The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
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The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
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Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#2> Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to.
Apart from the small matter of Google paying Apple $15bn to be the default search engine in Safari.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#3I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature.
But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out.
I got my son a new laptop recently and it has Windows 11. Did you know that Windows 11 has a feature called “widgets”, a popup from the left bottom which has weather, traffic warnings nearby etc? It makes a fair bit of sense, except that it’s filled to the rim with terrible clickbaity news headlines and you can’t turn it off! Someone at Microsoft decided that the entire Windows install base, ie nearly everybody, must really read news about foreign celebrities doing questionable things.
The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation that removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible news, but still nuts.
Edge has this too. There’s now a Bing button in the toolbar full of “discover” and “suggest” type features that nobody wants.
I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt. The core of both Edge and Windows 11 are tastefully designed. You can really see that it’s been built by people who want to ship great software. Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? Who at Microsoft benefits from me seeing the latest Taylor Swift gossip when I just want to know when it’ll rain? Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#4I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
> Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?
(Internal) metrics say otherwise.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#5I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
It's just three clicks to disable widgets, "Right click taskbar, select taskbar settings, click on slider to turn widgets off".
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#6> Apple doesn’t try to make revenue from Safari because they don’t need to. Apart from the small matter of Google paying Apple $15bn to be the default search engine in Safari.
Nobody would criticize Microsoft if they did the same with Edge and left it at that.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#7I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
It's just three clicks to disable widgets, "Right click taskbar, select taskbar settings, click on slider to turn widgets off".
That does not disable widgets. That only hides the button that toggles it.
(Edit 29 minutes after, because I can't seem to post anymore:)
It still runs its webview in the background and can be toggled with the keyboard shortcut, Win+W, even if the button is hidden.
In order to fully disable it you need a Group Policy or a registry hack.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#8I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
It's just three clicks to disable widgets, "Right click taskbar, select taskbar settings, click on slider to turn widgets off".
I’ve seen those screenshots too, I spent hours googling for this. But that setting is not available on my Windows. Maybe a pro vs home thing? I’m on the latest version. I don’t believe that this is by accident, I think MS decided that I’m in some customer segment that’s not allowed to not know that Jimmy Fallon might be depressed.
And even then, I can’t get the widgets feature, a pretty decent idea, without the news. I want to turn off the news, not the feature.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#9I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
> Don’t they understand that this is what drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)? (Internal) metrics say otherwise.
(Internal) metrics may be short sighted.
Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
#10I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…
>and you can’t turn it off!
Except you can. Taskbar setting -> toggle Widgets to OFF
>I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt.
Windows sales aren't core moneymakers anymore when they're basically giving them away for free (I have mine registered with a MSDNAA key I found online and it worked).
Money is in Azure, O365 subscriptions and ads shown to their Windows userbase. Nadella even said that Google makes more money from Windows users than Microsoft does, so shoving ads in your faces was them taking a slice of that sweet ad revenue.
It's unfortunate, but this silent acceptance is our society having been numbed to being bombarded with ads on every computing devie it just became the new norm sadly and it doesn't seem like there's any hope for the trend to be reversing. People just got used to SW & online content being free and ad supported rather than paying upfront for it.