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

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

neowin.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 433 posts

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

#251

Post by technobabbler »

jefftk wrote: post #186
technobabbler wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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),…

I'd argue that presenting partner extensions as though they were a user-friendly feature is a dark pattern in and of itself. "Check out this shiny new feature you'll love!" Oh wait, it's just more Firefox spam. Stop wasting my time.

If the semantics bother you, feel free to call it something else... an anti-feature, perhaps.

Every time I open Firefox it's different, and annoying in some new way. It's really gone downhill in the last decade.

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

#252

Post by marginalia_nu »

korginator wrote: post #97

This brings back memories of their 1990s shenanigans. I guess expecting ethical behaviour from them was always a pipe dream.

Sabotaging Windows95 so that it would fake a crash on DR-DOS was a real high water mark.

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

#253

Post by gjvc »

handrous wrote: post #205
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking Addons to be more compliant with a standard between other browsers - making things like TabTreeStyles not work. Putting ads in the address bar: https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22715179/firefox-suggest-... Recording what you type in the address bar: https://today.in-24.com/technology/450296.html Putting ads on the New Tab Page: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/31/firefox-with-ads-on-new-ta... Randomly instal…

FF's behavior over the last decade or so makes it seem like about three different and totally unrelated factions/departments/people that should never have been given any power have been given lots of power.

This is known as "shipping the org chart", aka Conway's Law.

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

#254

Post by gibspaulding »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #98
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What faults to you find in Firefox, when compared to Chrome? I switched a year ago and I was emotionally prepared to fight a rough battle with problematic websites, incompatible apps and so on. I was very positively surprised. The only major PITA was the fact that I had to define MIME types for downloadable documents that I wanted to save by default - the usual box "remember this option" was missing for .mkv and the…

Breaking Addons to be more compliant with a standard between other browsers - making things like TabTreeStyles not work. Putting ads in the address bar: https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22715179/firefox-suggest-... Recording what you type in the address bar: https://today.in-24.com/technology/450296.html Putting ads on the New Tab Page: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/31/firefox-with-ads-on-new-ta... Randomly instal…

These are valid complaints; frankly Mozilla hasn't been the steward that I would like for them to be, but I really struggle to understand how these are enough to make someone switch to Chrome. They're all things that make FireFox less better, but surely not worse?

The auto-installed addons thing was a bit of a fiasco (though one which didn't affect me), but things like advertising or extension support are still worlds better in FireFox than on Chrome.

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

#255

Post by ichik »

Angostura wrote: post #197
jeroenhd wrote: post #190

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…

> iOS Safari's level as the only browser people should use. FWIW, iOS doesn't chide you when you download Chrome or Firefox. Of course Apple requires them to use the iOS rendering engine - but that's perhaps a slightly different point.

On macOS Safari prompts me to set it as a default browser every time I launch it.

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

#256

Post by technobabbler »

eropple wrote: post #244
handrous wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a dark pattern, it's just obnoxious advertising garbage. Which is still bad, but a different thing. FWIW this is also one of my least favorite things about FF. What the fuck is the point of unobtrusive background auto-updating if you're also going to annoy me with ads every single time you do it?

YMMV, but people talk about these ads firefox is throwing around and I just don't see them. Did I accidentally turn a knob or something and it's just carried with me through years of Firefox Sync'ing?

Yeah, there are a bunch of ways to turn them off if you're a frequent user. But as a fresh install, you get bombarded with all sorts of useless recommendations and ads. It reminds me of the MSN start page.

I see the fresh installs often because I only use Firefox to test occasional browser bugs (it's always Firefox), and then delete it a few weeks later when I no longer need it, then reinstall it later when I need to test it again. Every time it gets more annoying.

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

#257

Post by avalys »

dustinmoris wrote: post #216
jeroenhd wrote: post #190

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…

> macOs.... doesn't run most programs people need (because the business world is still Windows oriented) This is not only not true for many years anymore, it's even got so far that it's almost the opposite now. Most successful businesses nowadays are increasingly led by tech-savvy leaders, because otherwise they wouldn't be successful anymore, and those people make their own software now increasingly better on macOS…

You seem to have ignored the entire class of businesses that don’t “make their own software” at all.

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

#259

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

passivate wrote: post #225
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you, there should be a checkbox so I don't have to suffer for your preferences.

I agree with parent, most non-technical people don't want to be system admin for their OS, so MS taking over is not really a bad deal. All my computers are IT managed and I have never had any update issues, so maybe there is some special sauce there via group policy. I have instructed them to section off my work PCs so they never update unless I tell them to, and it works. I get months and months of uptime till I tak…

The special sauce is probably WSUS, which allows them to control the update process for everyone and determine which updates they get and which they don't. Additionally, the WSUS channel for updates is behind Microsoft's normal updates, which allows for them to prevent problematic updates from reaching WSUS servers in the first place. Of course, home users get none of this.

I personally believe it is arrogance to say that non-technical users shouldn't be allowed to control their own PCs. And besides, a lot of users of PCs at home are technical. So I strenuously disagree with you.

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

#260

Post by zeroz »

sli wrote: post #258

I distinctly remember Microsoft getting into an anti-trust case[0] over things much more benign than what they're doing right now. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... .

Same in Europe. €561 million fine in 2013: "Antitrust: Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with browser choice commitments" [0]

I'm wondering if it's still a business case for Microsoft despite being sued.

[0]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_13_...

Post reply on HN