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MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

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Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#161

Post by lozenge »

oaiey wrote: post #80

Am I the only one who sees the technical aspect here: They literally write in this article that this is about embedding web pages next to the chat/email/whatever. That means in-memory over contracted hosting api etc. When I would own, e.g. MS Teams or Outlook, the hell I would love to have a dependency on the internal Firefox hosting API which can break any other day (just a example ... firefox is cool) or introducin…

The behaviour the user wants is to open a link. The idea of displaying the email again beside the webpage is valuable, but to the user their preferred browser is more valuable. Realistically, they already have their browser open, if they do anything other than read and close the web page their browsing is now split across two browsers without rhyme or reason. Say they switch to Excel and need to switch back to the webpage to double check something, it'll immediately be "oh, this one page is open in Edge, not Chrome where I first looked".

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#162

Post by vetinari »

criley2 wrote: post #85
dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

> old corporate software house who only manages to keep users through dark patterns and anti-competitive behaviour because they have given up on making products which people enjoy to use? I feel like you lost the plot here. Microsoft fiddling with browser settings is nothing compared to something like Apple forcing a walled garden App Store, to create a fully captured market they can brutally take advantage of. Even…

> Imagine if Microsoft banned all browsers except Edge! It would be an outrage! But we all accept that Apple does that and has for 10+ years.

They tried; with different means, but they expected the same result. That's what the antitrust case was about.

> Perhaps we are all so used to the daily monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior of Apple that we do not care any more.

While I have the same opinion as you wrt Apple behaviour, there is a difference: Apple doesn't have the market position like Microsoft did. You can function perfectly fine in society without any Apple product. That was not the case with Microsoft, they did everything they could so you had to use Microsoft system. Communicating with your bank or with government or public offices? Microsoft products were required. Apple has not such grip on the market and that makes the difference.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#163

Post by [deleted] »

blazespin wrote: post #139
Pulz wrote: post #57

I'm an IT Admin with 15+ sites across my country. I'm not angry about this change. Myself and most of the people I've networked with either have or are transitioning away from other browsers, towards Edge. As a browser, it's fine. It has good PDF viewing/editing features, performant and works well with organisational SSO.

Yeah, unless you're a shop running outlook and teams, not sure you really have a say here. Maybe this is what customers want. Also, not entirely clear that verge isn't just knee jerk reporting. Any sys admins that have actual first hand experience with this and can confirm?

[deleted]

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#164

Post by lozenge »

thatnerdyguy wrote: post #157
oaiey wrote: post #80

Am I the only one who sees the technical aspect here: They literally write in this article that this is about embedding web pages next to the chat/email/whatever. That means in-memory over contracted hosting api etc. When I would own, e.g. MS Teams or Outlook, the hell I would love to have a dependency on the internal Firefox hosting API which can break any other day (just a example ... firefox is cool) or introducin…

This is the correct take that should be at the top. They aren't opening the links in Edge, they are opening the links in an embedded window implemented using Edge.

It's not an embedded window.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#166

Post by sseagull »

wslh wrote: post #11
dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

Microsoft has been playing the vendor lock-in game for his entire life and they were and are very successful. It is an interesting exercise to think if this time is different. Again, Microsoft always compete with better technologies from other vendors. One aggresive move that Google or Apple could do is to really help companies in the migration to their technology beyond saying RTFM and use our support. For example,…

Virginia Tech recently notified everyone that they are ditching Gmail in favor of outlook because of large cost increases coming. Google seems to be going backward in that regard:

“ A key factor in the decision was cost. Under the new Google license model, an equivalent amount of Google cloud storage would cost more than seven times what it will cost the university on the Microsoft platform.”

https://vtx.vt.edu/articles/2023/04/google-changes-announcem...

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#167

Post by capableweb »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #147
dismalpedigree wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple controls the browser on iOS with an iron fist. Even if you are using a different app, its still Safari under the hood. And even though they control the rendering, they still open all links from Apple apps in Safari. Oh and music. I use an alternative to Apple music because I choose to. That doesn’t stop Apple music from being the auto play choice even when I don’t use Apple Music. If Apple’s products are so muc…

If you don't use Apple Music at all, you can uninstall it from your phone and it will stop being the default choice. I do this on my phone without any problems.

I don't have an extensive list, but Apple preferring their own apps on iOS is not hyperbole and evident in lots of places.

Two examples: In "Find My" their is a "navigate" button for your various things, this will always use Apple Maps instead of giving you the choice. Same with the tapping the "address" field in your contacts list.

And if you don't have Apple Maps installed, does it give you any options? No, instead it'll ask you if you want to install Apple Maps...

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#168

Post by bobmaxup »

commitpizza wrote: post #103
rmm wrote: post #8

What’s crazy is that edge is actually a really good browser. Some of the features they have wacked on top of chromium are awesome. Especially when deploying it for a small business. It allows for easy integration with azure, profile syncing etc.

Well its great if you love being spied upon, Edge is filled with spyware tools which Microsoft tries to make you enable with dark patterns each time you update windows.

Are there ways to make this tolerable with policy settings or something?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#169

Post by isanjay »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #98
isanjay wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say Linux doesn't have this type of nonsense at all.

Mmm, there's some of this stuff in Ubuntu, forcing people to use snaps.

My bad forgot about Ubuntu.

Re: MSFT is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge and IT admins are angry

#170

Post by mrpopo »

dahauns wrote: post #143
dustedcodes wrote: post #6

I have no skin in the game, but even I am starting to think the obvious thing here: Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't. So far they were competing by making their own products better. Microsoft needs to think hard how hostile…

>They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. Sorry, but Google really isn't a saint regarding degraded experience. The shenanigans around UX for example using Google services in Firefox have a long, well documented tradition. They just aren't as overt and clumsy with it as MS.

Apple blocking iPhone browsers without Webkit (excluding Chrome and Firefox).

Android not exactly making it easy to change the default browser for average users either tbh

Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/1118/

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