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Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

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Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#71

Post by pcwalton »

oso2k wrote: post #57
verusfossa wrote: post #44

Mozilla hasn't made me very happy lately with their "choice" tactics. Resetting people's default search engine to Yahoo of all things on update was very opaque. Also the AMO signing fiasco, Pocket and Hello. Feels like an "It's only okay when we do it" kind of thing.

I agree. And I extend that sentiment to their approach to Web Standards a few years ago too, like WebSQL [0] and NaCl [1], Dart [2]. That felt like NIH [3] or some other non-collaborative or ultra-competitive motivation on their part. Not a place of "speak for the Web". IMO, the choice of IndexedDB over WebSQL set the Web back 20 years. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_SQL_Database [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

NaCl and Dart aren't Web standards.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#72

Post by mahouse »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #19

I was pretty surprised when I installed Windows 10 and it changed to another default for my web browser. Even worse was it didn't reset the "do you want me as the default" in all of the other web browsers so I had to go and manually change settings. Microsoft Edge is pretty nice especially compared to IE but this default to Edge should have only occurred if your current default is IE.

It asked me. You just have to choose to customise your settings.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#73

Post by Lazare »

Meh.

Is this an ideal thing for MS to have done? Fuck, I dunno. Probably not, I guess?

But this isn't that bad; the hyperbolic title ("don't roll back the clock on choice!") makes this sound like something actually serious. Or major. Or permanent. It would be the right headline to protest MS making it impossible to use a third party browser, or at least impossible to change the default browser. Instead it's being used to protest...some options being reset when you upgrade your OS? Because heaven knows I've never lost any settings upgrading my OS before...

Plus, Mozilla is...mmm. Not my first choice for an organisation to be leading this charge; they've done too much shady shit lately. I have a feeling that Mozilla may be badly overestimating how much goodwill they have among developers right now.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#74

Post by Animats »

I am writing to you about a very disturbing aspect of Firefox 38.0.5. Specifically, that the update experience appears to have been designed to throw away the choice your customers have made about the Internet experience they want, and replace it with the Internet experience Mozilla wants them to have.

When we first saw the Firefox upgrade experience that strips users of their choice by effectively overriding existing user preferences for the search engine and other apps, and forces the integration of Pocket and Sync, we reached out to your team to discuss this issue. Unfortunately, it didn’t result in any meaningful progress, hence this letter.

We appreciate that it’s still technically possible to preserve people’s previous settings and defaults, but the design of the whole upgrade experience and the default settings APIs have been changed to make this less obvious and more difficult. It now takes more than twice the number of mouse clicks, scrolling through content and some technical sophistication for people to reassert the choices they had previously made in earlier versions of Firefox. It’s confusing, hard to navigate and easy to get lost.

Sometimes we see great progress, where consumer products respect individuals and their choices. However, with the launch of Firefox 38.0.5 we are deeply disappointed to see Mozilla take such a dramatic step backwards.

These changes are unsettling because there are millions of users who love Firefox and who are having their choices ignored, and because of the increased complexity put into everyone’s way if and when they choose to make a choice different than what Mozilla prefers.

We strongly urge you to reconsider your business tactic here and again respect people’s right to choice and control of their online experience by making it easier, more obvious and intuitive for people to maintain the choices they have already made through the upgrade experience. It should be easier for people to assert new choices and preferences, not just for other Mozilla products, through the default settings APIs and user interfaces.

Please give your users the choice and control they deserve in Firefox.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#75

Post by Spivak »

arihant wrote: post #42

This is not rolling back the clock. Here are some important points to the debate: 1. Windows 10 users are upgrading from 7 and 8.1, these versions were heavily shipped with bloatware. If it took away default browsing from Firefox, it also took away volume control from OEM Volumizer 2010. 2. Your browsers like IE, Mozilla and Chrome might have Malware toolbars installed. Nobody can deny that it is far too common on Wi…

> They aren't defaulting on IE7. Edge is fantastic.

I really don't know where to start. I tried out edge for a few days and although the browser itself is pretty and functional it completely falls flat compared to existing players, including IE.

I don't care what features they've announced for the future that may never happen. As the browser currently stands it's a toy and isn't the "browser for doing." I had hoped that that tagline would mean it would be a browser for power users but what we got was a gimped "mobile" browser.

No add-ons, no real settings, gimmicky features that you'll use twice and then never touch again, no customization, and designed with touch given priority over mouse and keyboard.

Any browser, as long as it has sane defaults, would be fine for causal users but it's like they don't understand what people who care about such things actually do with a browser.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#76

Post by oso2k »

pcwalton wrote: post #71
oso2k wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And I extend that sentiment to their approach to Web Standards a few years ago too, like WebSQL [0] and NaCl [1], Dart [2]. That felt like NIH [3] or some other non-collaborative or ultra-competitive motivation on their part. Not a place of "speak for the Web". IMO, the choice of IndexedDB over WebSQL set the Web back 20 years. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_SQL_Database [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

NaCl and Dart aren't Web standards.

I agree. And neither is WebSQL. I was speaking to the "approach to Web Standards", not actual Web Standards. My point being that Moz used (IMO) conjecture and FUD to roadblock those technologies. No attempt on their part to experiment with those technologies and prove their value. In return, we've got instead IndexedDB over WebSQL (which many devs choose to wrap), asm.js over NaCl (which v8 team as shown doesn't require a special compiler mode to optimize for), and ES5/ES5.1/ES6/ES7 language bloat over Your-Choice-Of-JS-Successor language or actually fixing the issues with JS.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#77

Post by amatwl »

I actually think Microsoft's change is better in regards to user choice. Either way, it still seems simple to me to change the default web browser in Windows 10. Here's a gif I made showing another way to change the default web browser to Firefox: http://i.imgur.com/FbdcfL3.gif (In the gif, both Cortana and Bing search is disabled, only standard Windows Search is used)

Also, it's kind of embarrassing that Mozilla's official video for this shows an unactivated version of Windows 10.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#78

Post by mynameisvlad »

wlesieutre wrote: post #20
balls187 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it hard to really expect an OS upgrade to carry over every user setting True. However that default browser/file extension handlers preferences should be a priority to carry forward. It may be easy to set your new default browser, but it's one more thing I have to do to personalize my computer, instead of using my computer to do the tasks at hand. It's a fundamental difference between MSFT and AAPL's philosph…

> True. However that default browser/file extension handlers preferences should be a priority to carry forward. Especially when you've previously been in antitrust lawsuits over abusing your position as the OS developer to take over the browser market. > It may be easy to set your new default browser, but it's one more thing I have to do to personalize my computer, instead of using my computer to do the tasks at hand…

> They moved it into the settings app, so this is no longer just "Open Firefox, click 'set as default'" anymore.

AFAIK, both ways should still work. The settings app is just a replacement for "Default Apps and Programs" (or something like that) which was in since Windows 7, maybe even Vista.

Edit: At least in Chrome, clicking "Make Google Chrome the default browser" opens up the settings app to the correct view, so it's only a matter of selecting the existing browser and choosing Chrome. It's not one click anymore, which kind of sucks, but I wouldn't call it hard, even for an average user.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#79

Post by wlesieutre »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #78
wlesieutre wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True. However that default browser/file extension handlers preferences should be a priority to carry forward. Especially when you've previously been in antitrust lawsuits over abusing your position as the OS developer to take over the browser market. > It may be easy to set your new default browser, but it's one more thing I have to do to personalize my computer, instead of using my computer to do the tasks at hand…

> They moved it into the settings app, so this is no longer just "Open Firefox, click 'set as default'" anymore. AFAIK, both ways should still work. The settings app is just a replacement for "Default Apps and Programs" (or something like that) which was in since Windows 7, maybe even Vista. Edit: At least in Chrome, clicking "Make Google Chrome the default browser" opens up the settings app to the correct view, so i…

Nope. The default browser can no longer be changed anywhere but the system preferences, applications can not set themselves as default.

Been that way for a couple months in technical preview builds, with even first party software (OneNote desktop vs modern) continuing to ask if you want to set it as default, followed by a system popup telling you to use the Settings app.

Re: Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control

#80

Post by pcwalton »

oso2k wrote: post #76
pcwalton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NaCl and Dart aren't Web standards.

I agree. And neither is WebSQL. I was speaking to the "approach to Web Standards", not actual Web Standards. My point being that Moz used (IMO) conjecture and FUD to roadblock those technologies. No attempt on their part to experiment with those technologies and prove their value. In return, we've got instead IndexedDB over WebSQL (which many devs choose to wrap), asm.js over NaCl (which v8 team as shown doesn't requ…

I don't think it's FUD at all. asm.js is legitimately a more practical approach to the problem than NaCl, which is tied to the Pepper API. You can go back to the conversations on the plugin-futures mailing list in which everybody except Google was in agreement as to what should have been done instead of PPAPI; Google went with PPAPI anyway, sealing NaCl's fate with regards to adoption. Nowadays, we have Web Assembly, which Google and Mozilla are both working on, and which combines the best of both worlds. As for ES language improvements, I don't see at all how extending the existing language constitutes "bloat" over having two incompatible VMs. It's strictly less bloat, because you don't throw more VMs into the browser.
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