Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#181

Post by twobitshifter » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

chaorace wrote: post #162

twobitshifter wrote: post #135

Ok, so I don’t condone this behavior by Microsoft or Google, but I do use edge at work since we are a Microsoft heavy company with Sharepoint, teams, outlook, and all that. If we were using Google I’d surely use Chrome, but edge bakes in your Microsoft work profile to the browser and when searching on Bing you can find documents on your internal network easily. I also like the fact that edge supports vertical tabs ou…

> Google promotes Chrome on YouTube, search, and gmail. Strategically Microsoft needs a message to counter the pop ups on Google sites that are leading to the Chrome download page You know what I say to that? Tough cookies. Websites and OSes have different responsibilities to their users -- if MS wants to use shady cross-promotion tactics like Google, they should provide web services that justify the annoyance and do…

> if MS wants to use shady cross-promotion tactics like Google, they should provide web services that justify the annoyance and do their cross-promotion there

So to have a successful browser you need to invest to have a visitor count rivaling the largest search engine, video platform, and online mail combined? I think that’s a very large hill to climb even for Microsoft. Your statement leads to only a Chrome hegemony. In terms of sites with Google’s reach, maybe Facebook could make their own browser but that’s about it.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#182

Post by DrBazza » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

I'm really having issues with Microsoft now. It just seems to be one dark pattern after another in Windows 11.

They're not wrong about it being based on on the same renderer as Chrome, but that's about as far as it goes.

The worst thing is that Apple and Google do the same dark patterns and no one seems to care about them. For some reason, Microsoft didn't learn from the early 00s any lessons on how to do this kind of thing with any subtlety.

I have a Mac laptop and iPad, an Android phone, and I now run Linux on my PC and haven't booted into Windows 10 since May (checks uptime...). I don't think I have any reason to use Windows at home any more. The changes in Windows 11 are even more unappetizing. It feels like Windows Me, or Vista. The version no one asked for.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#183

Post by throwaway4220 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #144

throwaway4220 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's a generation gap, but I've seen this in other places. I got a text message from my student loan servicer - It "needs 2know if U wish 2stay in Autopay". I thought it was spam, but it's real. Do Gen Zers really think this is okay, or am I getting too old

gen Zers know it's stupid, but have the ability to cope with reality and just go on with their business, instead of obstinately pretending to be 'baffled' by something that's been in common usage for twenty years, then complainging about it on the internet. you're thinking really hard about paying your student loans now, so it worked. who doesn't understand what's going on? doesn't sound like it's your loan-servicer,…

No I really thought it was spam!

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#184

Post by green-eclipse » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

Welcome to the new Microsoft. Same as the old Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#185

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

0x_rs wrote: post #30

I heard some people having a decent time with Edge in the past with some features implementations. Not that I would use it myself, but I'm firmly convinced these childish plays only ruin whatever good work was done on it. Who on Earth would continue using a browser that has such hostile behavior and dark patterns all over the place e.g., buy-now-pay-later at browser level? It's so hard to trust Microsoft anyway, I'm…

Agreed, I don't plan to ever install it.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#186

Post by jefftk » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

technobabbler wrote: post #168

jefftk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla ... has introduced a lot more dark patterns than Chrome has What are you referring to?

Stuff like this (not my post): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29416956 I just remember that every time I reopen Firefox (to test it for something), some new annoying thing like Pocket or some other trendy extension I didn't ask for has suddenly appeared. And it's always bugging me with CHECK OUT WHAT WE ADDED popups. I don't CARE about your new features, just let me browse the web and stay outta the way, damn i…

A dark pattern is trying to trick the user, with hard to find close, boxes, pre-checked subscriptions, or other misleading user interface patterns. Looking through your linked comment, I don't see any examples of these? Details:

The first point there is changing the API for their add-ons, which they did for performance, maintainability, and security reasons. No dark pattern there.

On Firefox Suggest (points 2 and 3), are you saying it is a dark pattern because their messaging when you enable the feature is not clear about what's happening? What's wrong with the messaging and how would you like it to be better?

With ads on the new tab page, I don't see what is a dark pattern about it? Or are you just saying that you don't like ads and wish Firefox would find another source of revenue?

With the Mr. Robot extension (points 5 and 6), I think it was a dumb choice, but again I don't see how it's a dark pattern?

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#187

Post by tw04 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

I'm sure it's in direct response to the popups you get from Google telling you the site works best with chrome when you visit any of their properties with edge or Firefox.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#188

Post by ubercow13 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

archontes wrote: post #153

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just don't see the point, from a consumer perspective, in all the major players fighting over who's version of Chromium is the most preferred. I get why the company's care - i just don't get why anyone else does. Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way.

The substantial difference that I experience is that it is incapable of utilizing hardware acceleration for youtube videos using an nvidia graphics card in a linux environment, and that I don't get tab-to-complete search in the bar.

Seems more useful than Chromes search bar which has tab-to-go-to-google-search-and-generate-ad-revenue. At least Firefox has down-to-find-what-I-actually-want-from-my-bookmarks-and-history.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#189

Post by kingcharles » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

0x_rs wrote: post #30

I heard some people having a decent time with Edge in the past with some features implementations. Not that I would use it myself, but I'm firmly convinced these childish plays only ruin whatever good work was done on it. Who on Earth would continue using a browser that has such hostile behavior and dark patterns all over the place e.g., buy-now-pay-later at browser level? It's so hard to trust Microsoft anyway, I'm…

Edge isn't a bad browser now, but that's a testament to the underlying Chromium.

It still crashes way too much for me to use as my primary browser, and I only keep it because it is a better PDF reader than Chrome and I've not had time to find a replacement.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#190

Post by jeroenhd » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

Back when Edgeium was new and just Chrome but with a lot of Google cruft removed, I actually used Edge instead of Chrome when I was on Windows. It was the same browser with some additional tweaks that I quite liked.

Then Microsoft started this aggressive, disruptive push to bring it to iOS Safari's level as the only browser people should use.

I don't know any good operating systems for normal people anymore. Windows 10 and 11 are hostile, macOS only runs on very expensive hardware and doesn't run most programs people need (because the business world is still Windows oriented) and Linux has been making progress but still isn't a good alternative for the common user unless they have an expert to rely upon when something breaks down. ChromeOS doesn't run on most devices (it can, but the images aren't available) and I wouldn't recommend a Google-oriented OS to most people anyway, if they can avoid it; Android is bad enough already.

I miss the Windows 7 days. The Win10/11 kernel may have seen loads of improvements, the UI and basic behaviour has only been regressing for many years now. The Windows 11 window snapping is nice but it doesn't excuse the aggressive spyware that comes with the OS, and neither does it excuse this antitrust lawsuit in waiting.