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Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

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Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#351
post #322

Every day of bad new for Microsoft and Windows is another great day for Linux. You all have a choice. Make it.

Yup. With Linux I don't get bullied to install their stuff. But you'll say "but you get bugs, less mature desktop environment" (just one point of my daily usage). Yeah sure, but instead of complaining about being bullied I get a chance to help the folks who make the programs I use (bug reports, small commits). So instead of a negative feeling, I have a positive feeling. That's an enormous difference to me. Let's have…

> With Linux I don't get bullied to install their stuff.

$ sudo apt full-upgrade

...

Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled

...

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro at https://xxxxxxxxxxxxx/pro

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when we first found out that IE could be uninstalled from Windows 98 and thus what eventually lead the EU to mandate Microsoft give Windows users a choice of 3rd party browsers. Back then businesses were a lot more scared of the repercussions of anti-competitive behaviour than they are now.

>Back then businesses were a lot more scared of the repercussions of anti-competitive behaviour than they are now. Reasonably, too. Governments seem reluctant to actually regulate anti-competitive behavior these days, especially from tech giants. I think it must be a kind of technological "too big to fail".

> Governments seem reluctant to actually regulate anti-competitive behavior.

The EU seems happy to stick to it’s guns, though the rest of us seem to have to suffer the deluge of sewage.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And whatever Google decides they want to implement or support in Chromium will be the web default, even just how they interpret ambiguities or undefined behaviours - standards be damned. We have tried this before and it was not pretty. That is why we need competing browser implementations.

I'd argue for the opposite - we need strong standards and some methods to strictly enforce them. Governments could do that but the level of incompetency and politics are huge roadblocks

We have strong standards - but if there is only one implementation, that quickly becomes the standard no matter the text in the actual formalised standard.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#354
post #351
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. With Linux I don't get bullied to install their stuff. But you'll say "but you get bugs, less mature desktop environment" (just one point of my daily usage). Yeah sure, but instead of complaining about being bullied I get a chance to help the folks who make the programs I use (bug reports, small commits). So instead of a negative feeling, I have a positive feeling. That's an enormous difference to me. Let's have…

> With Linux I don't get bullied to install their stuff. $ sudo apt full-upgrade ... Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled ... Learn more about Ubuntu Pro at https://xxxxxxxxxxxxx/pro

That's not even close to the same quality of nagging, on a single distro.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#355

Every day of bad new for Microsoft and Windows is another great day for Linux. You all have a choice. Make it.

Oh yeah... I love the Linux version of Accounting CS. It's great. You know what else is great? The Linux version of CCH ProSystem fx is also rock solid.

Ohhh wait. Those things don't exist. Just like a bunch of EHR software that I have to support doesn't exist either.

They all run on Windows. Most of this stuff doesn't even run on Mac OS X.

The business world runs on Windows. Period. That'll change when Linux developers start making software of the same caliber and ease-of-use as Windows. Until then, nothing changes. And this childish - and I'm being very generous with that assessment - idea that everyone has a "choice" is ridiculous.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#356
All these comments about coercing Windows into some semblance of usability. After several years of not having a PC, I recently bought a new one to use Windows to play ONE game that several of my other friends play on it, and it has been extraordinarily frustrating to configure. From the on-topic charade of browser choice, to denying Microsoft's many attempts to take over several other defaults, or install Office, to power management robbing me of the performance I paid for, to OneDrive and it's confusing integration with the awful Explorer, to all the nagware buried in all the drivers, to the giant FUCK YOU in the Bluetooth stack that shuts it down after a minute to save energy(!?) forcing me to plug in a keyboard and mouse to fiddle with it until I finally found the setting to turn that off... And then making you go through the routine of turning down all their attempts to take everything over again every time there's a Windows upgrade. Seriously, how does anyone with a choice put up with an operating system that continually slaps you in the face and treats you with so little respect? Or, God forbid, think this user experience is superior to macOS or Linux?

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#357
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the strategy of your employers implies that your work to improve the product doesn't actually matter, only tricking customers into becoming users does. There can be no discussion about the relative quality of Edge without this subject in the foreground. The only word-of-mouth is from the tricked users who don't know the difference and just see it as the button for the internet. It doesn't matter if you introduce…

Precisely. It totally undermines their engineering efforts. There are people I know who use Edge willingly, and their anecdotal claims are that it has reduced resource usage over Chrome (somehow, which is weird since it's using the same engine). It was also used by a few in the Geoguessr community for a while since it didn't hit some annoying Google Street View bug that Chrome did.

I used Edge 2 for some time as a replacement for Chrome; I dumped Edge for Firefox once it became a hostile experience.

The AI integration is what put me off completely.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#358
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it. I've used linux desktops for 20 years also and command line is definitely a must on a daily basis. Ive also used Windows and agree that it just fades into background. Windows 10/11 definitely less paiinful on the desktop. These days with better integration with and tools for Linux cli, Windows is definitely my preferred gui productivity environment. Many Linux fans don't know better or won't admit it be…

I just set up Windows and spent an entire week googling how to tame it. Turns out dism.exe at the CLI is required to make it free up 20 to 30GB! of disk space it was wasting. Many, many hours and late nights figuring out how to turn off telemetry, Edge and more. Multiple Group policy editor settings to force it to do what is asked and no more. For some reason updates and uninstalls take forever and uninstalls can’t b…

2TB 2.5" SATA SSDs are $61. 2TB M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs are $63.

Why are you worried about 20-30 GB again??

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#359
Is it really that hard to innovate to differentiate yourself and steer the browsing experience somewhere else, away from this mess? Maybe the employee selection program is completely flawed at big companies like these or these people are purposefully suppressed. Because today's browsers, with their antiquated ui and the non existing user experience is really disturbing.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#360

All these comments about coercing Windows into some semblance of usability. After several years of not having a PC, I recently bought a new one to use Windows to play ONE game that several of my other friends play on it, and it has been extraordinarily frustrating to configure. From the on-topic charade of browser choice, to denying Microsoft's many attempts to take over several other defaults, or install Office, to…

IME, people who insist that Windows is somehow "better" are people with only a very very shallow level of experience with it, and who have zero or near-zero experience with Macs or well-configured Linux.

But they're a LOT of those people, and so it gets repeated.

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