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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

#111

Post by Lazare »

brighteyes wrote: post #101
Lazare wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I'm not sure this was a winnable fight. And yes, writing a good DB implementation from scratch is really, really hard. But... First, keep in mind that lot of this decision was political; if Mozilla had lobbied for it a lot of fudging could have been done. Instead Mozilla made sure that a strict reading of the rules was used by which, yes, WebSQL clearly failed. And no, Mozilla probably didn't have the re…

I guess I just disagree that it would have been good for Mozilla to fudge the standardization rules. The rule of having multiple implementations is an important one. And it might have been possible - surely Google and Microsoft, who supported IndexedDB, had the resource to write an alternative implementation. I don't know the history enough to know why they didn't.

I think I'm more cynical about the process than you are. From my point of view, the process has been intensely political from day one, with rules honoured mainly in the breach.

The best retelling of events, I think, is this one: http://nolanlawson.com/2014/04/26/web-sql-database-in-memori...

Has some very good details. And it's certainly funny to see what was said during the discussion with how things turned out in practice.

Edit: I'd sum it up as "Google and Apple argue for a solution that will work on mobile; Mozilla and Oracle don't care about mobile, are weirdly obsessed with the idea that developers hate SQL, and use political manoeuvring to win the fight". (Oracle's role in this seems especially odd, but perhaps they had some longer term strategy in mind.) In any case, in retrospect ignoring mobile was a bad idea, and ditching SQL seems to have had no real benefit.

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

#112

Post by Aldo_MX »

Spivak wrote: post #75
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 t…

> isn't the "browser for doing."

Is that a bad point? If you want a "browser for doing" install Firefox and 2147483647 extensions until it explodes.

The fact that the default browser is extremely minimalistic is something good, users just need a "browser for browsing".

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

#113

Post by Dylan16807 »

ikeboy wrote: post #105
Dylan16807 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute, but Firefox doesn't revert you to defaults and having a button that does nothing but offer a signup is not 'forced integration'. You may not be able to delete it but it doesn't do anything whatsoever by default.

I think Firefox sets itself as the default when you upgrade it and choose default settings.

I meant the search engine thing.

It's pretty normal for a program installer to set itself to handle files.

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

#114

Post by wlesieutre »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #83
wlesieutre wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Check out my edit, they seem to have moved from the system popup you talk about to just opening up the Settings app for you to the right UI, so it's not as great as the one click experience that was there before, but not as bad as having you do all the work.

Ah, that's a much better way to handle it than in the previews. Thanks for the heads up!

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

#115

Post by [deleted] »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #83
wlesieutre wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Check out my edit, they seem to have moved from the system popup you talk about to just opening up the Settings app for you to the right UI, so it's not as great as the one click experience that was there before, but not as bad as having you do all the work.

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by lawl »

brighteyes wrote: post #109
lawl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reacting to backlash isn't an argument. Why would you (or anyone) downvote me for criticising things like integrating a social API[0] into the browser? If you feel like downvoting opinions you don't like, by all means go ahead, I'm just not sure if that's the way to have a meaningful discussion. Pocket never bothered me because, honestly, I never saw it. But yes I dislike it's integration. Still no reason to reduce t…

I didn't downvote you. I agree that downvotes are not conducive to a discussion.

Sorry, I guess I was just frustrated, didn't mean to jump to conclusions. Leaving my original comment for reference.

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

#117

Post by ikeboy »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #113
ikeboy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Firefox sets itself as the default when you upgrade it and choose default settings.

I meant the search engine thing. It's pretty normal for a program installer to set itself to handle files.

So then what's wrong when an OS does it?

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

#118

Post by kylec »

brighteyes wrote: post #87
Lazare wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO, the choice of IndexedDB over WebSQL set the Web back 20 years. Yep. I recognise that this may not have been a winnable fight, but I absolutely judge the people who were on the other side. WebSQL was a much better tech than IndexedDB. Was the dependence on Sqlite problematic? Sure. But Mozilla had the resources to make a pretty good try at fixing it; instead they refused to even implement it and gave us the rel…

How would you fix WebSQL? Writing a from-scratch implementation of SQLite seems like the only option, and I don't think Mozilla had the resources for that at the time. I agree the situation sucks, but I'm not sure how to fix it even today.

One thing I never understood is why there needed to be a second implementation of WebSQL. SQLite is public domain, any browser vendor can choose to embed it in what they ship.

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

#119

Post by nacs »

brokentone wrote: post #69

Total aside -- Interesting how Satya Nadella doesn't seem to have the recognition yet to stand alone, but calling him "Microsoft's CEO" is the most descriptive way to identify him for the purposes of this writing.

Probably because this is directed at Microsoft in general instead of saying Satya Nadella was directly responsible for the changes.

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

#120

Post by com2kid »

Freaky wrote: post #62
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I upgraded my default changed from Chrome to Edge. When I clicked on my first URL, also in an email, it did not give me any choices which was kinda frustrating. Opening Chrome also didn't give me the whole "Chrome is not your default; do you want it to be?" dialog.

When I upgraded it gave me a page showing me the new defaults it was about to apply, and gave me the option to skip it and keep what I was using before. Went with the latter option and indeed, it's still all MPC-HC, foobar2000 and Opera. Maybe it's because I was upgrading from 8 you were upgrading from 7? I recall some changes to how defaults were handled between them.

Hmm, interesting, I was doing an upgrade from 8.

I wonder if Windows 10 doesn't support reading off whatever structure is used for defaults in Win7.

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