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

Post by JohnFen » Wed, May 03, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #536

capableweb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

Arguably, Microsoft is why a browser's user-agent is so useless for determining supported features. https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ The context is explained prior, but the part I'm pointing to is: > And Microsoft grew impatient, and did not wish to wait for webmasters to learn of IE and begin to send it frames, and so Internet Explorer declared that it was “Mozilla compatible” and began to imperson…

Post by JohnFen » Wed, May 03, 2023, 10:11 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #293

rocketbop wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can favourite HN comments if you just want to come back to them.

To clarify, since it's not obvious in the UI, you have to click the timestamp of the comment, and then you can favorite it.

Post by JohnFen » Wed, May 03, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #591

wkat4242 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use either chrome or edge but why would I use a clone instead of the real thing? I never understood why Microsoft thought cloning chrome was a good thing for adoption. Edge is just chrome now but with some annoying bloat like the coupon pop-ups and pay later scams.

Previous Edge was a complete refactor of IE with a brand new js engine. Extremely lightweight and low power compared to Chrome. Their goal was to be 100% compatible with the modern web. Google started breaking pages as soon as it detected it was running on Edge and not Chrome. Simply changing the user-agent string magically repaired the pages. So MS gave up and forked Chrome.

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Wed, May 03, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

than3 wrote: post #623

happytiger wrote: post #558

You can't embrace open source, stand for freedom on the Internet, and simultaneously engage in dark patterns like this without destroying user trust. And trust with users is the currency of the 21st century as much as data is the new oil. Microsoft needs to get their brand straight and decide, once and for all, what they stand for. There was this incredible move towards open source, and embracing the modern web, and…

Microsoft is no better than an accounting firm at this point. The only reason they are still around is because of the data collection from spying on their users, and malign and coercive practices that are illegal but remain unenforced probably due to some backroom deal they made regarding the former. They had a few good ideas early on, and now that open source isn't patent bound (not gonna get into the rediculousness…

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Wed, May 03, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #248

detaro wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

URL types for geo locations are standardized. And even if they weren't or the standard isn't sufficient (which one could reasonably argue), you are talking about features made by the platform owner. Apple can trivially declare "this is the iOS geo share format, apps intending to share or handle shared geolocations should use this format" and expect the ecosystem to deal with it.

That’s a good point, although it seems that this kind of behavior, at least specifically to map apps, is quite common. Out of curiosity, I opened the Google app in iOS, searched for a place, and tapped on the result to open a map. Even with the default app set to Apple Maps, it goes straight to Google Maps. I haven’t been able to find the correct MIME type or URL protocol for a generic geo call, either, which makes m…