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

blogs.windows.com

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

#271

Post by yomlica8 »

cgeier wrote: post #55
FredPret wrote: post #9

My decision to move to Mac when the M1 came out is starting to pay more and more dividends!

What does using a Mac have to do with the article?

What I've learned about tech tribalism arguments is that for some reason some one else doing something first means you can't be mad about it when it happens again.

Its like if you cheated on your wife and told her she can't get mad because your neighbor cheated on his wife first. Somehow that is a rebuttal even though she was never married to the neighbor and may have even started dating you in the first place because you didn't cheat.

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

#272

Post by ChadNauseam »

cyanydeez wrote: post #248
whatwhaaaaat wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mostly people condemn the eu for its attempt at censorship. The eu would actually have to have a big tech company consumers actually interface with in order to fine them -besides just hardware.

They have a suspicious lack of coup attempts in the last decade.

Is the idea that it would have been really good if the person who organized the insurrection also had the ability to censor people who disagreed with him?

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

#273

Post by matkoniecz »

Spivak wrote: post #255
skummetmaelk wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the stance is that while what the EU does is good for the consumer it's annoying as hell for American tech companies to be assessed billion dollar fines all the time. If the punishment was "comply in 180 days or we'll suspend your business charter" I think you'd see a lot more support.

Not sure why the proposed alternative is better to anyone at all.

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

#274

Post by nottheengineer »

baz00 wrote: post #62
AraceliHarker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is determined to make users use Edge + Bing.

For lack of a better response, as a customer I'd like to tell them to fuck off because both are terrible user experiences. It's like wading through trash.

Telling them to fuck off means using linux. It's a hard step at first, but I highly recommend giving it a shot.

After learning the basics, I can't go back to windows anymore because I know how a proper OS works and can see how terrible windows actually is as an operating system, not just in terms of user experience. That alone keeps me motivated to push through any difficulties I face with linux.

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

#275

Post by tomhallett »

zuhsetaqi wrote: post #136
tomhallett wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone texts me an address, the only option is “Open in Maps” which is for Apple Maps, when I’d clearly prefer Google Maps. When I click on an address in FB Messenger, I get the “open in google maps or Apple Maps” prompt, but choosing Google Maps just takes me to the Google Maps App Store page, even though I have the app installed and updated. If there is a solution to this problem (where my attempts failed for…

Ok, I get that. That's simply Apple not giving the option to set the preference in the first place. But I would argue that's a different thing than giving a user the option to set a default app and then ignoring it or reseting it automatically. When I change my browser or mail app on macOS or iOS it's stays like that. > When I click on an address in FB Messenger, I get the “open in google maps or Apple Maps” prompt,…

While I agree there is a bit of difference, it's somewhat inconsequential to the end user having their preferences respected:

* Microsoft: we will let you set a preference, but we will ignore/reset it

* Apple: we won't let you set a preference at all

If someone wanted to say "Microsoft and Apple don't care about your preferences, but Microsoft is slightly worse", I think that'd be a fair thing to say.

Agreed that apple's is a lack of a feature, BUT if you look at the features which apple does support, it feels closer to they don't want to add it for anti-competitve reasons, and not a technical/implementation reason

* ios apps can be deep linked via "apple-app-site-association"

* ios apps can have custom url schemes "comgooglemaps://?parameters"

* android has had "intents" for a very long time

* ios sms is already detecting "this is an address" from free text and is hot linking it to their maps app

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

#276

Post by kergonath »

teddyh wrote: post #144
dijit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard and fast rule is: you're not permitted to have a source code interpreter. That's the "rules of engagement", same way you can't run Flash or Linux binaries; the same way you can't touch windows kernel space without a code-signing certificate from a eye-gouging authority. Exceptions to apples rule are rarely given, even for educational purposes; such as pythonista. When taken though that lens; if we hadn't tur…

> the original vision for the iPhone was web-apps not native ones As I heard, that was just the cover story to hide the fact that the original iPhone was too slow to properly run Flash (or native apps).

Not really. I mean, iPhones were slower than laptops back then but that’s not saying much as all phones were in the same ballpark at best. The actual reasons are well documented: it was a ressource hog (on all platforms, not only phones; there were still netbooks around), sucked batteries dry (including on both Windows and Mac laptops with much better batteries than phones), and was unstable (being the leading cause of crashes on Macs at the time). Jobs even wrote an open letter about it.

It was not practical on Android either, mostly a stunt, and faded quietly into obscurity over the course of a couple of years.

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

#277

Post by WirelessGigabit »

_fat_santa wrote: post #265
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #208

> 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 have to ask a really basic question: Why does Microsoft have such a vested interest in users using Edge over competitors? I get the argument: "it's their browser, of course they want people to use it" but for me that answer isn't satisfactory. What is the financial motive to go through all the trouble of pushing Edge? The only reason I can think of is "your data" but even then, what sort of data might MS want to ex…

Have you used Microsoft Edge recently? It is a dumping ground for all things that Microsoft wants to try in a way that is easier to do than sending A/B testing out via Windows Update.

* Collections

* Shopping

* Browser Essentials

* Website scanning

* Outlook integration

* Games integration

* ...

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

#278

Post by fsflover »

npteljes wrote: post #207
fsflover wrote: post #168

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.

They are as non-technical as it gets. Debian stable does the automatic security updates for them flawlessly without breaking the workflows. The OS is used for browsing, writing documents in LibreOffice and looking at downloaded pictures/documents.

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

#279

Post by capableweb »

pluijzer wrote: post #87
capableweb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a combination of different inputs, like timezone, regional, GPS (if computer supports that) and figuring out public IP. Knowing Microsoft, they'll try their hardest to avoid flagging a computer as within EEA if they possibly could.

I wonder how this works, if I buy a laptop in the EU as a EU citizen and travel to for example the US, I still expect them to adhere to the rules where I bought it.

I don't think that's how regulations apply in general. Usually they're scoped to the geographical location + your sovereign status, but not just your sovereign status.

For example, I don't think it's realistic to expect a US citizen traveling to a EU country having to follow US regulations and laws, nor the opposite.

So I'm not sure it would apply in this case either, but I'm not even sure what regulation/law made Microsoft add this change to the update in the first place. If we can figure that out, I guess we could figure out the real answer to your question without guessing.

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

#280

Post by cebert »

I am very irritated that I have made it very clear that I wish to use Firefox as my default browser in Windows 11. However, tools such as Microsoft Outlook and Office keep trying to force me into Edge by opening links in it by default. You don't gain converts by forcing something onto users.
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