Dear Microsoft, enough is enough | Hacker News Reader

Dear Microsoft, enough is enough

politico.eu

> Microsoft leverages its immensely powerful position as the supplier of the ubiquitous Windows PC operating system, as well as many productivity and other must-have apps, to push users towards its first-party browser, Edge, through tactics that restrict, distort and subvert user choice.

Heh. This could have been written 25 years ago.

Though at least back then, Microsoft was winning. Since then, the market share of IE/Edge has become so irrelevant that most people have stopped caring so much about these tactics.

At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."

Totally. First thing I did was check the article posting date :D

EU-specific measures: https://windowsforum.com/threads/windows-11s-browser-choice-...

>Heh. This could have been written 25 years ago.

I am reading this wondering if I got pranked and its a historical article.

Until I got to "Edge"

Maybe this is what they meant by Internet Explorer mode in Edge

We have heard the complaints and are reverting to delivering the OS marketplace domination you all know and love.

My first thought was "what year is this"?

As someone who was NTSE certified in the late '90s, you are absolutely correct.

I stopped supporting the platform when they:

- Mandated WGA even for licensed partners that got "Teh Crate" of every release every month which mandated multiple hosts for every version in lieu of simple multi-boot

- Allowed arbitrary code in the Registry

- Embedded IE making multi-browser testing a nightmare

- Developer API support went from detailed direct emails and MSDN articles from actual people to "search MSN on Google".

Just let Windows "die on the vine". There's zero point to continue propping up this dead platform outside of...edge ;) cases for industrial, embedded, military, and govt., use that are (mostly) already effectively version-locked anyways.

One look at enterprise will tell you Windows is not a dead platform

what is NTSE? Did you mean MCSE?

lol, yes, good catch

'At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."'

Among people who aren't nerds it is working. You'll see this in e.g. the public sector and at the top of corporations.

They also do things that force certain people to use Edge under Windows, like bulk downloads from 365 through their compliance portal. This requires a particular type of browser plugin that will only function under those conditions. I perceived this as despicable rather than adorable when I had to work around it to provide services to lawyers.

It needs to be said that this article was written by the Browser Choice Alliance, which is funded by another convicted monopolist, namely Google.

So this is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, and the conflict of interest is obvious; Google paid for this article because they want to preserve their own anti-competitive monopoly position.

It's unfortunate that this is where we are with American business in 2026, basically one mafia taking shots at another, but that's what you get when the government gives up on enforcing the law.

Oh god

This could have been written 25 years ago.

Indeed, I can't believe we're still having the same conversation decades later.

And now with Google effectively dictating how you interact with the web, the industry has gotten worse, not better.

I still remember the popup ads in IE, especially those resembling system alerts. Even without Adblock, the web is way better right now that it used to be in 2001.

Why is Microsoft pushing Windows users to use Edge? What does it gain if a user chooses Edge over Firefox or Chrome? Is it just about in-browser ad?

Data. Every move, every click, every visited URL, dwell time on sites, etc. Also, the competition does not get these data, at least not as easily.

They want a locked down and controlled ecosystem like Apple's - which can make $$$.

Same reason why you can use ANY browser "skin" on iOS as long as as it is ONLY the standard platform distributed webkit. Sadly MS gave up Windows on the mobile like a buffoon, so all they have left to control is their desktop OS.

> At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable

Adorable like a rabid chihuahua who won't stop pissing and shitting and barking and trying to spread its rabies to anyone in biting distance

Don't many of these points apply to iOS and Android as well?

From this article [0]

> Smartphones have become the dominant gateway to the internet.

> Mobile Share of Web Requests (Dec 2024) - 63%

IMHO, this is far more pernicious and insidious.

[0]: https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/device-usage-trends/

Yup has been like that for a while. Mobile-first design has been a thing for forever now and at work we often times doubt that its still worth it to even have a non mobile design.

I don't know what the situation is on Microsoft Windows, but these requests that are being asked are mostly already applied on iOS:

We call on Microsoft to respect its users and implement the following changes immediately and on a worldwide basis:

-Allow browser suppliers to compete for preinstallation and default deals with Windows PC manufacturers.

-End dark patterns targeted at users seeking to download and effectively use other browsers (including as system level default).

-Bring back the ability for users to make switching default browsers simple and transparent with a “single click” change for all relevant file types and apps (including PDFs).

-Open all web links in users’ selected system-level browser of choice.

-Eliminate manipulative Microsoft-exclusive banners pushing Edge in Windows, including when users are searching for other browsers.

-Stop using operating system updates to push users back to Edge.

-Remove the restrictive configurations of existing S mode devices that block usage of third-party browsers

Yes. But nowadays iOS lets you install multiple browsers and select default one different from safari.

But so does Windows…

Aren't those other browsers still required to use the safari rendering engine?

I might be years out of the loop if I missed that changing lol

Apple has been required by the DMA to accept non-webkit browsers in the EU for 2 years now. But in practice no one has built one. There are some claims about malicious compliance on Apple's part (what else is new), but it seems equally likely to me that no one wants to maintain 2 rendering engines for the same app (1 for EU and 1 for the rest of the world).

I have a message for microsoft. I don't work for you. You don't mandate me to do a {$profanity} thing. You can "strongly suggest", "highly recommend", beg. I don't care if you lock me out of my github account. I will not be told what to do by your company. I'm certainly not installing any app from your company nor linking a personal device just to access github.

Microsoft doesn't listen much. The easiest to get them attention is actively migrate to Apple or Linux. Let's make Windows a niche operating system. That is the only way to get your message across. We all actively pushed from 95% Windows OS dominant in the 90s to now about 65%. Make it 5% and then, Microsoft will be a darling. That is their motivation. They want that coveted 5% niche OS position. We should help Microsoft achieve that.

Controversial thought: Browsers will become a niche and fall into obscurity like IRC nowadays, based on what I observed working in South East Asia, where people don't even know what browsers are and "the internet" are walled social networks and apps.

It's not controversial, I've heard the same for about 10 years now. I still thinking they're wrong - people who need control cant really on social network apps. People who are just "consumers", sure, but those already don't know what a browser is, so it's not really a prediction about the future it's a statement about the present.

Quite interesting comment. Did this group of folk not have access to a computer? Did they use Chrome or Safari?

I didn't see a browser choice on my new iPhone, nor on my new Samsung tablet (which looks like it has every google app installed they ever made).

Heck, using safari to do a google search has google using half the screen begging me to use their browser or their use the google full ai experience.

All this applies to iOS and safari too

Google is also pushing Chrome on all their other apps. Google Maps keeps asksing me in what browser to open a link; putting Chrome first: I don’t have Chrome installed.

And that on top of the EEE-steps with all the non-standards they keep implementing.

Really? I Never got a weird message from Apple about other browsers being bad or potentially dangerous, and I tried Vivaldi, DDG, Brave, Firefox, Firefox Focus, and I currently have DDG set as my main browser.

And of course I can delete Safari from my iphone if I wanted to.

You don't get that message from Apple, but the people who would otherwise offer you a meaningful choice of browsers do. They can only do what Apple permits them to do, which isn't much.

They need to get their browsers listed on AppStore, sure.

Or to put it another way, they can only do what Apple permits them to do.

Apple prohibits JITs outside the EU, and this makes a modern browser a non-starter.

Indeed, because you are actually still using Safari under the hood.

Does it count as Safari in stats? If it did, they’d have a 100% market share, wouldn’t they?

Not in the EU

AFAIK only on paper? At least, last time I checked, there were no non-WebKit browsers available yet (at least not Gecko or Blink).

It doesn't. Apple has its share of anticompetitive behaviors, but Microsoft is uniquely bad. I recently went through both experiences and, at least for the US region, the number of weird pop-ups and nags you get on Windows as you try to change the search engine and install Chrome is absolutely bonkers. It almost feels like some sort of a malware situation.

I'm no MS fanboy here, but I think Apple is worse.

Firstly Windows is arguably the most unrestrictive OS (certainly among the commercial options). You can install pretty much anything you like, from anywhere you like. Contrast to say Android or iOS it's a wild-west.

If one wants to get on the "browser freedom" train, Windows is a strange choice over say iOS.

I guess the browser change process is not universal even on Windows. I recently installed a new W11 laptop and both Chrome and FF installed fine with no drama. Sure Edge wants to be default, so does Chrome, so does FF. All nag a bit in the beginning.

Describing a browser change as "nearly impossible" seems a tad hyperbolic to me. It's really easy.

It's also a one-and-done task. Not really something to get all wound up about.

Compare Windows to macOS instead of iOS and the equation changes significantly.

Not really. You can select any default browser on iOS, as far as I know.

Yes, any default browser just as long at it uses the WebKit engine. This is comparable to how the Ford Model T could be ordered in any colour just as long as it was black.

Ah I see, didn't know that. So it's just "branded" Safari..

you can on windows too afaik

> SPONSORED CONTENT FROM BROWSER CHOICE ALLIANCE

Who is the "Browser Choice Alliance" I thought to myself. One web search later:

> Our members: Midori, Opera, Vivaldi, Wavebox, Browserworks, and, ... wait for it ...

> Chrome.

Yes, competing browser vendors want to compete on what is still the biggest 'desktop OS'. It would be more remarkable if this had been written by, say, the Sierra Club or the National Federation of Piano Tuners. That Google/Chrome is part of this group comes as no surprise nor does the fact that they'd most likely act the same as Microsoft does if and when they're in the position Microsoft is.

They already are in the same position. See: Android, ChromeOS.

It's not the substance of what is being said, but the "moral outrage washing" communication strategy, employed by a market participant who is themselves deeply immoral, that I find kind of interesting, entertaining, noteworthy, funny, and morally objectionable.

Also: With something like a 75% market share that Chrome enjoys, I don't see how they can keep a straight face when complaining about the anticompetitive practices allowing a competitor to hold on to a 10% market share.

This seems odd to write this when Edge's market share is like nothing. Obviously there are problems in principle with Microsoft's position via the OS (haven't there always? Like since the IE days) but this seems like just not a thing. As ever the target should be Chrome or whatever and that issues with that platform/standards feature disparity, Chromium etc.

And why is this in Politico? ...oh I see it's the Europe edition. Is this because of EU tech sovereignty trends?

Microsoft is effectively a monopoly, to say it's anything else and that other browsers are available is a nonsense for reasons that everyone knows.

Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).

the other "realistic" solution is to use another o/s.

For the cognoscenti it is—like Linux, but for the vast majority it's not. If you've ever run an IT department in a large operation (which I have) then you'd never say that.

People insist on Windows at work because it's so ubiquitous, when they go home their modus operandi doesn't have to change.

Forcing workers to change OSes against their will only puts one's job on the line (management will side with workers as it's the path of least resistance). QED.

The browser might be the definitive problem with Microsoft, but really their shitty office tools is a bigger drain on the world economy. Teams is fundamentally incapable of handling something as simple as showing the correct alerts (activity? or who the hell knows since nothing has anything to do with new messages to the user) and there's hardly a B2B company in the world that will risk not losing business by running a different tool than other people running this trash.

This article starts out hilariously with the MicroSlop addon:

    Dear Microslop CEO Slopya Nuttela,

Internet Explorer all over again...they never learn. Edge was the last thing that pushed me away from Microsoft. The constant new - privacy invading - features, frickin' widgets and ad-filled home-screen-tab-thing.

I remember Google had a slogan “don’t do evil” (dropped since then). On the top of the list of companies that do evil, I have Microsoft and Adobe. They coerce users and they destroy everything they acquire.

"In 2018, Google removed its original motto from the preface of its code of conduct but retained it in the last sentence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

It's really jarring to still be pinning this on Microsoft, when Google and Apple have been doing the same for free, for years, in iOS, Android and ChromeOS.

If there's any pinning needing to be done it would be on lax antitrust laws or enforcement in the U.S. In the E.U., all of these companies consistently get slapped on the wrist about all of these things, but there's only so much the E.U. can do, if these companies get a safe haven in the U.S. and if the E.U. wants to continue to trade with the U.S. relatively freely. The U.S. is taking a stance that it benefits them more to be the domicile of evil monopolistic global megacorps than to police the necessary preconditions for the existence of free markets (which would imply that other nations could compete more freely with the U.S.) The E.U. has no such conflict of interests, so it's easy for them to take the "moral" high ground (although it's not moral to be precise; more like an appeal to free market values, which, they themselves, are also happy to violate on a case-by-case basis pretty much as it suits them).

You buy the license and still get ads and Edge shoved in your face. macOS is far from perfect, but at least it doesn’t do that.

Yet.

They're probably delaying it until Google locks down Android completely, so there's no alternative you can switch to.

You are not forced to use microsoft, in fact you have consiously paid them to be your OS. You can only beg them to consider this or move to macOS or linux in general.

> You are not forced to use microsoft

You absolutely are. That's precisely why they were forced to make the browser not a core part of their OS.

The entire strategy of Microsoft has been since its inception to force people to use their solutions! They got the OS on the computer itself, not something to install after with a conscious choice. Once they do this they bundle writer, spreadsheet, etc suite as one-way interoperable, then browser then online suite, then cloud, then AI... and it doesn't start with with your CTO or CIO, no it starts in school, giving licenses for poor students who can now "afford" the tool and be trained for life.

Microsoft a single uninterrupted chain of bundling despite being an illegal practice. Of course none of that would work on merit itself so they do the lobbying to insure it's used in institutions and everywhere else they can to insure that their tools are basically required.

Top it off with the github acquisition we need to nuke the planet from orbit, it's the only way to be sure!

Indeed, Microsoft doesn't have to build something to bundle and lock-in, they have a huge budget to acquire, here literally trying to bring the entire open-source community to their products, again.

Why are people still using Windows? OMG, what is wrong with people? Just use Linux. Literally any major Linux distro is superior nowadays.

You don't like it, stop using it! You hate it, boycott it! Don't expect change. They care so little about you and your opinions; demanding change from a multi-trillion dollar company is almost cringe-worthy at this point. Like a cockroach begging for mercy as your shoe is coming down onto it at full speed.

It's so frustrating how people nowadays complain about systems that they can easily change (or substitute, in this case) and nobody seems to complain about those systems which they cannot change nor substitute.

If you complain to abstract entities which don't care about you, about problems which you can easily solve yourself, you're the problem!

You're the reason why everything is shit and stays shit.

Well, I don't really see Linux as a good alternative. For example, all major distros force me to use systemd, dbus and atk. Dbus+atk is practically a platform for spyware. Everything that happens in the system passes either through dbus or atk, or both. Another pain point for me is that xdg-open is crap and there's no alternative but to install my own script instead, which is overwritten with every xdg update.

I think a big part of them problem is ye olde IT department, deploying the 'sloth is what they know how to do, people get funneled into using the stack and feel uncomfortable outside the walled garden. There are off the shelf solutions for end point control AD and beyond. It's not hard to come up with all the usual Machiavellian contraptions equivalent for a Linux platform but they'll have different names and hit a little different. People are creatures of habbit. I personally have a negative view on big orgs, my brief time inside a couple really painted a picture for me and I have a hard time seeing the up side of them, especially in this time of layoffs the illusion that a big org is a stable place to work is broken. Hopefully out of those pieces we can build smaller orgs that have a sprit of adventure who will pioneer new ways forward. Browser based SaaS products mostly unteather the need for a particular platform. The stage is set to use what you like, stand up for yourself and say no to using products that disrespect you.

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