Live data from Hacker News

Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

blogs.windows.com

221–230 of 366 posts

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#221
post #154
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. Probably, MS will try to backtrack and violate regulations at some point so it will pay for itself too. I'll never get the US masochism where interference by regulators to defend the end-user is somehow se…

> Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. But this never ends. Every week there's a new article here about how the EU is forcing electronics makers implement their preferred charger ports, or displaying cookie notices to EU visitors, or making phone batteries replaceable. It's endless crap that adds drag to businesses…

> people's income being redistributed to regulators

You mean, taxpayer funds being used to fund the operation of a regulatory body? I wonder how they should be funded in your ideal world:

* Don't fund them at all; the world is better with no regulators and no regulations.

* Cut them loose from the taxpayer; let them behave like an LE agency, and fund themselves by levying fines.

As far as I'm aware, there's no regulator involved in this, taxpayer-funded or otherwise. This is simply a law (which you can call a "regulation" if you prefer). As such, the only "regulatory" body involved is the EU lawmaking apparatus, and EU citizens seem to be OK with funding that.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed Linux for my relatives and they never have this problem (or any other problem!).

Can I please ask how technical they are, and what distro are you using? And that what are they using the OS for? I'm looking into this passively for years now, and I'm really interested in actual people's experiences.

Linux Mint is the distro you're looking for. Especially if you're looking to set it up for non technical users.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#223

> In the European Economic Area (EEA), Windows system components use the default browser to open links. That shows such complete and utter contempt for the wishes of their users. The user has actively selected a browser as the one they want to use by default, but windows only uses it in the EEA because they were forced to. As it will be used by EEA system components, there's presumably no technical/compatibility issu…

Let's see what the people always screaming about how the EU only cares about fining American tech companies who do nothing wrong will respond to this.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#224

> In the European Economic Area (EEA), Windows system components use the default browser to open links. That shows such complete and utter contempt for the wishes of their users. The user has actively selected a browser as the one they want to use by default, but windows only uses it in the EEA because they were forced to. As it will be used by EEA system components, there's presumably no technical/compatibility issu…

I hope someone manages to write a crack or something that enables the same behaviour in non-EEA locales, if only to see what mental gymnastics MS will engage in to explain why that would be bad for users.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#225

This is the expected, most intuitive, and only sensible behavior, and yet Microsoft somehow, for some reason, decides it is okay not to use the default browser? Wait a minute. Are they trying to cause me to have a complete meltdown? This is so irritating. The task bar can also no longer be placed vertically on the left or right. Imo. Microsoft should be forced to open source important parts of Windows so that these p…

The source of older versions of Windows was "forced open", a long time ago, unfortunately not legally.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#226
post #154
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. Probably, MS will try to backtrack and violate regulations at some point so it will pay for itself too. I'll never get the US masochism where interference by regulators to defend the end-user is somehow se…

> Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. But this never ends. Every week there's a new article here about how the EU is forcing electronics makers implement their preferred charger ports, or displaying cookie notices to EU visitors, or making phone batteries replaceable. It's endless crap that adds drag to businesses…

Those regulations mean the average worker won't have to buy a new phone when the battery degrades, and if they do buy a new one, their existing chargers will continue to work with it, so contrary to your point, it saves the average worker money and improves their life in a very tangible way.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#227

The other day I tried to install Chrome on a new laptop. (Insert joke about what Edge is good for.) However, Edge wasn't letting me actually download the Chrome installer. When I clicked the download button on the Chrome website, instead of any indication of its progress or completion, Edge instead displayed a pop-up that kept reassuring me that Edge was just as good. So it turns out, Edge isn't even good enough to f…

wait a minute...were you able to download chrome in the end? Or was edge straight up refusing to download it?

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#228
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I was looking at something else, Search on Web does in fact always open in Safari. I've filed a bug report for this just now. --- This is not true, and I've got receipts. Just downloaded Firefox and set it as the default browser, then used the Lookup option on the word "Lettuce." First section is dictionary, second section is "Siri Suggested Websites." These entries have Firefox logo and open Firefox when click…

Highlight a word or phrase in Firefox, in the popup there's a "Search" option. It will always search in Safari. Firefox had to add their own "Search in Firefox" option, that appears at the end of the popup (and sometimes not at all).

[deleted]

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#229
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. But this never ends. Every week there's a new article here about how the EU is forcing electronics makers implement their preferred charger ports, or displaying cookie notices to EU visitors, or making phone batteries replaceable. It's endless crap that adds drag to businesses…

Speaking as an American, I'm jealous of the EU approach. Yes, I think some of the EU regulations are silly. But they're taking a default position in favor of the citizens. Not in favor of the corporations. In this day and age, that's kinda heartwarming. Here in the US we're obviously in the opposite situation. We get some good protections occasionally, but the default position is almost always pro-corporate. With ext…

> Even if it leads to more annoying cookie banners.

Those are not the result of EU regulation; they're not even compliant with EU regs, usually. I don't know for sure why companies put up those stupid banners, but I suspect it's partly a kind of protest, and partly an (illegal) attempt to trick users into consenting to data collection.

Re: Windows 11 system components use the default browser to open links in Europe

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, they do. On my iPhone, I've: -changed the 'default browser' -'uninstalled' Safari Yet, whenever I want to search for a highlighted word, it opens Safari. This is such an absurd situation where I am browsing a site and want to do a search for something I just read and, instead of just opening a new tab or replacing the active tab with a web search, it opens a different browser app I do not want to use. This is jus…

I can't duplicate this. Can you tell me what your default browser is and how you are 'searching for a highlighted word'

Go in any app, highlight a word, "Search on the Web"
Post reply on HN