Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#121

Post by fanatic2pope » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

anonymousiam wrote: post #23

agloeregrets wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that macOS does have some advertisements , mostly for Apple services, they just tend to be cleaner and better integrated. (Also the free bit is a little fuzzy as the costs are baked into the hardware.) Microsoft is far more guilty however. Imagine how nice Windows 10 would be if Microsoft didn't own Bing, Xbox, and Office.

Given how much Microsoft has monetized Windows these days, they could probably give it away free and still make money.

At this point they pretty much do. You can download an ISO of Windows 10 Pro, install it and never pay or register it and it will work fine indefinitely with no real restrictions. Last time I tried it, it just prevented setting the background image.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#122

Post by squeaky-clean » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

EE84M3i wrote: post #90

wpm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. At worst it prompts you to download and install the Command Line Tools (all actionable inside the prompt; it doesn’t use the App Store) if you try to run a command not included in the OS by default like `git`.

How is that different than what windows does with "python3"?

Windows doesn't present you with any actions or choices inside the command prompt. It just immediately opens the Microsoft Store to the Python 3.9 page.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#123

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #78

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly, it is awful and stupid. On the other hand, those of us who use it find the alternative to be even worse despite being free. Imagine what problems must exist with that alternative for this to be true.

Some of us find the alternatives to be really really good compared to Windows. The only thing I should wish was that IT was (even more) supportive. Lucky us I guess. (FTR: Linux is as usual as Mac at work now. I've even seen a team lead and a sales guy run Linux!)

> Some of us find the alternatives to be really really good compared to Windows.

Yeah, and some of us don't. A lot of us, actually. I personally get kinda sick of the arrogance of people who think they're above everyone else because they chose a different operating system.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#124

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #72

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly, it is awful and stupid. On the other hand, those of us who use it find the alternative to be even worse despite being free. Imagine what problems must exist with that alternative for this to be true.

When you buy a computer, or get one from work, it is preloaded with Windows. Windows is essentially "free", as in for most people there is no savings from not using Windows, like it is i.e. if you build your desktop your self. Linux is compeeting with effectivly mandatory prepaid Windows installs.

I paid for it, and I didn't have to. I chose it because it works better.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#125

Post by Toutouxc » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #80

whalesalad wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't paid for an OS upgrade since Snow Leopard in 2009. For all intents and purposes their OS is free - the consumer does not ever need to worry about upgrade costs.

are you running their os on an apple computer

I don't get the question. You can only run macOS legally on a Mac, there's no other option. And any new-ish (ten years or so) Mac is able to download the latest supported macOS completely for free.

So the OS is basically included in the product (just like a washing machine or a car) and upgrades are free.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#126

Post by pbuzbee » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #37

Here's whats so odd here: - google can push chrome on people in their search results. and google pushed HARD. So hard they dominate the browser market and chrome is unfortunately not known for privacy. - google pretty much makes it impossible to get away from chrome entirely in android. Example being that you MUST use chrome webview when using the google search app. Even though everything else uses firefox for me. -…

You can open the destination pages in your chosen browser with the Google Search App in Android: (1) Tap "More" at the bottom of the screen, (2) Tap "Settings", (3) Tap "General". Then disable "Open web pages in the app".

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#127

Post by aNoob7000 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #117

notRobot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google does this wrong thing so MS should be able to too!" No, that's not how this works. If it's wrong, stop Google from doing it, instead of letting others do it too.

The difference is that people are stuck thinking it's still 1997 and that when Google does it, it must be good, because Google is an upstart and on our side. When Microsoft does it, it must be evil, because they're big and evil Microsoft and not on our side.

Microsoft and Google are both monopolies, and thus bad for competition. One has a desktop/server operating system and office productivity monopoly and the other search and smartphone software monopoly.

Google figured out that to compete with Microsoft and Apple you have to basically give it away for free. Look no further than Android and Google docs.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#128

Post by emsy » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #106

EE84M3i wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does OSX do this with the xcode tools?

iOS and OSX are littered with Ads. I've even seen ads in Apple apps (Music for example) where there shouldn't be any (for example, popping up a full screen ad in front of the screen to play a song I already own). I use both Apple and Microsoft OSs on a daily basis. Anyone who thinks Apple doesn't do this stuff isn't paying attention.

That’s not the same as cluttering dev tools with ads (though I agree that the Apple OS ad situation is bad)

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#129

Post by local_dev » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #29

Arigato wrote: post #4

Related: Microsoft Edge’s user numbers are continuing to grow while Firefox's, which at one point was the second-most popular browser behind Chrome, keeps falling: https://www.techspot.com/news/89180-mircosoft-edge-user-numb... Advertisements or recommendations in Windows 10 are definitely helping Edge

The fact that they regularly "accidentally" reset the default browser or "suggest" Edge on my Windows 10 machine is probably helping those numbers a lot.

How often have you had windows switch your default browser? Genuinely curious as I've been using Windows 10 since release and have never had my default browser switched away from Firefox.

Re: Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps

#130

Post by mminer237 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #56

Justsignedup wrote: post #37

Here's whats so odd here: - google can push chrome on people in their search results. and google pushed HARD. So hard they dominate the browser market and chrome is unfortunately not known for privacy. - google pretty much makes it impossible to get away from chrome entirely in android. Example being that you MUST use chrome webview when using the google search app. Even though everything else uses firefox for me. -…

> Example being that you MUST use chrome webview when using the google search app. On my Pixel, when I start a search from the home screen, and then click on a result, it opens that page in Firefox.

How did you get it to do that? I have a Pixel 4a, but the Google app will only open results in a Chrome webview, even when I use Firefox or Brave as my default browser everywhere else. I don't use the Pixel launcher if that matters. I would actually like to fix it.

Edit: I figured it out. I'm not allowed to uninstall Chrome, but disabling it made it finally use Brave as a fallback. So they actually implement using whatever browser you want, but they just ignore it unless it's actually impossible to use Chrome.