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The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

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Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#271

Post by CamperBob2 »

soundnote wrote: post #235
gjm11 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the first page of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ there's this: "Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely." (Though the more nightmarish thing about 1984's "telescreens" is that they were two-way, giving the government the ability to see and hear what yo…

And people today happily buy voice assistants themselves.

"Hey Telescreen, reorder trash bags and look up recipes for risotto."

Huxley's extrapolations were much more on-target than Orwell's. He realized people would line up to buy things that Orwell assumed would have to be imposed at gunpoint.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#272

Post by gigel82 »

permo-w wrote: post #266
gigel82 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hides the UI entry point, but widgets.exe continues running, along with 5-6 edgewebview2.exe processes, taking up valuable resources. If you try to kill widgets.exe, a system service restarts it :( Unfortunately, the powershell incantation is the only way to get rid of it...

will there not be some registry entry you can change?

No, there is no way to disable it via registry or group policy that I know of.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#273

Post by CamperBob2 »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #157
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt. My understanding is that they did, around Windows 8 or so, and all the people who had scruples about the desktop experience left and were replaced by people who don't mind earning their pay check by making the world a worse place.

>people who don't mind earning their pay check by making the world a worse place. Yikes, you could be correct. Is this re-Ballmerizing? Wasn't that supposed to be off the table a while ago? Not only Edge, Windows itself is acting uglier every time too. Some of my scientific instruments are over 20 years old and going strong, a few still supported by the latest Windows software from the original vendors. Now some of t…

It really does work and it is fully validated on Windows 11, but before it installs it autoruns a script which takes half an hour on a 3GHz PC in order to disable all the detrimental Windows defaults these days.

Interesting. I've never heard of a commercial product shipping with its own Windows decrapifying script. Any chance this script is available publicly? We build similar things (relatively high-end instrumentation that needs to stream a lot of data to the PC), and have similar customers with similar problems.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#274

Post by factormeta »

marcellus23 wrote: post #224
jlarocco wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used OSX for ~10 years, I can say Apple isn't much better. Both systems treat the user like an idiot, just in different ways. You'll see what I mean when the OSX updates start undoing changes you've made to settings and things like that. For your own good, of course.

I have to strongly disagree with "not much better." I'm not saying Apple doesn't do some annoying stuff, but it is MUCH much better than Microsoft. Every time I use Windows I am just floored how obnoxious they are with pushing their BS. The difference is night and day.

I do think the Apple user experience is better, and the hardware is much better designed. I switched from Apple to Linux several times, and really know the difference, but when it comes to privacy, Apple and MS just can't be Linux/*BSD variant (I do know it is not for everyone).

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#275

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #239
Dalewyn wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? Because Windows is a free-in-practice product and it needs/wants a revenue stream. Remember that Windows 11 can be activated with Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 keys; as if that wasn't crazy enough you can straight up not activate it and you won't lose out on anything important. As for install media? You can download those for free any time. No…

macOS and Linux are even more ‘free-in-practice’

macOS is free only when you bought Apple's computer hardware which comes at some serious markups. Unlike WIndows and Linux I can't legally downloads it and install it on the PC hardware I already own.

That's like saying the SW ruining on your car's entertainment unit is free. Sure, that SW didn't cost you anything extra, but you paid for it through the car's purchase price.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#277

Post by Andrex »

skrebbel wrote: post #3

I’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…

Give Linux a try. Even if you did before and hated it.

Flatpaks and Proton are really coming into their own. And not in a "year-of-Linux-desktop" way where it's perpetually "almost ready" for 5 years. So many of my teething problems moving away from Windows have been buttoned up and solved since originally using mainlining Linux 10-15 years ago.

I'm a Gnome weirdo though, Gnome 3/4 are easily my favorite complete desktop experiences (Elementary was competing there for a while).

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#278

Post by soundnote »

permo-w wrote: post #267
soundnote wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave has vertical tabs built in too, though they're behind a flag. But similar implementation as Edge and they work well.

last time I tried them they were extremely glitchy. have they been fixed?

I think a lot of the glitchiness had to do with the tab bar changing size if you didn't have the bookmarks bar always on or always off. That's fixed now, and the tabs look pretty, too.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#279

Post by [deleted] »

bdw5204 wrote: post #58
Nextgrid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the first place. Does anyone, besides maybe the elderly (out of habit), use a desktop computer to read (clickbait, low-quality) news instead of their phone? As an anecdote, I know a non-technical Windows user who unlocks their machine by clicking the "like what you see?" prompt on the loc…

I wonder how many of the clicks on online ads in general are just accidental clicks. Especially clicks from phones where it is extremely easy to accidentally load the ads. This question will probably never be answered because it is a vital business interest of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and every company that makes phone apps that it not be answered.

[deleted]

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#280

Post by Andrex »

gloryjulio wrote: post #227
gjvc wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has two-page view for .pdf files.

Not sure which extension you are referring to. Just tried and couldn't open pdf with chrome

Hit Ctrl+O in Chrome and pick the file.

Sometimes server MIME types (or the download attribute on anchor links) force a download instead of letting Chrome just load the PDF directly. But it can definitely open local PDFs, I chucked Acrobat in the trash years ago when I found out.

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