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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

#411

Post by vladvasiliu »

alpaca128 wrote: post #386
dspillett wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is 2023, and they seem to have completely broken hibernate on Windows. Didn't work reliably for a while, intermittently failing to wake up correctly in various ways, one of those ways being a black screen with no choice but to reboot¹, and it seems to have vanished as an option on most (maybe all) laptops I've used recently². And sleep doesn't always stay slept. We've had machines wake up in bags so when later nee…

> We've had machines wake up in bags so when later needed they have near flat batteries and are nice & toasty I've seen a hypothesis for this relatively common issue, which is: laptop goes to sleep while connected to charger, then charger is unplugged but the laptop still believes it gets charged and starts downloading OS updates, emptying the battery and almost overheating in a bag. I don't have a Windows laptop to…

I sometimes use windows on my work laptop and usually keep it up to date, meaning I won't let the installed updates wait around for a reboot. It still ends up hot for no reason while I carry it around, and the battery half empty.

Hell, while asleep on the desk (so plugged-in, grated) it tends to be hotter than while under active use. Under Linux, the fan basically never spins as long as I don't compile stuff and the PC is cool to the touch.

I also make a point of unplugging it before I close it because, contrary to Linux on the same machine, there's a very high probably that if I unplug the dock while the PC sleeps, the screen won't wake up again in a usable state (it's typically on, but it's either blank or it displays random colors). It gets its power via said dock.

This is a run-of-the-mill, full-Intel HP Elite book, with an HP dock running Windows 11, as recommended by HP.

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

#412

Post by archon810 »

josefresco wrote: post #406

I use Windows 10/11 daily. The number of times Edge was "forced on me": 0 The number of times Edge launched when I expected or wanted my default browser (Firefox): 0 The number of times my browser default was reset to Edge: 0 I just don't understand this outrage. I spend 90% of my time in Firefox/Chrome - I've only started using Edge lately to play with Bing "AI" Chat. I had to search for it!

I had Edge forced on me a number of times and had to change a setting to prevent it from happening.

The most recent case in point, I updated my wife's Outlook to the latest version and it started opening all links in Edge. I had to Google it and found that Microsoft forced this change on everybody and I needed to tweak a setting.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297/microsoft-edge-fo...

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

#413

Post by phartenfeller »

josefresco wrote: post #406

I use Windows 10/11 daily. The number of times Edge was "forced on me": 0 The number of times Edge launched when I expected or wanted my default browser (Firefox): 0 The number of times my browser default was reset to Edge: 0 I just don't understand this outrage. I spend 90% of my time in Firefox/Chrome - I've only started using Edge lately to play with Bing "AI" Chat. I had to search for it!

Maybe you don't but most people use the central search feature of Windows, which opens Edge and Bing on any web result. If you click on links in the most used email client (Outlook) and business chat app (Teams) Edge opens [1]. How can this not be an outrage?

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/web-links-from-out...

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

#414

Post by smcl »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #357
smcl wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's fair enough. I'm personally a Firefox user and I suggest my friends use it too.

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

#415

Post by topaz0 »

RubyRidgeRandy wrote: post #405
topaz0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Windows 10/11] fades into the background I strongly disagree with this. When I am forced to use windows, I am constantly fighting with it to not be obnoxious. It takes many seconds to do something as simple as bring up an explorer window. I can't count the number of times I have had to dig into menus to disable this or that ad panel or other bloatware. In linux, I occasionally have to figure out how something work…

super+e, clicking the explorer button? I think you're being purposefully difficult here. I cannot list any of the bugs I have had with Windows off the top of my head, but I can with linux. Driver issues, Pulse audio randomly playing static, updates breaking my system, fractional scaling not working, I could go on.

Certainly some of the behavior I am complaining about is the intended behavior (ads in menus etc), but yes explorer takes several seconds to initialize for me, after the window appears. Not an exaggeration.

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

#417

Post by vladvasiliu »

dspillett wrote: post #289
Novosell wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows key+E opens explorer. Or do you mean that it's so slow that it takes several seconds?

On my work machine (approx 4 years old, Win10) and home machine (mostly 2 years old, graphics card, a 1060/6GB is more elderly, Win10) both take most of a second to bring up a fresh Explorer window, timing by eye from Win+E to the whole UI being present. It seems far more variable (sometimes feeling quicker, sometimes taking a couple of seconds) on my laptop ( Several seconds sounds like an exaggeration, but it never…

Have you tried opening some files over the network, then coming back to the explorer? It'll insist on showing those files in the Recents screen. Except it actually tries to touch them or something. Which, when I'm not at work anymore, takes forever waiting for a timeout. Hell, even at work it sometimes takes a while, while doing the AD handshake or whatever it is that it does instead of letting me use the freaking explorer.

I don't use Windows often enough to go out of my way to customize it, plus I know that the next update will probably undo everything anyway, but now I have to wait around multiple seconds for it to realize the files are not there. And it won't even remember it from one instance of explorer to the next, or try to check on those files without blocking the entire app's UI.

This shitshow also happens in the open / save as dialogs when called from other apps.

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

#418

Post by topaz0 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #417
dspillett wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my work machine (approx 4 years old, Win10) and home machine (mostly 2 years old, graphics card, a 1060/6GB is more elderly, Win10) both take most of a second to bring up a fresh Explorer window, timing by eye from Win+E to the whole UI being present. It seems far more variable (sometimes feeling quicker, sometimes taking a couple of seconds) on my laptop ( Several seconds sounds like an exaggeration, but it never…

Have you tried opening some files over the network, then coming back to the explorer? It'll insist on showing those files in the Recents screen. Except it actually tries to touch them or something. Which, when I'm not at work anymore, takes forever waiting for a timeout. Hell, even at work it sometimes takes a while, while doing the AD handshake or whatever it is that it does instead of letting me use the freaking ex…

Yes, this matches my experience -- I assumed it was something to do with waiting for cloud stuff, but haven't dug too deep.

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

#419

Post by phartenfeller »

eloc49 wrote: post #401
alexvitkov wrote: post #323

Microsoft probably has better data than me, but I can't imagine that that many people switch to Edge after Microsoft forcefully opens it when you try to search for a local file. Just show some fucking respect to your users, it will be worth more than the 0.003% market share you get from opening Edge when I click a pdf

Same deal when Chrome opens mailto links in gmail.com in the browser instead of my default mail client. Stuff like this made my switch to Firefox even more of a no-brainer.

I am totally pro-Firefox, but your case is not about Chrome being a bad actor. For websites to be registered as link handlers, the user gets asked and has to accept (like camera access)[1]. There is no difference between Chrome and Firefox in this case.

[1] https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/set-gmail-as-browser-defa...

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