Microsoft seeks EU Digital Market Acts exemption for underdog apps like Edge
theregister.com
theregister.com
And they believe that it deserves this exemption because despite their best efforts users still refuse to use their browser when not forced to (web analytics report low Edge marketshare).
Is trying to weasel word via lawyer not just more fuel to the fire of an anti-trust lawsuit?
The fact that this behavior is normalized is really pathetic.
Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves. Instead they're proud that they took an opportunity to seek a handout.
Maybe I'm naive thinking there was a world in which large companies ever had a shred of dignity - but if there was such a time - I wish the corporate world would revert back to it.
If they had "a shred of dignity", they would not bribe every government official in sight.
I guess the correct formulation will be "on the monopoly desktop operating system".
I don't use Windows because i like it. I use it because my employer gives no other choice.
Just so to make the case that not every company is good at everything, Apple Maps, despite recent improvements is also utter crap, and even Apple is not around crying wolf to restrict competition.
Well, Edge has objectively been better than Chrome on Windows (faster, less memory usage, longer battery life) for years now, but almost nobody knows this as people still default to installing Chrome out of 10+ years of habit.
Humans are creatures of habit and the bad and good impressions from the old days tend to stick around regrades if the current realities have shifted, because people aren't into browser hopping for the sake of experimentation, especially if they're already invested in the ecosystem of one browser (have their cookies already there, have their passwords already stored, have an Android or a Chromebook).
Edge could even cure cancer and people still wouldn't use it or give it a try, because the image that the default browser shipped with Windows (IE, Edge, whatever it happens to be called) must automatically be crap and Google's browser must automatically be better.
So market success in the browser space is clearly no longer about having the better product, otherwise FF would have a higher market share, but about having the stronger brand and supporting ecosystem.
But they didn't, Edge a year or two ago was pretty great but they gradually loaded it with crapware.
(Sorry I'm not a chrome user for many years, I vaguely remember it was well integrated with google accounts, etc.)
Brand inertia and the tight integration with the Gmail/Chromebook/Android ecosystem, all of which are very popular products.
Not defending Microsoft's attempts to shove "better-Edge" down your throat as the solution to user growth, just asking a serious question on how else they could have convinced Chrome users to switch back to "better-Edge" the "nice way". We've all been there when we had a better solution/idea which didn't go through because nobody cared about it and the worse solution was pushed through.
If Edge had some feature that is impossible to miss (I guess like Chrome integration with google stuff), then people would feel more compelled to use it?
Apart from that, if it is only a marketing issue, they should start by doing better marketing, perhaps.
then everyone here would cry foul that microsoft is using their dominating market position to create a dependency for edge.
the real argument against edge should not be that it would be worse. i would not use it even if it were 10 times better. the argument should be that it is owned by a company that dominates the desktop market.
the only way to justify the existence for edge is to make it an independent product that is not owned by microsoft.
the same goes for chrome
They do better on marketing, get more comparative studies published. Just because MSFT feels their product is better, they should not get a free reign to force it down the throat of their users.
> just asking a serious question on how else they could have convinced Chrome users to switch back to "better-Edge".
The answer is simple and yes there is no shortcut. If they believe their product is better then do better on marketing, brand building, demonstrating that, instead of taking shortcuts like using one existing monopoly to drum up newer products.
As far as features that techy people appreciate, it has no tab containers, and it probably has too much telemetry for my taste, so I won't be recommending Edge over Chrome to anyone, I'll staunchly defend the dwindling marketshare of Firefox.
Also, marketing has got nothing to do with exploiting one dominant product to shove another down the users throat, that's just an evolution of a blind by-the-numbers guided marketing strategy that was A/B tested against all other solutions. Chrome didn't get to where it's at by doing this, they did so by doing actual marketing.
Or maybe it's not habit because Edge is objectively tied for worst browser on Windows on privacy: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/03/07/0054219/edge-br owser-scores-worst-in-test-of-telemetry-privacy
> Edge has objectively been better than Chrome on Windows
No, Edge is not "objectively" better. It is not even better privacy wise, seeing that it will sell it's users for anything (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29288052), I can paste more and more such examples. Two products which are this similar can not be "objectively" better than each other enough to force one down everyone's throat.
> but almost nobody knows this as people still default to installing Chrome out of 10+ years of habit.
Then MSFT should fire their marketing department and start afresh. People know about other browsers like Vivaldi and Brave so they can clearly be explained about Edge's virtues with the immense MSFT budget.
> Humans are creatures of habit and the bad and good impressions from the old days tend to stick around regrades if the current realities have shifted,
By this logic all agency can be taken from people and they should be forced to use products deemed "objectively better".
> So market success in the browser space is clearly no longer about having the better product, but about having the stronger brand and supporting ecosystem.
Regardless of my views on the demerits of Edge, this is true of every industry and if MSFT doesn't know how to build a brand and ecosystem, clearly lots of execs need to step down.
Which benchmarks have you looked at to make this contradiction? It definetly is objectively better on Windows if you look at benchmarks on speed, memory usage and battery life, which is what most average users care about in a browers, and the reason why most switched from IE to Chrome originally.
Your average user has no idea nor do they care about the whole online privacy implications of a browser or any other SW product or service, otherwise they would have never touched Chrome, the product of an ad company, in the first place.
>By this logic all agency can be taken from people and they should be forced to use products deemed "objectively better".
You're drawing some really silly straw-men here for you to fight.
>if MSFT doesn't know how to build a brand and ecosystem, clearly lots of execs need to step down.
Agreed, but when was the last time you saw a big corp perform mass layoffs of execs?
Obviously Google could be biasing the results so I asked ChatGPT with Bing and got:
1. Google Chrome 2. Microsoft Edge
Here's the first results on Google from a review on October 2023:
"Edge performs similar to Chrome in benchmarks, but has markedly lower RAM usage when you open some tabs. We're declaring Edge the winner in performance, which is quite a turnaround for Microsoft, the company that made Internet Explorer."
Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-vs-edge-3298624/
> Your average user has no idea nor do they care about the whole online privacy implications of a browser or any other SW product or service, otherwise they would have never touched Chrome, the product of an ad company, in the first place.
When the Russians had to choose between 2 "dictators" (the word seems to have lost its original meaning), they chose the one who spoke their language. Same is the situation with Chrome vs Edge. Where do you want to give your data ? To Microsoft or to Google ?
But I actually use Firefox.
Is this some braindead new trope on HN? I'm seeing it the second time on HN today.
There is and cannot be anything objective about "better" unless the choice of "better" is explicitly and unambiguously stated. "Objectively taller"? OK. "Objectively more infectious"? Not impossible to show in context. "Objectively better"? Idiotic. My "better" is the opposite of yours, what now?
Mate, I explicitly mentioned the meaning of "better" in the context of browsers: faster, less memory usage, longer battery life. If you have trouble reading text, maybe go back to finish school first before commenting on technical topics.
Also, please stop acting like a 10 year old on X-box live insulting people calling them braindead just because you don't agree with their opinion. You're breaking HN rules.
You might not agree with the importance of certain benchmarks or performance metrics because you think the UI is more important to you, but that's called subjectivity then.
I guess using Google has become too complicated these days.
There you go, now Edge is also objectively worse than Chrome.
This is what I'm talking about. "Better" is in the eye of the beholder. There's nothing objective about it.
On my work computer (with Chrome installed), Edge opens by default every URL. And it is worse than Chrome (MS own aurhentication works better in Chrome that in Edge). Battery life is eaten by svchost.exe (and its subprocesses).
If I am frequently advertised a product or tricked into using a product against my will, not matter how good it is I will prefer alternatives.
(not saying that's Edge; I have not used Windows 11 so I don't know what actually happens when using it or trying to download a browser)
(On the other hand, while Apple has been taking unix tools out of the default install, Windows now comes with a bundled curl, so I just use that to download Chrome)
Hell, it's less aggressive about prompting you not to run malware.
But google has done a better job of locking-in users and, eventhough it is not that hard to switch passwords etc, people like me don't want to have multiple copies of their data so we don't switch. Google took advantage of the network lock-in features by adding profiles, all your passwords, your history etc etc. I want to use only 1 browser in all operating systems now, so I don't switch.
The switch might have happened with Firefox , but not with Edge
Bing's AI is available for other browsers as well. That sidebar is nice, but I can live without it.
I really don't understand why people say that Edge is a better browser, when it's objectively the worst of the mainstream ones.
Speaking of Bing chat, how many people don't use it because it is named Bing? Bing was a joke for so long and the more Microsoft pushed it, the more of joke it was.
Apple also knows what mistakes MS made, and can avoid them while slow-walking OSX to the same locked-down ecosystem as their other devices use.
I'm curious if Microsoft could build their own iPad knock offs and get away with the same stuff that Apple does, but my guess is no.
Wait, do they have a different laws about shrink-wrapped licenses in EU? I thought this particular aspect was pretty much universal everywhere, with very minor deviations. My understanding is that you buy a computer with Windows pre-installed, it requires to accept an EULA on the first boot, you either do it, or you can install a different OS (and theoretically ask for a refund, although this is where jurisdictions and realities start to really differ and I don't know about EU).
OEMs only put some bits on the device (drive and firmware), but to best of my awareness license acceptance always happen after the sale and is between the user and Microsoft. If EU had tackled this somehow, please let me know (and forgive my lack of awareness).
> You're not allowed to require acceptance of additional terms after the transaction has occurred.
Surely they can with a new version? Apple does it this way (e.g. just recently watchOS 10.1 came with new EULA, requiring acceptance before an update can be installed) worldwide and I haven't heard of any government having issues with it.
In Microsoft's best new traditions they can pester users to upgrade and even make it super Microsoft-friendly, with forced automatic upgrades that spend 30 minutes applying patches, then showing an EULA, then rolling back for another 30 minutes after it's declined.
The EU is known to have plenty of corruption scandals. Just add another Big Tech bribe in the mix for more of the same old issues.