgo or something. As any other config someone can and would inject "nudges" to the other.
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
I'd be interested in reading a writeup by someone knowledgeable in web tech that would explain what on earth is happening between these two browsers when both are serving maps.google.com.
Remember that mantra?
But 10 years ago... was it just "don't test on firefox"?
Or "heeey, we just made a brand new feature [that no one else uses] go ahead and use it in mail and maps!"
Or more openly nefarious?
I genuinely think they're doing anti-optimization for firefox users at this point.
Edit: Did some google employee see this and turn a "maps on firefox load speed" knob?
I decided to test again on a private window vs my typical plugin laden setup and it seems to be performing far faster than it has in years. wtf.
* No intrusive notifications or ads from the OS. For example, by using Linux, I no am no longer interrupted with a notification that Windows Defender just finished an entirely purposeless virus scan; containing a "see less of this" button that takes me to the settings page where I am informed that Group Policy is configured by my employer such that I am not allowed to disable this notification.
* No purposeless automatic virus scan wasting my laptop battery in the first place.
* The ability to use a lightweight tiling window manager
* The ability to mount filesystems other than NTFS and FAT, logical volumes, and soft RAID arrays.
* No mandatory updates interrupting my ability to shutdown and halt the system.
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None of these is resolved by running Linux in a VM.
I just feel like it's important to say it out loud: Windows is not good enough to be mandatory. How else is anything going to change?
I could continue adding to this list all day if I let myself...
It's worked flawlessly for the past year for multiple Jet brains IDEs and was trivial to set up.
Only slightly kidding. I do most of my work on a System76 laptop, and I loathe every minute I'm forced by my employer to check my email through Outlook. The day they shut down my Alpine connection to my work email was the beginning of a long slide downward for the quality of this place.
[1]: https://www.techrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Figu...
For the "Google does it too on google.com" commenters, imagine if Microsoft did this when you are downloading Firefox. Would you still find that okay?
I am indifferent to this.
For what its worth, it doesn't seem to recognize Chromium derivatives like Cromite or Firefox derivatives like Mercury.
Why? "The browser inserts itself into the browsing experience in a user-hostile way" is a bad slope to start down, even if the browser starts by inserting itself between one untrustworthy product and another.
Assuming this is about "paying the bills" and using Windows at work; this is your employer/customer causing this issue for you by demanding Windows. Not Microsoft.
"Requisitioning" implies that you still have the choice to refuse or disobey.
I'm sure there are good technical reasons for this, but it seems suspicious.
Windows is a bobsled on a long track, built on a mountain of anti-competitive, facing another mountain of anti-competitive we call Google. This feels like a drop in the bucket to me.
Sure, but each drop fills more of the bucket. We'll never convert Microsoft into a user-friendly company, but there's no reason to give them a pass just because this drop of awful is part of a mountain of awful.
They don't need a pass from privacy/tech enthusiasts. They are fighting over users who are mostly indifferent, and anyone with concerns over Edge and this behavior probably shouldn't use vanilla Chrome unless they have to for work or whatever.
Hence the feeling that my personal distaste for this is pretty much irrelevant.
When I was in 4th grade, I didn't understand the line in Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grasp, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Now I do.
Plus, where's the limit in Windows? If they get away with this for Edge and it works, why not do the same for Dropbox vs OneDrive? Or how about getting Edge to nag you about Office when you go to Google Docs? Google could do the same with Chrome when you visit office.com.
There must be a point where having these massive companies delivering features that are objectively bad for users that are trapped in the ecosystem needs to be recognized as something that requires antitrust enforcement.
All 3 major platform owners should be broken up into dozens of smaller companies; Microsoft, Google, Apple.
Edge being a better browser isn't going to sway anyone anymore. Every browser is good enough and so you need not just differentiating features but a differentiating ethos and Google/MS are the same now. Firefox gets users because they're inde, foss, and built up a lot of community goodwill via their other community projects.
This reminds me a lot of when my daughter was a teenager and started using terms like LOL, etc. She thought they were modern and was shocked to learn that they'd been in use from well before she was born.
Everyone and their mothers thinks Google is the default internet, no different than people "forced" to use windows cause they don't know what Linux is.
If so then I have no problem with Edge taking market share away from Chrome.
If you want to criticize this then ban ALL advertisement for web browsers anywhere else it is in the real world, not fair and will just maintain Google's monopoly. And based on the recent years and trends of Google completely destroying the open web, is anyone really pro Chrome domination anymore?
Firefox and other competing smaller player who depend on Google money aren't looking to compete either, it is beyond obvious, so.
I think that there's a big difference between a company putting ads on a page they own, and a company hijacking an app that they own. For better or worse, the expectation on the web is that wherever you browse to might try to pull all kinds of shady tricks on you, and we more or less learn to tune it out (and hopefully also to run some sort of appropriate protection). I think that the expectation, especially from a reputable software maker, is that the browser itself will not get in your way. Maybe things are moving in the direction that that's not the expectation, either, but, if so, then I think it's good to make that process as high-friction as possible.
Also, even if there's not a difference, "I'm OK with Microsoft pulling user-hostile tricks because Google does" may be a decent rebuttal of "Microsoft is worse than Google", which is not a claim I saw here, but it is not much of a rebuttal of "Microsoft is doing some shady tricks."
But Edge is super junky now. Its turning into Internet Explorer all over again, as if Microsoft just can't help themselves.
Chrome is secretly junky, but at least it keeps the user facing UIs clean.
Agreed. I enjoyed it more during its earlier years, when it was just a browser, but now its becoming an annoying monstrosity, like Windows itself.
You're going to get DV'd to hell but you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, Microsoft injecting ads for Edge when it detects you're downloading another popular browser is literally no different than Google advertising Chrome on damn near every website they run.
Google has somehow managed to maintain this image as this scrappy underdog entity and it's absolutely ridiculous the mental gymnastics some people will engage in to excuse all their anti-competitive behaviors.
Edit: I suppose it's technically different because they are injecting content into a website that wouldn't otherwise be there, and one can make the argument that a web browser should only render what is served. But also I have literally a dozen extensions that all alter content in the browser (many of which are for Google owned websites!) not the least of which is an adblocker. I have a hard time saying Microsoft adding a blurb about Edge being good to search results for Chrome or Firefox is the end of the free internet.
But nothing about this story is about Google, except that the nastiness that Microsoft is doing involves a Google product. What Microsoft is doing is wrong because it's wrong, not because they're doing it to a Google product, and my moral position on Google (also untrustworthy and shady) doesn't come into it.
Either way, you gotta admit it's ironically funny that Microsoft wants to keep/poach Chrome users into their own... wait for it... Chromium-based browser.
Why bother building something when you can just slap some lipstick on an existing pig and get to the same level of user exploitation with far less effort?
How does it know I'm switching email accounts?
Of course you also probably hear some chuckling coming from Cupertino...
Lots of discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38008100
Microsoft has riddled Windows with ads.
Will get a lot less publicity here than the anti-Google haters.