Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#11

Post by userbinator »

Jenk wrote: post #6

The designers of the "settings" screens in Windows should be utterly embarrassed. They are pathetically useless, especially when compared to their predecessors apps like the MMC.

They also take disturbingly long to load, and every interaction is noticeably delayed. At least in Win10 you can compare how long they take, since it has both. I don't think I've ever had to wait for Control Panel to load on every version of Windows prior to 10, but Settings needs a loading screen.

The responsible monstrosity is none other than UWP, which also added a loading screen to the Calculator.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#12

Post by watermelon0 »

userbinator wrote: post #11
Jenk wrote: post #6

The designers of the "settings" screens in Windows should be utterly embarrassed. They are pathetically useless, especially when compared to their predecessors apps like the MMC.

They also take disturbingly long to load, and every interaction is noticeably delayed. At least in Win10 you can compare how long they take, since it has both. I don't think I've ever had to wait for Control Panel to load on every version of Windows prior to 10, but Settings needs a loading screen . The responsible monstrosity is none other than UWP, which also added a loading screen to the Calculator.

At least it's not an Electron app. :D

I believe that animations are partially responsible for the slowdown, and Windows is not the only offender here, iOS and Android are just as much guilty of this. In most cases, animations when opening apps, switching screens, etc. don't add anything to the UX.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#13

Post by AniseAbyss »

gundmc wrote: post #2

How do the product managers and engineers who implement these blatantly user-hostile changes justify them?

Windows 10 Home, the one most people are on, is free. They need to make back that money.

I don't particularly like it but MS is doing what every other free app is doing. The user needs to be tricked.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#14

Post by watermelon0 »

I'm curious if this really helps them retain a measurable number of users.

Basically, Edge is as good as Chrome (each has minor improvements/features that are not present in the other one), so I don't see that the average user would want to change it without a good reason.

The only reason for change would be if they want to take advantage of Chrome sync to their existing profile, or use Chromecast, in which case I doubt they would stick with Edge, regardless of the number of dialogs that they need to confirm/bypass.

For others, that prefer Chrome/Firefox/Brave/etc. for some reason, it's clear that they won't switch in any case.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#15

Post by watermelon0 »

AniseAbyss wrote: post #13
gundmc wrote: post #2

How do the product managers and engineers who implement these blatantly user-hostile changes justify them?

Windows 10 Home, the one most people are on, is free. They need to make back that money. I don't particularly like it but MS is doing what every other free app is doing. The user needs to be tricked.

AFAICT license doesn't allow you to use it for free, but they won't prevent the use of it, like they did with the previous versions. IMO this is better for them, because otherwise people would just pirate it, and Microsoft certainly don't want even more PCs that are not properly patched.

Additionally, prebuilt systems present the majority of sold PCs, in which case OEMs pay for the license.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#16

Post by JohnTHaller »

gundmc wrote: post #2

How do the product managers and engineers who implement these blatantly user-hostile changes justify them?

"Google used shady dark patterns to trick users to install Chrome for years, so we're just returning the favor" - MS product manager, possibly

The trick of it is, this did happen for a long time. Here's Avast's updater and Flash's installer trying to trick users into installing Google Chrome: https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#17

Post by boardwaalk »

pitched wrote: post #10

I couldn’t buy the Xbox Game Pass in either Edge or their stand-alone client. I had to switch to Chrome before I could get through the process. I think it was something about billing address not updating country settings correctly but was too annoyed at the time to dig in any deeper.

And the Xbox app has been bugging me about an old credit card expiring when I’m paying for Game Pass with a different card.

I can only imagine the hellscape that is Microsoft’s account/login/billing system.

Re: Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

#19

Post by tomjen3 »

watermelon0 wrote: post #14

I'm curious if this really helps them retain a measurable number of users. Basically, Edge is as good as Chrome (each has minor improvements/features that are not present in the other one), so I don't see that the average user would want to change it without a good reason. The only reason for change would be if they want to take advantage of Chrome sync to their existing profile, or use Chromecast, in which case I do…

I think MS just has this reputation of being bad in the browser space. IE has been so terrible for years, why would I use MS browser.
Post reply on HN