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

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

#381

Post by userbinator »

speeder wrote: post #127
userbinator wrote: post #50

That browser is so 2008! Do you know what’s new? Microsoft Edge. Newer is not always better... if only Microsoft (and the rest of Big Tech) would go back to 2008 or even earlier, when they were far less controlling. Browsers detecting specific sites and acting differently on them, unless specifically requested to do so by the user, should be prohibited. Ditto for operating systems detecting specific applications. The…

Back in 2008 MS had a lawsuit punishment against them active. MS in 1997 or so was doing shenanigans like crash Explorer if you attempted to download Netscape (Firefox predecessor) they got sued by the EU and lost. The lawsuit terms expired recently and Microsoft is doing exact same shit they got sued for the first time, I guess they are testing to see for how long they can get away with thsi shit before they get sue…

like crash Explorer if you attempted to download Netscape

Do you have a source for that? I remember them being sued and losing simply because they bundled the browser with the OS, but don't recall any sort of the "detect user attempting to use competing browsers and kill them" mentality that they now have.

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

#382

Post by freediver »

jeegsy wrote: post #374
Angostura wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Of course Apple requires them to use the iOS rendering engine How is apple allowed to do this? Would MSoft have escaped the legal trouble back then if they had simply insisted that Netscape had to run like IE?

Forcing the rendering engine upon a browser manufacturer is just "cost of doing business" on iOS. It does not have as negative consequences as forcing an entire browser upon a user (like Microsoft is doing). Chrome on iOS can still do pretty much everything it wants, including telemetry, sync etc. The users are ensured to get a browser with a rendering engine that is carefully optimized for performance and battery life by the phone manufacturer, so I'd argue the user is actually better off.

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

#383

Post by freediver »

the_duke wrote: post #172
mistrial9 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. as a casual reader, I know this is false.. several HUGE efforts, have failed to gain the eyeballs of readers . repeating that there is only one choice, is not useful or constructive right?

Which efforts would that be? Pretty much every other browser is based on Chromium. Some very niche ones on webkit.

Orion Browser is proudly based on WebKit.

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

#384

Post by freediver »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #10

"Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft." They named their user tracking, telemetry, and "Buy Now, Pay Later" add-ons "trust"? That's really Orwellian.

Someone in their marketing run a survey of which brand is more trusted and they are playing on that card. The question would be did the survey cover both consumers and enterprise users as I think the answers to these would be different.

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

#385

Post by freediver »

wongarsu wrote: post #319
FredPret wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed the same thing. However, I trust MS less now than in the 90’s. Back then, I felt like the owner of my machine. Sure they had bad things like IE but I could just ignore it. Now, it restarts itself and installs updates despite me specifically trying to stop it. It’s a shame really because I really enjoyed Win 10 and even Bing doesn’t suck completely. Thank goodness for competition and the new M1 laptops! Now…

I trust Apple more than Microsoft, but if you want to feel like you own the machine Apple is much worse.

Hmm where do you get that from? I own a 2003 iMac G4 and do not feel Apple owning it 1%. And my latest iPhone can work without any Apple services if I choose so (I don't because they are actually great). If I am locked in the Apple eco-system it is by choice, not by design.

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

#386

Post by NobodyNada »

throwaway4220 wrote: post #22
prepend wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like this new form of writing, I’m not sure what it’s called. It’s not just informal, it’s cringy. I especially hate funny error messages as they just frustrate me. It’s ok when Reddit has a funny image because they can’t show my video game forum, but it’s infuriating when Microsoft shows a “whoops, what happened” when it just failed to sync the last 30 minutes of my work document.

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

> Do Gen Zers really think this is okay

No, we don't think this is OK. It looks ridiculous.

Remember that "textspeak" is just shorthand used to save keystrokes. I haven't seen anyone unironically use "2" instead of "to" since the days of flip phones -- on a smartphone keyboard, it's harder to type the number 2 than the word "to" because you have to switch to the numeral keyboard and then back.

Writing "u" instead of "you" is less common than it used to be, though some people still do it sometimes. But capitalizing the U is absurd -- remember, the whole point of shorthand is to save a small number of keystrokes, so you wouldn't waste keystrokes on unnecessary capitalization.

Any kind of shorthand like this looks ridiculous and out-of-place in a professional context, like a text message from a corporation. It signifies that you don't care enough to type out the whole message, which comes across as relaxed and casual between friends but as lazy and unprofessional in a form letter.

If I received a message liked this, I would immediately think it was written by some middle-aged manager who is trying to be "cool" and "relate to the kids." But a poor imitation of low-effort texting shorthand doesn't come across as "cool" at all; it's just silly and disrespectful. It gives the distinct impression that the whoever wrote the message thinks of me as "just a kid" rather than a normal, adult peer; as if I don't deserve the dignity of a normal, professional message.

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

#387

Post by willcipriano »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #293
f0rmatfunction wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 160 limit per message segment is absolutely still a thing, but when you receive a message >160 characters your phone stitches the segments back together for you so you don't notice. Why this matters: SMS delivery is usually priced per message segment. Going over the 160 limit ~doubles the cost to deliver the text. (Source: I am the CEO of a company which sends millions of text messages and avoiding 2 segment mess…

> I am the CEO of a company which sends millions of text messages and avoiding 2 segment messages saves us thousands each month! How much is each customer worth to you? Which is worse for your business - all your customers getting a cringey needs 2know if U wish 2stay in Autopay text and thinking that your entire business is unprofessional, or spending an extra $0.001 per customer per month to send them a message tha…

You are a executive, you could work really hard and find new lines of business, talk to customers and understand their needs to craft better offerings, or find another firm to form a strategic partnership with. But you won't, you'll just say "Start using 2day in the text messages, we will save 500k a year!" and move on to a new company in 18 months.

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

#388

Post by boznz »

FalconSensei wrote: post #353
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…

> 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 I'd say there are 2 main problems with Linux (for non-techies, etc, etc): 1 - They are not using 'linux', they are using one of the main distros, that can have some big differences between them. That also happens with Android, BUT, people that use a Galaxy S20 will…

There is only one main problem for linux and it is the catch 22 that most software is still mostly written for windows. I'm not talking about the generic off-the-shelf software like office/paint/browsers which have pretty good alternatives, but the 25+ years of legacy win32 stuff which still runs most businesses and factories. Lets face it nobody wants to re-write that program that Bill wrote in 2001 in Delphi or VB that interfaces to the stamping machine.

I'm a Delphi Developer who moved to NZ in 2005 and several programs are still live and running in UK factories. A tribute to the Win32 sub-system rather than my programming I assure you :-)

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

#389

Post by makecheck »

I’ve watched this kind of stuff unfold for several years and this is where I think we went wrong: we allowed software to become “free” or “cheap” when it used to be $300, without acknowledging that this stuff still basically costs $300 to make!!

So now, every stupid thing has to be completely free just to be considered by any consumer, and every software maker has to beg, badger and berate users over and over to get them to try things and download things and sign up for things, all because we collectively forgot that we could have just paid them 40 bucks and moved on.

You used to have to pay for operating systems, and for a while it actually became more expensive (e.g. macOS was $99 but went up to $129 to everyone’s surprise before becoming “free”). You definitely used to pay through the nose for apps but you got a lot for that money. Mobile devices are largely responsible for the 99-cent-ification of software, most of which is now “free” with “in-app purchases” which is ironic since these “cheap” replacements sometimes cost hundreds of dollars more if you actually add up all the recurring in-app purchases they contain. And, of course, subscriptions.

So great, Windows is “free” now and web browsers no longer cost money like Netscape did but instead we get all this crap in our faces. Personally, I think we have lost a lot and we desperately need to re-learn how to pay, once, for software, again.

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