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MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

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Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#101

Post by skilled »

The problem Microsoft is creating for itself is that with these kind of antics, they will _never_ land any developers using their browser. That's hundreds of millions of users they're spitting in the face directly.

Second, them constantly being in the news about peddling the Bing search engine also doesn't help. Most people like and prefer Google (and when I say most, I mean the 95% percentile), so if they read news like, "Microsoft is showing Bing ads on Google pages" - you can rest assured nobody is going to use Edge because at the back of they minds they will be thinking, "Hmm, does this mean my Google experience will be disturbed with this browser?".

I think I lost some gray matter just typing that out and reflecting on how stupid Microsoft is.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#102

Post by wkat4242 »

dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

Apple and Google own the mobile market together. There's not one player that owns almost all of it like that did with Windows (and still do really).

One is a healthy market, the other is not.

And Android respects browser choice, iOS will soon be forced to in the EU with the new sideloading mandate.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#103

Post by commitpizza »

rmm wrote: post #8

What’s crazy is that edge is actually a really good browser. Some of the features they have wacked on top of chromium are awesome. Especially when deploying it for a small business. It allows for easy integration with azure, profile syncing etc.

Well its great if you love being spied upon, Edge is filled with spyware tools which Microsoft tries to make you enable with dark patterns each time you update windows.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#104

Post by passwordoops »

IceWreck wrote: post #34
3np wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to give Microsoft an out here but really? The equivalent for this on iOS or Android would be allowing opening links in a different browser and web view engine. The equivalent Microsoft apps on mobile OSs aren't degraded - they aren't even allowed to exist in the first place. Microsoft is bringing the desktop experience in line with mobile here. Doesn't make it less terrible but contrasting Apple and Google as bet…

Microsoft apps exist on Android and they're not forced to open links in Chrome on Android. If the user chooses, they can open on Microsoft Edge on Android. The user can set their own browser preference - and Google doesn't force them. Apple doesn't allow other browser engines but it's on them. None of these bug tech corps are in the right here, but MS is being more anti-competitive than most.

I know I'm comparing a turd sandwich to a puke pancake here, but in what way is "Apple doesn't allow other browser engines" less anti-competitive than what MS is doing?

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#105

Post by AraceliHarker »

josefresco wrote: post #13

I don't get the anger, at this point Edge is interchangeable with Chrome. The only thing I "miss" are my saved password and extensions which can be easily imported. Complaining online is an international pastime though.

For example, Bing Chat is not available without using Edge, right?

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#106

Post by capableweb »

dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

> Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile they want to be to its competitors and users, because two people can play this game. I don't get Microsoft, have they no pride or desire to become a great company? Have they just become content to be an old corporate software house who only manages to keep users through dark patterns and anti-competitive behaviour because they have given up on making products which people enjoy to use?

You're talking about this like Microsoft ever did anything differently than what you wrote? Since when have they focused 100% on just building great products and competing fairly?

Microsoft has a loooong history of the behavior they still have, nothing is new here. Forcing people to use Microsoft EdgeXplorer? They been doing this since the very creation of their own browser.

Don't act all surprised when a company who have been acting one way, continues to act that very way still.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#107

Post by [deleted] »

jve wrote: post #90

This experience needs more clarification on how it works. So if I single click a link it won't open a browser but render content within Outlook App? Okay, what happens if I middle click? I should preferably get default browser. As to having Edge WebView2 engine in Outlook and no other - well, that is understandable [1]. Albeit Internet Explorer and Edge Legacy are still used by addins [2]. Actually it was about time…

[deleted]

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#108

Post by jarym »

IT admins have only themselves to blame for choosing Teams in the first place.

Yes, it is included in O365 and it makes it a no-brainer as far as additional costs and things go. But then there's the risk that Microsoft leverage their captive and lazy market to foist other undesirable things on users... like this. And crappy news / adverts in Windows 11's 'start menu' replacement.

Ready to get voted down on this, but my view is pretty robust: no need to self-host EVERYTHING but avoiding vendor lock-in and maintaining independence is valuable. It is a lesson that corporate IT admins seem to forget time and time again.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#109

Post by giancarlostoro »

datadeft wrote: post #49
dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

> Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile they want to be to its competitors The last 30 years of MS shows that they are not interested in the non-hostile approach Few things: - Microsoft Java Virtual Machine scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... .

The precursor to .NET being born. :)

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#110

Post by capableweb »

alkonaut wrote: post #77
ranting-moth wrote: post #58

So much for the "but Microsoft is a new company now". Remember "Microsoft loves open source" phrase from just few years ago? Guess what, Ike also loved Tina.

I always saw it as Microsoft is clearly two (or more) companies now. Some of those companies are very much what Microsoft was always like. Some others aren't at all like microsoft in anything but name.

That might be a useful point of view if you happen to work at GitHub and you don't really want to wake up to the fact that you actually work for Microsoft now. But for anyone else, everything Microsoft owns is Microsoft, and they'll use the products and properties they owned to further the goal of Microsoft, which is maximizing shareholder profits, just like any other public company.
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