It’s unfortunate that MS took Edge down this path. Early on it was among the best of Chrome-cousins and I’d just leave it as the default browser on new Windows installs, but with all they’ve done to it’s become a solid downgrade and I’m back to installing alternatives.
Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#12When Edge was basically Google free Chromium, it was really good. Now Microsoft's product people have turned it into bloatware. I think they had an opportunity to gain significant market share and the only thing they had to do was... nothing.
Instead, they've juiced the short term metrics by using every sleazy trick in the book and I'm back to installing Chrome or Firefox as the first step after every Windows install.
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#13MS just comes off desperate with their tricks trying to con users into using Edge. Then again, Chrome is no better with their attempts to dominate the web and force their own standards on other browsers to make ads harder to dodge.
Aside from Firefox, there's really not many other browsers I trust.
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#14[flagged]
simplicity > complexity
when you are resource constrained system
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#15It’s unfortunate that MS took Edge down this path. Early on it was among the best of Chrome-cousins and I’d just leave it as the default browser on new Windows installs, but with all they’ve done to it’s become a solid downgrade and I’m back to installing alternatives.
I've said this about Windows and I'm sure it applies to Edge. Some marketing person somewhere at Microsoft is looking at the some metric that their OS pulls in and asking the managers of the engineers to get these numbers up. "We must have everyone using Edge. We must have everyone getting Office."
Windows isn't an Operating System anymore, its an advertising platform for 1 client, and it's awful when you consider that you're buying an ad / spyware infested OS.
The whole, if you're not paying for it, you're the product isn't the case anymore. You're the product no matter what you do.
Linux has none of this shenanigans, and even when it does it takes two seconds to turn off, or you know, we call it Android.
Edit: Cleaned it up a smidgen and added one sentence.
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#16Related. Others?
Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38014168 - Oct 2023 (139 comments)
Microsoft now demands to know why you won't use Edge when you download Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38008100 - Oct 2023 (134 comments)
Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37461449 - Sept 2023 (449 comments)
Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37321002 - Aug 2023 (365 comments)
Microsoft is trying too hard with Edge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36940597 - July 2023 (67 comments)
Microsoft broke a Chrome feature to promote Edge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35787707 - May 2023 (315 comments)
Microsoft hijacks Google's Chrome download page to beg you not to ditch Edge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34911233 - Feb 2023 (21 comments)
Microsoft is now injecting full-size ads on Chrome website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34886732 - Feb 2023 (364 comments)
Microsoft Edge will now warn users about the dangers of downloading Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29448175 - Dec 2021 (5 comments)
Microsoft Edge will now warn users about the dangers of downloading Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29421464 - Dec 2021 (4 comments)
Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29415031 - Dec 2021 (422 comments)
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#17One more: My employer (gigantic corporation) mandates Microsoft. Edge is the default browser. We cannot change it. The browser option is grayed out, we are not allowed extensions, nor do we have access to the Registry.
Firefox is still allowed for the moment. We have to manually copy and paste links into it from emails, etc.
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#18Wish we also covered the tricks that Google used to trick users into adopting Chrome, like paying every freeware vendor since 2009 to install Chrome automatically on your system if you forgot to untick the "Install Chrome" box, similar to any other spyware of the era like the Ask Jeeves or Yahoo! toolbars. I remember back then, when Chrome just came out, asking non-tech people how they got it and they always answered…
At the time, Chrome was the scrappy new browser coming from the company that vowed to “don’t be evil”, challenging the well-entrenched and stagnant IE11. Most tech people started using Chrome because of this, and had no problem earning a few bucks promoting it.
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#19"Can you please take a minute to tell us why you are trying another browser?" How about "My current one is monitoring what sites I'm browsing and asking me why I was using them"?
Or "No, it's none of your damned business".
Re: Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome
#20Wish we also covered the tricks that Google used to trick users into adopting Chrome, like paying every freeware vendor since 2009 to install Chrome automatically on your system if you forgot to untick the "Install Chrome" box, similar to any other spyware of the era like the Ask Jeeves or Yahoo! toolbars. I remember back then, when Chrome just came out, asking non-tech people how they got it and they always answered…
At the time, Chrome was the scrappy new browser coming from the company that vowed to “don’t be evil”, challenging the well-entrenched and stagnant IE11. Most tech people started using Chrome because of this, and had no problem earning a few bucks promoting it.
>Most tech people started using Chrome because of this, and had no problem earning a few bucks promoting it.
That's how EEE works.