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Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

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Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#211
post #3

They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and more. But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google calendar asks me to install an…

> I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field.

It's a system app. You also didn't explicitly install the TV app yet here we are.

Settings -> Passwords -> Password Options -> uncheck iCloud Passwords & Keychain

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

define "the government" -- who and what exactly is controlling this supposed policy?

There's no conspiracy. Mostly think tanks, policy circles, and White House wonks over every successive Internet-age administration. All segments of the U.S. government pay close attention to, among many people, geopolitical analysis of all stripes, who can help them understand how to remain the world hegemon. The U.S. frequently commissions studies by outfits like Booz Allen Hamilton on geopolitical matters (you can…

> After you read it, you'll understand that the "policy debates" the masses are exposed to have very little resemblence with what preoccupies decisionmakers! The government, no matter the administration, is far more rigorous and strategic than people give it credit for.

In this case the example document you quote is rather poorly chosen and does not really seem "rigorous" at all. Most if not all topics the document touches are basically the same that monopolize "policy debates" everywhere all 24h of the day (immigration, nationalism, welfare, and immigration. did I say immigration?), and the conclusions are defended as poorly as your average comment from Reddit. The document does not even get the names of many regions and cities correctly; the grammar is at many points terrible; many of the figures and charts look as if made with Paint, and whenever they are not, they are screen-scrapped from random websites and then poorly JPEG recompressed. Heck, at some point they even use Google Trends as source...

My humble opinion about these "think tank" reports that get "leaked" is that they use "commissioned by X government" just to advertise themselves, and it's either false or meaningless. I'm quite sure that the "serious" government analysis, if they exist, don't get leaked since that would probably immediately ruin all the predictions.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The win11 / Edge bullshit finally pushed me to migrate my last win machine to linux. I used to love Windows, nowadays it just makes me bitter. Do you know typing "torrent" in the start menu doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it all. Heh, try KDE's KRunner. I type 'kt' and it matches ktorrent. But if I type 'kto' it switches to matching "Des kto p 8". 'ktor' once again matches ktorrent.

That's a common autocomplete behaviour. It's trying to be helpful. If you actually wanted ktorrent, you probably would have selected ktorrent on 'kt'. By typing another letter you're hinting you might want something other than ktorrent. Not sure if I agree with the behaviour, but I understand it.

Thanks, I just thought it was broken.

I hate this behaviour, as I'm usually looking as my fingers type the last bit, and if I keep adding matching letters, please don't change?

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#214
post #201
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to solve this by just installing another launcher. there were some good ones around, they should still work I hope.

Yeah, for those interested PolyMC works well on linux. It's a bit rough around the edges, but a diamond nonetheless compared to the official launcher. Another anecdote is that minecraft 1.19 doesn't work on Ubuntu 18, as it uses glibc 2.29. D:

Weird, I am on Fedora and have none of the issues.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#215
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The win11 / Edge bullshit finally pushed me to migrate my last win machine to linux. I used to love Windows, nowadays it just makes me bitter. Do you know typing "torrent" in the start menu doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it all. And the acquisitions... I've had countless minecraft sessions ruined because of microsoft account / store issues. Don't even get me started on realms and the chat policing bulls…

Oddly enough I can't find a better programming environment nowadays than the win, wsl, powertools combo. I noticed the same about qbittorrent tho.

I don't know... everything works so well on linux out of the box nowadays, and over time you can setup everything exactly as you want.

As an engineer I feel like it's a great investment and loving my setup has a big impact on the enjoyment I get from work.

If you spend the time, can all the annoying stuff be turned off in Windows?

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#216
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough I can't find a better programming environment nowadays than the win, wsl, powertools combo. I noticed the same about qbittorrent tho.

I don't know... everything works so well on linux out of the box nowadays, and over time you can setup everything exactly as you want. As an engineer I feel like it's a great investment and loving my setup has a big impact on the enjoyment I get from work. If you spend the time, can all the annoying stuff be turned off in Windows?

I loved my Linux setups so much I automated them with some Ansible and a bunch of scripts and config files in a git repo to set up my user profile too.

I can't seem to get two Windows installs to be functionally identical the same way. I also can't believe winget is a relatively new invention.

You can turn off most of the annoying stuff, for a time. I'm convinced that sometimes settings just change on their own.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#217

It drives me nuts that a fresh install of Android apps defaults them all to "in-app" browsing instead of my default browser. And you have to go to each app and turn it off in a different place. Wish I could just override all of them and "open every web page in My. Default. Browser. "

Yeah it's bad "Why am I not logged in?".

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#218
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common autocomplete behaviour. It's trying to be helpful. If you actually wanted ktorrent, you probably would have selected ktorrent on 'kt'. By typing another letter you're hinting you might want something other than ktorrent. Not sure if I agree with the behaviour, but I understand it.

Thanks, I just thought it was broken. I hate this behaviour, as I'm usually looking as my fingers type the last bit, and if I keep adding matching letters, please don't change?

It's definitely broken, but apparently by design. It's a deliberbug.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#219
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough I can't find a better programming environment nowadays than the win, wsl, powertools combo. I noticed the same about qbittorrent tho.

I don't know... everything works so well on linux out of the box nowadays, and over time you can setup everything exactly as you want. As an engineer I feel like it's a great investment and loving my setup has a big impact on the enjoyment I get from work. If you spend the time, can all the annoying stuff be turned off in Windows?

A couple of days ago, I give a very brief workshop of Arduino. All the students with Linux boxes have some kind of problems, like the user was not a member of the dialout group or the group does not exist at all. I still prefer Linux, but no everything works "out of the box".

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#220
post #12

One of the next frontiers as a barrier to browser switching will be "software"-backed WebAuthn/FIDO2/"passkeys". If you look at the APIs available on MacOS/iOS at present [0], and how WebAuthn works, you need to "trust" the client-side software to correctly identify the site origin (i.e. protocol, domain, port) and pass it to a physical security key. In the case of a software token, you need to restrict which app(s)…

> you would need to find a way to sign into your old account (which requires your MacOS/iOS passkey to log in)

Chrome and iOS will pop up a QR code for webauthn over BLE or whatever it's called (there's also caBLE[0]) whenever you're either enrolling or trying to log in via webauthn. This means that, as long as you have access to any device with your old passkeys, you can log in on your browser/android phone.

0: https://blog.millerti.me/2021/06/18/previewing-chromes-cable...

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