The battle for control of the user. The pressure to create/preserve market share seems to be rising.
When e.g. you look how aggressively Google is trying to switch me to Chrome from my Firefox on all of their properties, a new low was set. But from my insider buddies at Google, that strategy is working well.
This here from MSFT dials it up another notch. With the anti-trust cases in the EU, they probably will be able to geo target this feature so that from the EU all will be fine and dandy, but the rest of the world will get scared into switching to Edge.
I wish Mozilla would include a default content blocker to block Google's attempts to steal Firefox users. But then I also wish Windows blocked automated Google Chrome installs that steal default browser included as bundleware with free antivirus apps, Java, etc. I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome (that they have no idea how it was installed) and getting Firefox set as their default browser again.
I hate to be negative, but that will never happen with the current leadership at Mozilla.
They are simply no longer willing to disrupt the status quo, even to help their users. They are far more motivated to be "popular", and have a big "audience", and a respected "brand", than about sticking up for their users. The fact that they even think about software development in terms of "building an audience(?)" shows that they are way off course. The most important software we use that is actively developed is made by people who are primarily concerned with making good software, not with this pseudo public relations cargo cult corporate speak.
Hint: Go back and look at what Firefox used to be like 10 years ago, and notice the difference in culture.
The fact is, if Mozilla took a proactive stand against Google Apple and Microsoft, that would greatly increase their popularity.
The old Firefox was "irresponsible" by including a popup blocker by default, and upset a lot of people. Firefox also refused to support any of Microsoft's early web DRM. People said that not supporting DRM would lock users out of content, but it actually probably contributed to the death of those systems.
Google has been slowly clamping down on user freedoms. Just one example, Google removed the option to save html5 video[1] (I'm sure users were begging for that "feature"). I would honestly not be surprised if the UX clowns at Mozilla remove that function from Firefox as well.
How long until they remove the "view source" option because being able to view source is confusing to people who have never used a browser and it is used less than 1% of the time or some other flimsy justification?
There have been people within Mozilla who just want to abandon their own code and simply release a re-branded Chromium. Because they only care about their precious brand and keeping the donations coming, and they are truly terrible stewards of the software they have inherited. Besides, once they stop actually developing their own software, they will have lots of money leftover to give themselves bonuses and throw expensive galas.
> I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome
That's why I installed Linux Mint on my parent's computer, it runs Firefox, Skype and Google Earth just fine, can download photos from camera, copy DVDs and that's basically all. No shitty antiviruses they can download and I can SSH to the machine to check what's going on. Nothing, if you're interested.
> I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome (that they have no idea how it was installed)
Don't forget the bit where Chrome rams its fucking updater down your throat at every occasion and any way to disable it is only temporary.
And Chromium manages to be even worse at least on OSX: it apparently decides that being quit is unacceptable and relaunches itself hidden in the background.
Just to show how absurd such practice is - if Mozilla wanted to do the same, they should intercept requests for Google.com and Bing.com, advising users to use Mozilla's search engine instead. I doubt Google would keep paying them if they did that though.
Hasn't Windows 10 essentially solved that problem by not letting any application change the default browser setting, instead only letting them open the correct settings panel? Or is there now a way around that?
When we are in the land of wishes, I rather wish, that OpenSource OS and software would be standard where the user controls fully what he wants and gets.
It would be so lovely, if Microsoft would include a default malware and advertisement filter into the browser. They are not relying on injecting malware into the web pages, so they actually can do it! User's experience without malware and advertisements will be better, this will create healthy competition in user experience, other browsers will have to follow.
I remember installing some random utility (but safe source that I'd used umpteen times before - but not recently) and getting chromium installed - without my permission. I forget what is was, or indeed where I got it from, but this is fairly irrelevant.
The effort trying to remove this was immense. The crapware installer also managed to install a scheduled task to a randomly named executable that when I tested it with Microsoft security essentials said it was 'ok' but virus total told me it was some bag of shit malware.
WORSE STILL, Microsoft security essentials USED to pick this up as a quick google of this crapware update engine linked to a microsoft malware page, which no longer exists. Reading further I noted that MS stopped identifying some malware because "users might choose to use the applications that it installs"
No MS. If it's been sneakily installed with dark patterns consent has not been given, and it needs to be destroyed with fire.
Thankfully ClamAV picked it up, so I now regularly scan with that. sigh
> It proved very difficult to keep my mother on Firefox
Mine's on Debian. Seems to be working out pretty well. When other machines in the house are gunked up with who-knows-what, it's still there working reliably.
Genuine question: In what way does Microsoft benefit from people using Edge? It's a web browser. It's a rather neutral piece of technology. How can they make money out of it?
Make the default search engine bing.. most users don’t change it.
Put shortcuts to your other products. An Xbox bookmark/button is an ad for the Xbox.. increasing Xbox sales, but also reducing the money they need to spend to promote the Xbox
If users decide they want a completely Microsoft platform- they login to windows with their msft online password, use ms office, etc they’ll be more likely to pick a windows phone or other Microsoft products that integrate with the products they already use (saving them setup time, transferring settings, etc).
If they have more information about you, they can make ads in bing more relevant and perform better.. increasing the price of the ads, and the ctr
> In what way does Microsoft benefit from people using Edge?
Every installation of Chrome on Windows is an opportunity for their most dangerous competitor to siphon off future opportunities. Anything which reduces that number is a fundamental win.
They also get to direct some percentage of users towards their properties (e.g. Bing) which do make revenue.
Finally there's the opportunity cost of not being in the game: having users in their camp gives them moves which they would otherwise not have. (Similarly Bing—some might call it a relative failure, but it's a roaring success compared to never trying in the first place. It was a good decision.)
1) Information gathering. This one I think needs no explanation
2) Controlling a platform is incredible powerful in influencing your users. Lets say you control an OS. Then you can nag on your users to also use your browser! If you control the browser, you can nag your users to use you mail system. Perhaps someday they will nag on the users to use their marketplace, their movie distribution system, their whatever.
All the other comments here are also true, but this is the main reason. They directly benefit every time you open Edge. I wouldn't be surprised if some ad sales VP made this decision after seeing the numbers broken down by "edge new tab impressions" vs "everything else."
> Genuine question: In what way does Microsoft benefit from people using Edge? It's a web browser. It's a rather neutral piece of technology. How can they make money out of it?
Well for one thing, keeping people away from Google's browser keeps people away from their office suite, one of the biggest moneymakers outside the X-box division for Microsoft.
For me, Google has recently joined the ranks of FB and a pile of other adtech slimeballs and similar entities in my firewall config. The net is so much nicer when you delete the jerks.
Working well in the sense of "the amount of unwitting users switching is > the backlash and heat from being an dark pattern villain and turning some witting users off". Aka "helps browser marketshare".
Google does it with their apps too— clicking on links in Hangouts keeps prompting me to use Chrome instead of Safari. Honestly, I'm shocked Apple tolerates this.
Didn't they do stuff like this when they first made IE and it got them into a lot of trouble with an anti-trust lawsuit? Seems like they are doing the EXACT same thing again.
In threads about github etc, many were claiming Microsoft are a completely different, and better company, with a fine open approach to business these days.
Seems nothing much has changed in their approach in 30 years.
They've learned how to appeal to the easily-convinced crowd with all their "openness" and "modernity" (for lack of a better word.) They're opening up stuff that wasn't likely to be a source of revenue, and I bet they make even more from the non-obvious telemetry embedded in them. I see it as nothing more than another marketing attempt.
They've really done a number on these people, because not only are they using MS stuff again, but they've been turned into "New Microsoft" cheerleaders in many a comment thread, for a couple of years now.
These days I assume by default the intentions of companies are not good (especially the big ones) but when I was younger, I used to think these companies play nice with others (generally speaking). I hate that I feel this way, but pretty much everything they do is towards one goal only - money and market share, everything and everyone else be damned :(
Ah yes, this comment was bound to appear. As it always does when we find out that the people running Windows do something that's not a good idea.
They are more open with their development division, as they have to be. Windows is a completely different division, and more often than not, the notable members of the development division will call out their company.
Except they are not separate divisions. There are no subsidiary companies for Windows or Development, yet there are for Xbox, Mobile, Games and others.
Windows and development are subject to the same executive team, and same orders from the top setting corporate direction.
It was precisely that break-up that was ordered by the US court during the anti-trust case, and stopped with the arrival of the Bush administration.
I find I don't really care how Microsoft likes to divide up its stuff internally. Either this kind of nonsense is supported by the company or it isn't.
Companies are just people though - the guys in charge of decisions are the ones we're ultimately evaluating. That the left hand of the company doesn't know what the right hand of the company is doing isn't much of an excuse, as ultimately the buck stops at the executive and board positions.
There's no way a decision like this one didn't get approval from the top layers of the company as it no doubt had to go through different levels of legal, product and everything in between.
They are legally people under the broken legal system of America. I will treat their crimes, their lack of morality, their low ethics, and their sociopathy the same as a human as long as they are "people".
Big companies employ a lot of people who can do both good things and bad things. Many teams and projects have nothing to do with each other. Treating a large organization as a single person for moral purposes is a category mistake.
It's entirely possible for Microsoft to do bad things like this while GitHub keeps doing its thing and Typescript and VSCode developers keep doing their thing.
With a company the size of Microsoft, I am certain that there are different factions/divisions/groups within the company that might have very different values, views, priorities, to the degree that they might as well be different companies.
A better point of view might be this: Microsoft is a huge company, not all the people that work there are (what we might consider) ethical engineers, and some of the adherents to the sleazy business practices of their past are still around.
It’s not a good reason, but it’s possibly the reason. Ultimately it’s not really useful to attempt to paint an entity as large as Microsoft as all good or all bad.
I don't recall these being "beloved". This sounds like a troll to me.
Sure Intel do FOSS graphics driver development, but I doubt they've ever been beloved due to their constant scandals (ME and Meltdown recently, and further back there's ClassMate, Itanium/Itanic, etc.)
AMD promised open drivers. We're still waiting.
ARM systems are usually locked down and full of blobs (e.g. for graphics, etc.). Plus ARM don't make chips, they just sell licenses to their designs to third parties, which is completely anti-FOSS.
Google do support a lot of FOSS development, but their online monopolies and spying infrastructure have always kept people suspicious.
Apple has a habit of turning liberally licensed FOSS into proprietary software (e.g. OSX is based on Mach and BSD, Safari is based on KHTML, etc.). Their mobile OS also requires programs to be signed, and they charge a $99 fee for developers to get a certificate.
As far as I'm aware IBM have historically been the enemy. They certainly pushed Linux forward around the millenium, but since then I've not come across them outside bloated "enterprise solutions" that I doubt many in the FOSS world would consider relevant.
ARM is an open company? When did that happen? They still don't provide architecture reference manuals for download (unless you are customer), unlike AMD or Intel.
They are doing very well about being open in the developers space.
Open sourcing libraries and tools that make the lives of programmers much easier and even porting them to run on linux.
This may be a selfish approach approach from Microsoft (win the hearts of developers and the regular users will follow), or it might be signs of actual positive change.
The one thing that is clear is this openness does not extend to regular users of windows.
I'm mentally making notes that I should really be switching back to linux for my core desktop computing, even if I continue to use Microsoft technology like vscode, typescript and dotnet core.
The world around Microsoft has changed though. Yea, they are still the same company even with their strategic realignment around open-source, but now they face healthy competition from arguably worse (at least just as bad) tech giants that makes Microsoft seem more benign.
Every now and then I hear some PR spiel or read some comment on HN about how great Windows is now and I try to run it, but I always run into some dumb thing like this that turns me off.
I think what has changed is that Microsoft is no longer the massively dominant force it was pre-Internet. In those days, it really was the 1,000lb gorilla. It is still a big company, but Google at least can certainly compete with it as an equal.
This annoys me, but in the end, I can click the "no thank you" button and it all goes away. I do think their claims to be the "faster and more secure" browser are dubious at best. But at least MS allows other browsers to be installed. iOS will give you a Chrome lookalike with a WebKitWebView engine, and no v8 JS engine. (I'm not calling JSCore bad). It's like saying, you can have any browser you want, as long as it's Safari. I get _why_ they do it, but it's an anti-competitive practice.
More like I don't truly consider ChromeOS a viable OS. I do own a Chromebook, and for me it's more like a dumbed down tablet (Like a Nook) with a keyboard. But you're right, it's not right that Google does it either.
It may actually be faster and more secure, it does well on artificial tests at least. But my issue with it is generally stability. More crashes and some sites don't behave as well. Video streaming in particular is iffy. Since Chrome is most tested against now, I just have the most stable overall experience with Chrome. Even if it had the worst performance I'd probably still be using it for that reason.
I didn't know that on iOS chrome is essentially safari. that sucks. like how can they get away with it? The EU should not let apple ban competing browser engines.
Like Google is doing on YouTube and their main site? What you'll say if GitHub loading times are 5x faster on Edge than on Chrome and Firefox [1]?
I don't want to be Microsoft apologist, but Google is doing this shit for years, and nobody says anything. One annoying popup in Windows and the end is near. Yeah, because we don't trust MS for things they did ten years ago. But we trust Google even if they're doing the same thing right now.
I don't think they'll end up doing that for the same reason that Google didn't put the Dart VM in Chrome. Nobody wants to be the one to start the nuclear war.
Let's talk about how with iOS you can't change the default web browser, email, or calendar apps? If you remove Mail.app, install something like Airmail, and then click on a mail link, you're prompted to reinstall Mail.app.
I don't like this move by Microsoft, but they called out on shit like this more than other tech companies it seems.
For comparison, my Pixelbook lets me switch the default browser from Chrome to the Android version of Firefox. Considering that Chrome is basically the operating system itself, that's impressive.
One slight pro of it is that at least Chrome doesn't have 80% of mobile traffic as well due to iOS users being unable to switch default browser. I mean, that's the only pro.
Sure, but things are improving on that front. For example, they used to do the same thing with maps. Recently though they changed it so clicking on a map link asks you which map software you want to open it in.
That’s a solvable problem, if anyone cared enough to solve it. Write a 3rd party browser (yes I realize that it would be a shell over WebKit) and allow the user to choose which app handles third party urls like mailto and maps links.
Chrome for iOS already does something similar but you only get to choose between gmail and the native mail client.
Pity that 18.04 is basically a steaming turd, with plenty of broken things ootb. It's hardly surprising, because "you get what you pay for", and you pay exactly zero for it. Don't get me wrong, Linux purely from the command line is awesome, but the desktop experience sucks balls.
Hmm, how/when does that trigger? Right after reading this comment I started a screen recording in hopes of capturing the behaviour then installed Chrome and Firefox downloaded via Safari on a new Mac recently set up from scratch and saw no such notification.
My only Apple computer is my iPad and I have the opposite complaint. I've never installed a browser and don't really want to as Safari works well enough for me. However, when an app goes to open a web page, it opens a dialog asking if the page should be opened in Safari or Chrome. I'll pick Safari and check the box that remembers this setting. Then, a few weeks later, it will ask me again.
Worse still, these options are a lie — it says Safari or Chrome but the "Safari" option doesn't actually open Safari, it just loads the requested page in an embedded web view. Assholes.
Are you sure it does that? I've always used Firefox and Chrome on my Macs and I can't remember ever seeing anything like that. This include my Mojave beta machine.
TBF, I automate my installs so both Firefox and Chrome are installed from the command line via brew cask. Maybe that's why.
Ah, right. Considering the first thing I do with a new mac is install Firefox and Chrome (front-end developer) then maybe it’s just been unlucky timing that it always pops the message up as I’m loading a competing browser.
Maybe Microsoft should address the reasons why people do not switch? Look, Edge is a fine browser - it's fast, stable, and easier (compared to IE) to build websites for.
But it's not cross platform. I use a Windows desktop, Debian laptop, and Apple phone. Edge is available on exactly one of those platforms, while Firefox and Chrome are available on all of them.
Until that is fixed I will not consider edge, despite how fast or "secure" it may be over the competition.
Edit: seems that Edge is available on the App Store[1], and Linux requires a Wine workaround. I prefer native support, without hacks or clunky install processes.
If I'm not mistaken safari is the only iOS browser, all other browsers are just a skin for it. So thanks to apple there is no cross-platform browser that works on all your devices.
Unless you count safari, if they still bother porting that outside iOS/OS X. In which case that wouldn't be preferable anyway.
There is nothing wrong with running different browsers on different operating systems.
It really doesn't matter if Firefox on iOS is just a skin around Safari if it integrates with the Firefox services and syncs bookmarks, history, etc. Right? Isn't that the value you're getting out of the mobile browser, not the rendering engine?
It's even worse. There's API for adblock apps and there are good apps, but it works only with Safari itself. Any other iOS browser doesn't support this API (I'm not 100% sure, but I think that it's Apple's restriction, not their choice), so if you want fast browsing experience with iOS, you must use Safari.
Yeah, all the browsers on iOS are reskins of Safari but to an end user that's all that matters since those reskins can bring things like synced bookmarks and history.
Apple know that MS could steal customers by making a browser that works better than Apple's. Perhaps a built in .doc viewer to get installs from Word users -- then MS have chance to ruin the prejudice that "it's only Apple can make software that looks good and works intuitively".
> Maybe Microsoft should address the reasons why people do not switch? Look, Edge is a fine browser - it's fast, stable, and easier (compared to IE) to build websites for.
> But it's not cross platform. I use a Windows desktop, Debian laptop, and Apple phone. Edge is available on exactly one of those platforms, while Firefox and Chrome are available on all of them.
It's actually available on less than one platform, since it only runs on Windows 10, and only on desktop editions (so not on thin client desktops, which use Server).
The whole point of Edge for me is Windows-tuned browser. The moment they make any attempt at cross-platform, I won't consider it at all. I value native software tightly integrated with system. They should use latest DirectX APIs, they should integrate with drivers, etc, providing fastest experience on Windows. That's why Safari is good, for example.
What I don't understand is how companies with hundreds of deployments are still fine with crap like this? You can't disable updates. Computers are rebooted without asking. It's ridiculous.
Lack of realistic alternatives mostly (surely someone will champion Linux here, that person is deluded). Someday, if MS keeps pushing this direction, the pain of dealing with another OS's shortcomings and differences will be outweighed, but we're not there yet.
And we're not fine with it, we just can't do anything about it because Microsoft does not listen to complaints.
I'll be that deluded person here: we completely switched to using Linux at my workplace and never touched windows 10. Granted we're a software dev shop, but from what I've seen, realistic workable alternatives do exist.
I am not exactly happy about this, but this isn't behavior that makes them stand out from the pack. Google constantly nags me about visiting their sites in Edge, and I understand that the situation is much worse on iOS.
But if Microsoft wants to convince people to use Edge, they should start by dumping a bunch of resources into sanding down the rough spots and applying some spit and polish. It's like 90% of a satisfactory browser at this point, maybe even 95%, but the remaining bits can be really, really frustrating.
Readit News
When e.g. you look how aggressively Google is trying to switch me to Chrome from my Firefox on all of their properties, a new low was set. But from my insider buddies at Google, that strategy is working well.
This here from MSFT dials it up another notch. With the anti-trust cases in the EU, they probably will be able to geo target this feature so that from the EU all will be fine and dandy, but the rest of the world will get scared into switching to Edge.
They are simply no longer willing to disrupt the status quo, even to help their users. They are far more motivated to be "popular", and have a big "audience", and a respected "brand", than about sticking up for their users. The fact that they even think about software development in terms of "building an audience(?)" shows that they are way off course. The most important software we use that is actively developed is made by people who are primarily concerned with making good software, not with this pseudo public relations cargo cult corporate speak.
Hint: Go back and look at what Firefox used to be like 10 years ago, and notice the difference in culture.
The fact is, if Mozilla took a proactive stand against Google Apple and Microsoft, that would greatly increase their popularity.
The old Firefox was "irresponsible" by including a popup blocker by default, and upset a lot of people. Firefox also refused to support any of Microsoft's early web DRM. People said that not supporting DRM would lock users out of content, but it actually probably contributed to the death of those systems.
Google has been slowly clamping down on user freedoms. Just one example, Google removed the option to save html5 video[1] (I'm sure users were begging for that "feature"). I would honestly not be surprised if the UX clowns at Mozilla remove that function from Firefox as well.
How long until they remove the "view source" option because being able to view source is confusing to people who have never used a browser and it is used less than 1% of the time or some other flimsy justification?
There have been people within Mozilla who just want to abandon their own code and simply release a re-branded Chromium. Because they only care about their precious brand and keeping the donations coming, and they are truly terrible stewards of the software they have inherited. Besides, once they stop actually developing their own software, they will have lots of money leftover to give themselves bonuses and throw expensive galas.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14124294
That's why I installed Linux Mint on my parent's computer, it runs Firefox, Skype and Google Earth just fine, can download photos from camera, copy DVDs and that's basically all. No shitty antiviruses they can download and I can SSH to the machine to check what's going on. Nothing, if you're interested.
Don't forget the bit where Chrome rams its fucking updater down your throat at every occasion and any way to disable it is only temporary.
And Chromium manages to be even worse at least on OSX: it apparently decides that being quit is unacceptable and relaunches itself hidden in the background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google
Unchecky works well to prevent that crapware from ever getting installed. It unticks those default 'install my paid crap' offers.
https://unchecky.com/
FTFY
I'm still feeling ashamed at Google every time I see they push an ad in my (or my colleagues) face asking me to "upgrade" my browser.
Hey ass-holes! It's not an upgrade. It's a switch! Stop being dishonest about it. Stop intentionally confusing users.
It proved very difficult to keep my mother on Firefox. Chrome kept getting installed, for awhile it was bundled with all sorts of application updates.
Dark patterns, dark patterns everywhere.
The effort trying to remove this was immense. The crapware installer also managed to install a scheduled task to a randomly named executable that when I tested it with Microsoft security essentials said it was 'ok' but virus total told me it was some bag of shit malware.
WORSE STILL, Microsoft security essentials USED to pick this up as a quick google of this crapware update engine linked to a microsoft malware page, which no longer exists. Reading further I noted that MS stopped identifying some malware because "users might choose to use the applications that it installs"
No MS. If it's been sneakily installed with dark patterns consent has not been given, and it needs to be destroyed with fire.
Thankfully ClamAV picked it up, so I now regularly scan with that. sigh
WHAT ARE YOU DOING MICROSOFT?
Mine's on Debian. Seems to be working out pretty well. When other machines in the house are gunked up with who-knows-what, it's still there working reliably.
Put shortcuts to your other products. An Xbox bookmark/button is an ad for the Xbox.. increasing Xbox sales, but also reducing the money they need to spend to promote the Xbox
If users decide they want a completely Microsoft platform- they login to windows with their msft online password, use ms office, etc they’ll be more likely to pick a windows phone or other Microsoft products that integrate with the products they already use (saving them setup time, transferring settings, etc).
If they have more information about you, they can make ads in bing more relevant and perform better.. increasing the price of the ads, and the ctr
There are a few ideas off the top of my head.
Every installation of Chrome on Windows is an opportunity for their most dangerous competitor to siphon off future opportunities. Anything which reduces that number is a fundamental win.
They also get to direct some percentage of users towards their properties (e.g. Bing) which do make revenue.
Finally there's the opportunity cost of not being in the game: having users in their camp gives them moves which they would otherwise not have. (Similarly Bing—some might call it a relative failure, but it's a roaring success compared to never trying in the first place. It was a good decision.)
1) Information gathering. This one I think needs no explanation
2) Controlling a platform is incredible powerful in influencing your users. Lets say you control an OS. Then you can nag on your users to also use your browser! If you control the browser, you can nag your users to use you mail system. Perhaps someday they will nag on the users to use their marketplace, their movie distribution system, their whatever.
All the other comments here are also true, but this is the main reason. They directly benefit every time you open Edge. I wouldn't be surprised if some ad sales VP made this decision after seeing the numbers broken down by "edge new tab impressions" vs "everything else."
Also, a browser can track your browsing behavior, data that can be sold.
Well for one thing, keeping people away from Google's browser keeps people away from their office suite, one of the biggest moneymakers outside the X-box division for Microsoft.
Working well in what sense? Is the stated goal to do evil and highly imorral stuff and get away with it?
Maybe they are trying to make life on the PC so miserable that people will switch to android.
Windows tells me Edge is better when I install Firefox in the EU too.
Seems nothing much has changed in their approach in 30 years.
They are more open with their development division, as they have to be. Windows is a completely different division, and more often than not, the notable members of the development division will call out their company.
Windows and development are subject to the same executive team, and same orders from the top setting corporate direction.
It was precisely that break-up that was ordered by the US court during the anti-trust case, and stopped with the arrival of the Bush administration.
There's no way a decision like this one didn't get approval from the top layers of the company as it no doubt had to go through different levels of legal, product and everything in between.
It's entirely possible for Microsoft to do bad things like this while GitHub keeps doing its thing and Typescript and VSCode developers keep doing their thing.
It’s not a good reason, but it’s possibly the reason. Ultimately it’s not really useful to attempt to paint an entity as large as Microsoft as all good or all bad.
I don't recall these being "beloved". This sounds like a troll to me.
Sure Intel do FOSS graphics driver development, but I doubt they've ever been beloved due to their constant scandals (ME and Meltdown recently, and further back there's ClassMate, Itanium/Itanic, etc.)
AMD promised open drivers. We're still waiting.
ARM systems are usually locked down and full of blobs (e.g. for graphics, etc.). Plus ARM don't make chips, they just sell licenses to their designs to third parties, which is completely anti-FOSS.
Google do support a lot of FOSS development, but their online monopolies and spying infrastructure have always kept people suspicious.
Apple has a habit of turning liberally licensed FOSS into proprietary software (e.g. OSX is based on Mach and BSD, Safari is based on KHTML, etc.). Their mobile OS also requires programs to be signed, and they charge a $99 fee for developers to get a certificate.
As far as I'm aware IBM have historically been the enemy. They certainly pushed Linux forward around the millenium, but since then I've not come across them outside bloated "enterprise solutions" that I doubt many in the FOSS world would consider relevant.
Open sourcing libraries and tools that make the lives of programmers much easier and even porting them to run on linux.
This may be a selfish approach approach from Microsoft (win the hearts of developers and the regular users will follow), or it might be signs of actual positive change.
The one thing that is clear is this openness does not extend to regular users of windows.
I'm mentally making notes that I should really be switching back to linux for my core desktop computing, even if I continue to use Microsoft technology like vscode, typescript and dotnet core.
Every now and then I hear some PR spiel or read some comment on HN about how great Windows is now and I try to run it, but I always run into some dumb thing like this that turns me off.
Well, their PR department changed a lot, so they can keep the same old tactics while having people think they're the good guys now.
Coming soon: github.com "best viewed in Edge".
I don't want to be Microsoft apologist, but Google is doing this shit for years, and nobody says anything. One annoying popup in Windows and the end is near. Yeah, because we don't trust MS for things they did ten years ago. But we trust Google even if they're doing the same thing right now.
[1] https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185
Google Hangouts Meet doesn't work in anything but Chrome.
Deleted Comment
I don't like this move by Microsoft, but they called out on shit like this more than other tech companies it seems.
Chrome for iOS already does something similar but you only get to choose between gmail and the native mail client.
Oh, and it doesn't spy on me.
Hope you uninstalled all the extra bundled stuff from Amazon and friends.
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/22/apple-encouraging-safar...
Much less invasive than what this is doing but still pretty disappointing.
Dead Comment
Why does it keep suggesting Chrome?
AFAIK there's no option to set a default web browser on iOS.
TBF, I automate my installs so both Firefox and Chrome are installed from the command line via brew cask. Maybe that's why.
But it's not cross platform. I use a Windows desktop, Debian laptop, and Apple phone. Edge is available on exactly one of those platforms, while Firefox and Chrome are available on all of them.
Until that is fixed I will not consider edge, despite how fast or "secure" it may be over the competition.
Edit: seems that Edge is available on the App Store[1], and Linux requires a Wine workaround. I prefer native support, without hacks or clunky install processes.
[1]https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge/id1288723196?...
Unless you count safari, if they still bother porting that outside iOS/OS X. In which case that wouldn't be preferable anyway.
There is nothing wrong with running different browsers on different operating systems.
> But it's not cross platform. I use a Windows desktop, Debian laptop, and Apple phone. Edge is available on exactly one of those platforms, while Firefox and Chrome are available on all of them.
It's actually available on less than one platform, since it only runs on Windows 10, and only on desktop editions (so not on thin client desktops, which use Server).
And we're not fine with it, we just can't do anything about it because Microsoft does not listen to complaints.
Cheers.
But if Microsoft wants to convince people to use Edge, they should start by dumping a bunch of resources into sanding down the rough spots and applying some spit and polish. It's like 90% of a satisfactory browser at this point, maybe even 95%, but the remaining bits can be really, really frustrating.