Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

techradar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 357 posts

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#3

Post by arnvald »

They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and more.

But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google calendar asks me to install an app every time I open a web version on my phone, my work laptop has 1 active notification in system settings for a year because I didn't enable iCloud backup.

I'm not sure what's the solution here. I stick to the apps I use because I know what I'm doing, but so many users will just click "yes" when shown a pop-up. On the other hand, the built-in integrations provide value (e.g. it's better that people use and save random passwords in Keychain than using the same one everywhere). I feel it's always a cat-and-mouse game where the big tech is punished after they've already gained a lot, so they win anyway.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#5

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

daviddever23box wrote: post #4

...and so did Mozilla, when FirefoxOS was a thing. Gecko is still the default engine for KaiOS. Are we in browser-whining season again? (Typing this from Firefox on macOS.)

Were there any other browsers even available on FirefoxOS?

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#6

Post by weikju »

arnvald wrote: post #3

They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and more. But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google calendar asks me to install an…

Regarding keychain for password filling, you can choose to disable it in the settings -> passwords -> options. It’s selected by default but if you tap it it will deselect it.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#7

Post by neogodless »

It drives me nuts that a fresh install of Android apps defaults them all to "in-app" browsing instead of my default browser. And you have to go to each app and turn it off in a different place. Wish I could just override all of them and "open every web page in My. Default. Browser."

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#8

Post by anvic »

daviddever23box wrote: post #4

...and so did Mozilla, when FirefoxOS was a thing. Gecko is still the default engine for KaiOS. Are we in browser-whining season again? (Typing this from Firefox on macOS.)

For Mozilla it always is browser-whining season but it never is browser-improving season.
Post reply on HN