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Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

research.mozilla.org

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Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#121

Post by ezst »

skrebbel wrote: post #38
YPPH wrote: post #26

Windows just keeps getting weirder. There's this regrettable dichotomy between (1) a rock solid OS core with great features like Hyper-V, PowerShell and exceptional back-compat, and (2) a crap, sluggish, inconsistent UI slapped on top, laden with ads, "Rewards" Points and tracking.

It’s weird right? 1. keeps me firmly on the platform, I find it a delight how often things “just work”. Run a linux app? Just works. Hook up some niche 15yo printer? Just works. Run a game/demo made 20 years ago? Just works. Even MS Paint very much still just works. It all just works and then the perfectly good Mail app is forcing my mom to switch to the new Outlook, which is Mail, but messier, with ads. What? I wish…

Nadella probably cheers for more ads revenue, more Azure lock-in, more o365 subscriptions, more edge market share and more silly AI usage because those must be the KPIs at this point, and it doesn't really matter nor shows in those KPIs whether they grew from inherently user-hostile patterns or based on merit and quality.

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#122

Post by deely3 »

raingros wrote: post #81

The most annoying attempt to foist Edge as a browser is the (new?) setting of a separate default browser for opening links in Outlook 365. Took me 10 minutes to understand why Edge opens. WTF.

Hey, do you remember where this setting is?

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#123

Post by neogodless »

sccxy wrote: post #70
noduerme wrote: post #35

MacOS allows you to "hard click" (long click) a text selection in any application, which pops up a bubble that lets you do a web search for that phrase. But the search only launches Safari. I wasted at least a couple hours scouring boards and kext files, screwing with automation macros, trying to find a way to make this potentially helpful shortcut not open Safari, but instead open Firefox. Eventually I just gave up.…

Safari and Firefox does not allow other search engines also. For Chrome/Edge I have added a lot of small shortcuts for IMDB, post tracking codes, geoip and many more "not search" things to search bar. Just keyword and %s in search url is needed.

Parent is talking about MacOS, not iOS.

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#124

Post by Macha »

lelanthran wrote: post #116
weberer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is not a statistic of Linux desktop share Yes it is. The Y axis is "Percentage of Steam users". The fact that the Linux percentage is increasing means that the the percentage of Windows users are decreasing. The graph shows a trend of migrating from Windows to Linux.

> Yes it is. The Y axis is "Percentage of Steam users". "% of desktops amongst Steam users" is significantly different from "% of desktops".

Stat counter also has Linux going from 2.5% in 2021 to 3.8% today: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

(And yes, this excludes ChromeOS and Android)

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#125

Post by explorigin »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #117

Dark patterns are certainly evil. I don't think they help the company in the long run. However, I just went on a sort of browser deep dive for the best browser on windows and came away, surprisingly, with edge. The requirements were vertical tabs, keep my chrome extensions, and got out of my way. Brave, firefox, chrome, and vivaldi all had issues that couldn't be resolved in the UI. For example, firefox's tree style…

You're painting awfully broad strokes (Edge is the best for windows) for a very personal preference (vertical tabs).

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#126

Post by Rewrap3643 »

atribecalledqst wrote: post #111
epolanski wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL2, power toys and hands down the best window management of any OS, I hate working on my MBP just due to the difficulty of managing different windows and aligning them on the same desktop.

FYI -- on my MBP I use a program called Spectacle to snap windows around, and I now have no complaints relative to what you can do on Windows. Development on Spectacle ceased[1] and it looks like the community may have rallied around an open-source program called Rectangle, which is open source. At least, judging from this single Reddit thread lol: https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/kazpcn/spectacle_alter... [1] A…

I use Rectangle for this purpose.

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#127

Post by izacus »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #91
politelemon wrote: post #63

> For example, Apple’s decision to allow alternative browser engines is only effective in the EU. And don't forget it's been done in the most painful way possible. Yet, I've not seen any reports from Mozilla about ios' practices over the past decades, or the after.

And don’t forget Apple’s restriction on alternative browser engines in iOS and iPadOS is the only thing keeping most websites from becoming Chrome only.

If that would be true, the websites would only support Safari and Chrome. But it's not true and websites work just fine on Firefox - so stop peddling this crap to defend lockout of choice.

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#128

Post by explorigin »

squigz wrote: post #89
p0nce wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, Windows 11 came with many things I've wanted for years: - notepad with tabs - shell UI with tabs, VT-100 support and ability to replace the shell - Paint.net with AI - even Windbg has massively improved

Ahhh, tabs... it only took 40 years!

Meanwhile Notepad++ has been free for 20 of those.

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#129

Post by Macha »

sccxy wrote: post #102
voltaireodactyl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for the record, you can absolutely change the default search engine in Safari and Firefox. I use kagi in both, so bangs are supported everywhere.

Firefox for iOS supports keyword and %s url scheme for search engines. I am not sure why extensions are needed in desktop. You can change default search engine, but you cannot add extra search engines in Safari without building your own extension (and paying apple for it)

> Firefox for iOS supports keyword and %s url scheme for search engines. I am not sure why extensions are needed in desktop.

So does Firefox desktop...? Extensions aren't needed, just right click on a search field and add it. You can customise placeholders and keywords too

Re: Over the edge: The use of design tactics to undermine browser choice

#130

Post by spacecadet »

YPPH wrote: post #26

Windows just keeps getting weirder. There's this regrettable dichotomy between (1) a rock solid OS core with great features like Hyper-V, PowerShell and exceptional back-compat, and (2) a crap, sluggish, inconsistent UI slapped on top, laden with ads, "Rewards" Points and tracking.

This is a great summary. Terminal and WSL2 were really nice additions to all of that other cool shit like hyper-v, sandbox, etc. But, I still rather just use Proxmox/Linux...
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