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

Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 470 posts

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#331

Post by cortic »

sdfhbdf wrote: post #267
cortic wrote: post #128

>How do you deal with Microsoft's crap on a daily basis? wuauclt.exe and wuaueng.dll. Add 'Administrators' to permissions, then go back in and delete all permission entries. Basically deny windows access to its update system. Doesn't hurt to run Anti-Beacon as well. NSudo as Trusted Installer to cripple security center and Update medic service, group policies can shut down most of Defender and Customer Experience Imp…

> Basically deny windows access to its update system If that also disables security updates that is not a good advice.

My advice would be to take control of your own security. Microsoft do not have your best interests at heart.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#332

Post by lkxijlewlf »

anthropodie wrote: post #87
pizza234 wrote: post #4

> How do you deal with Microsoft's crap on a daily basis? I don't; I develop on Linux. Ignoring this, within my very limited usage of Windows, it seems to me that MS has become increasingly more hostile over the last few years or so. To answer with something actionable: I discourage people from upgrading to Windows 11.

It seems weird that when a company grows beyond one point they start these user hostile practices. Google is another example. When they are small they are more open to innovation than manipulating user into using their product. What goes wrong?

> What goes wrong?

Quarterly Earnings reports. They've picked off all the low hanging fruit to show growth, now they're grasping.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#333

Post by testrun »

Ygg2 wrote: post #96
kelnos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to run Linux on a computer, you do your research and build/buy one where the hardware support is there. Most people don't need "latest" hardware; hardware from 2-3 years ago is fine, and, honestly, most latest hardware works fine too -- again, if you do your research. Grabbing a random machine and expecting it to work fine (especially if it's a laptop) will often fail, and that's why people spend hours on…

> Grabbing a random machine and expecting it to work fine Not random, but my current machine. How else am I (or random person on the Internet) to migrate to Linux then? Create an entire new machine just for Linux? That is a pretty hefty price. E.g. You bought an expensive nVidia card. Yeah, throw it away. Get AMD. Want dual monitors. Throw one away... I honestly dread switching to Linux. > Certainly some people have…

What on earth are you talking about? I am running Ubuntu 21.10 with triple monitors and a Nvidia 3090.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#334

Post by dboreham »

rbanffy wrote: post #16
SantiagoElf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is pretty much alive and kicking. The best it has been since Windows XP. WSL2, running Linux on Windows, VS Code, VS 2022, it's all good. Windows 11 is VERY solid and you can play lots of games on it too :) I am dead serious. I have been using Windows since 3, using betas of Microsoft products since Longhorn - right now, Windows is reaching it's PEAK in terms of performance, ecosystem. Sure, they will need 2-…

> WSL2, running Linux on Windows, VS Code, VS 2022, it's all good. As someone who also has a Linux desktop and laptops in addition to the Windows machine, WSL is terrible next to the real thing. Unless you need software that only runs on Windows, I advise against using it as a reason to stay on Windows.

Curious: in what way is WSL terrible? I've been using it daily for several years so wondering what I'm missing.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#335

Post by derekp7 »

adamddev1 wrote: post #35
prohobo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the answer is to simply not use Windows. I can only see there being an advantage for some game developers to be using it these days. Linux is actually a much better OS for techies: you can make it look nicer, have a better workflow, and you can really play games now that Steam Deck brought so much focus on Linux compatibility. Otherwise, Mac OS is doing just fine as well.

Unfortunately laptop driver support is often rough. I used an XPS 9343 (one marketed as supporting Ubuntu) but I faced issues with popping speaker sounds and mobile data tethering sucking GBs of data for some crazy reason.

For the remote data thing -- I ran into this a few years ago on Fedora when I was spending a lot of time away from the house, and buying 5 GB at a time for wireless data. I eventually had to write a script to sound an alarm when data usage started increasing, and caught the culprit program in the act. Was one of the background Yum / DNF update processes. Ended up killing Packagekit, and problem went away.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#336

Post by kylebyproxy »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #171
anthropodie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems weird that when a company grows beyond one point they start these user hostile practices. Google is another example. When they are small they are more open to innovation than manipulating user into using their product. What goes wrong?

I think Microsoft is an exception, they have been obnoxious since day one.

Obnoxious is being far too nice. MS has done more than any other single organization to derail & suppress the pace of technological development, and by extension the progress of the species. I genuinely see them as an enemy of humanity.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#337

Post by reissbaker »

I'd echo a sibling comment that I'm often confused by these stories on HN, since this kind of thing never happens to me, and I use Windows 11 on a daily basis (on multiple machines).

Yes, they sometimes show a prompt after updates asking if I want to change the default browser to Edge — I always decline. And no settings change.

Boosting Edge's numbers by force-switching the default browser without asking would have such obvious, predictable backlash, I'd be pretty surprised if this ever shipped intentionally. Let alone changing Chrome's default search engine without asking — that very likely is illegal.

Is your Windows machine a personal one, or is it a corporate machine? I could imagine that poorly designed corporate IT update enforcement software would accidentally do this kind of thing.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#338

Post by luciusdomitius »

falcor84 wrote: post #316
luciusdomitius wrote: post #307

Either install Linux or accept that the actual owner of your PC (and no, this is not you). is going to do whatever they want with it. There is no third option really. "Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." M. Aurelius

I absolutely agree, but just want to say that when trying to promote this sentiment, you really should be saying "GNU" or "GNU/Linux" rather than just "Linux".

No post body was provided.

Re: Last Windows 11 update changed all default browser settings to Edge

#339

Post by w4rh4wk5 »

po1nter wrote: post #327
w4rh4wk5 wrote: post #290

> How do you deal with Microsoft's crap on a daily basis? I've been exclusively using Windows 10 since 2016 on my main rig as well as my laptop. While there are a lot of small annoyances, for me, it's been far from _on a daily basis_. I'd say, from 360 days in the year, I spend maybe 10 days dealing with some Windows bullshittery. These are the things I changed on my system: - Disable Windows Defender real-time scann…

> Disable Windows Defender real-time scanning and related scheduled tasks. Why do this?

Personally, I am not a fan of Windows Defender in general, but disabling it completely renders other services (e.g. Windows Store) unusable. That's why I only disable the real-time scanning component.

There are two reasons for doing this:

Firstly, it has been shown that the real-time scanning features causes issues with file access latency. It's apparently quite noticeable when using WSL. On a laptop there might also be a noticeable improvement in battery life, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Secondly, every now and then the real-time scanning triggers on some file, removing/quarantining it without asking me first. This often happens, for instance, for video game cracks that I'd like to analyze / revers-engineer [^1]. So, for me, it's a lot of false positives and so far I haven't encountered a single case where Windows Defender actually protected me from something. At least that I know of.

^1: It's a hobby, I don't build DRM, don't worry. The games I work on typically release DRM-free.

Post reply on HN