Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#71

Post by dragontamer » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

dorchadas wrote: post #54

dragontamer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's default web browser is Safari on iOS and no one ever sued Apple over it. At some point, you have to just recognize that the world is different today. The general market has accepted walled garden OSes with anti-competitive behavior towards common applications.

They've changed it. I have Brave set as my default, for instance, and can change apps to tell them which one to open.

IIRC, all web browsers on iOS are using the Safari rendering engine though.

So its still Safari underneath it all. Much like how Internet Explorer / Edge on Windows is really just a Chrome renderer / frontend these days.

EDIT: And since Google is in charge of the Chrome renderer, Microsoft absolutely has less control over internet-APIs / Javascript APIs / CSS details than say... Apple or Google does. Which is the "monopoly" bit that we're really worried about.

When you consider which company "controls the web", its Google or Apple. Microsoft really doesn't have much control of it.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#72

Post by zamalek » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #40

Microsoft is making me seriously reconsider using Windows for my Alienware gaming PC. Does anyone know if there's a version of the Alienware, Steelseries, and Razer control software for Linux?

Be prepared to have a VM and pass through devices to it in order to configure them. "Gamer device" manufacturers easily the worst of the worst when it comes to Linux support.

OpenRGB may provide some relief.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#73

Post by zamalek » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

LaGrange wrote: post #53

dontblink wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps its time to consider a serious look at another one?

Because this time around, MS can point at the entire FAANG and say "why aren't you doing anything about _them_?" Which would be deflection, of course ("whatever, we aren't talking about FAANG right now") but politically strong enough, IMO, to make it scary to sue any of the big tech unless you're willing to go against all of them.

This behavior is tolerated, and even defended, so far as the others go ("it's their platform").

There needs to be a serious reality check before any form of litigation could work.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#74

Post by maybeOneDay » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

dorchadas wrote: post #50

I need a new computer, and I was going to switch to Windows so I could game with friends (while dual-booting into some linux distro for anything programming related), which would force me into 11. It's already a shame that I have to have a Microsoft account to even set up the damn thing, but now I can't even use whatever default browser I want? I'm seriously about the say screw it and pay for another Mac. I love mine…

Don't get me wrong, this is some absolute BS from MSoft, but no it's not accurate to say you can't use whatever default browser you want. It's that there are a very few select things that force you into opening a link in edge - as far as I'm aware this is functionality mostly limited to just websearch from the start menu. So if you prefer to Google/DuckDuckGo your shit by first opening a browser, this won't really affect you. It's important philosophically and as an indicator of Msoft's behaviour/strategy, but doesn't considerably affect users too much.

Caveat - I haven't used Windows 11 so I'm unaware if they've enhanced the number of places that these edge specific links are used. In windows 10 I haven't even bothered to implement some workaround because I never want to search the web from my start menu

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#75

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #60

cronix wrote: post #22

So far in the last year or so, I've heard 0 reasons why I'd even need, want or benefit from Win11 over Win10. Tons of reasons in the negative column though. There isn't even anything to salivate over that might make you think it might be worth it to deal with the other tradeoffs. Hard pass.

I've been using Win11 now for about a week (so take this with a grain of salt) and one positive I've noticed has been a far better UX. OSX has made a ton of leaps and bounds for optimizing controls for how you use your computer, and it felt like windows 10 was lagging behind quite a bit in the last year. Windows 11 addressed a lot of these grievances. Browser overrides like this are definitely in the negative UX colu…

Would you mind outlining specifics? All I see are the current tends of tabletization continuing.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#76

Post by danjc » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

Ok I’ll take the contrarian view. Why is it a big deal that a specialized url scheme is specifically intended to launch a Microsoft browser? Only apps built by Microsoft will use that scheme.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#77

Post by soco » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

Guillaume86 wrote: post #68

jjcm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Win11 now for about a week (so take this with a grain of salt) and one positive I've noticed has been a far better UX. OSX has made a ton of leaps and bounds for optimizing controls for how you use your computer, and it felt like windows 10 was lagging behind quite a bit in the last year. Windows 11 addressed a lot of these grievances. Browser overrides like this are definitely in the negative UX colu…

The new taskbar UX is a huge downgrade compared to my "always ungrouped" taskbar in Windows 10, hope the add it back before I'm forced to upgrade.

StartIsBack gives you back the left-side placement, drag&drop and grouping.

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#78

Post by beebeepka » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

keawade wrote: post #61

ashton314 wrote: post #18

MS is getting desperate. This shill [^1] had the audacity to reply to a tweet I made praising the very excellent FOSS Zotero bibliography manager with a suggestion to use Edge. Like, come on. Amusingly, Twitter initially hid his tweet with "Tweet may contain offensive material." Offensive to a FOSS-loving mind indeed. [^1]: https://twitter.com/varadarajans

Pedantic musing: > Shill > One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle. Is it "shilling" if you're a project manager recommending your product? He doesn't appear to be posing as anything other than a Microsoft employee working on the Edge team.

Now I am interested to learn how would you describe it!

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#79

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #67

no_circuit wrote: post #55

Forcing the use of edge for features that should be browser-neutral like Bing web search from the start menu seems very wrong in terms of user choice. However, if this is Microsoft's version of "Electron" in order to implement parts of the OS, then blocking other browsers seems pretty reasonable. It makes technical sense because they can also directly provide a Windows Login cookie for linking to their apps on the we…

why do you need to ALWAYS stay signed in? for the past decade i have a habit of doing CTRL+SHIFT+P on my firefox and using that. i did a "privatebrowsing.autostart=true" in the past but for a few years, a simple private window is enough. it takes me 2 seconds to click on sign in to anything and when i close the window, everything is washed away. no more youtube building my profile. i'm not saying this is for everyone…

[deleted]

Re: Windows 11 Officially Shuts Down Firefox’s Default Browser Workaround

#80

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #4

Tell me again how Microsoft has changed and it isn’t the same company anymore, and how EEE is ancient history.

I feel like Microsoft really has changed. Not the EEE portion though, it's just that quality and support of their products is no longer a serious consideration. We had to engage software assurance support recently and it is horrifically useless compared to the last time we did.