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

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

#211

Post by wtallis »

Timwi wrote: post #161
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…

> firefox's tree style tabs still kinda requires that you keep the top tabs for some uses. Hm, I've been using Tree Style Tabs for many years without the top tabs visible and I've never needed them back.

Same here. There have been one or two occasions when I've had to temporarily remove a few lines from my Firefox profile's userChrome.css file, but never the ones that hide the top tab bar. I've been using Tree Style Tabs continuously through two extension mass extinctions, since back when you didn't have to edit userChrome.css to get rid of the top tab bar.

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

#212

Post by pandacake »

pyrophane wrote: post #180

I've been trying Edge lately because I wanted to see if its "efficiency mode" would produce any noticeable difference in the battery life I experienced on my laptop. They've really made it almost impossible to use as a privacy-respecting browser that lets you pick your search engine. There are a very large number of "on by default" settings that I had to change to turn of things like "Microsoft Rewards" and "creator…

> "They've really made it almost impossible to use as a privacy-respecting browser that lets you pick your search engine."

Brave Browser let's you customize.

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

#213

Post by OkGoDoIt »

halfcat wrote: post #141
neogodless wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you install it? They advertise cloud storage, office software, and gaming in the setup process.

Maybe that’s it. I untick all of the boxes during install and use a local account instead of a Microsoft account.

The hoops you have to jump through to use a local account are a prime example of user hostility. Sure it’s technically possible, but only if you are power user that searches online and figures out how. That’s the general feeling I have with Windows these days, it is technically possible to get it to work the way I want, but it generally feels like I’m fighting an adversary. Sure it’s currently possible to win, but it’s definitely not a good feeling, and not moving in the right direction.

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

#214

Post by jeroenhd »

ljm wrote: post #186
pyrophane wrote: post #180

I've been trying Edge lately because I wanted to see if its "efficiency mode" would produce any noticeable difference in the battery life I experienced on my laptop. They've really made it almost impossible to use as a privacy-respecting browser that lets you pick your search engine. There are a very large number of "on by default" settings that I had to change to turn of things like "Microsoft Rewards" and "creator…

I would genuinely hate to be an engineer working on the edge team. It feels like building a decent browser comes entirely secondary to moving the needle on marketing and growth targets. Not the only situation where it seems your Windows-running computer is basically held hostage by MBAs wanting to boost Bing’s numbers.

I wonder if devs on the Edge team gets some kind of sadistic pleasure out of ruining Edge. It used to be good for a sweet, short few months, but it's beyond saving now. There's no way the devs behind the Edge UX still believe they're improving the browser.

I can imagine getting sort of a thrill out of suggesting something stupid like "let's steal ALL OF CHROME'S BROWSING HISTORY, then CLOSE CHROME, and OPEN EDGE and see if the user doesn't notice!" because _surely_ upper management would never sign off on that, but the day after you find out they still did. What other crazy shit can you think of? At work you roleplay as some kind of evil warlock, put all of your life's frustrations into the "switch to Edge or we'll murder your dog" screens, and go home with a big sack of cash to watch Netflix on your Macbook.

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

#215

Post by pyrophane »

pandacake wrote: post #212
pyrophane wrote: post #180

I've been trying Edge lately because I wanted to see if its "efficiency mode" would produce any noticeable difference in the battery life I experienced on my laptop. They've really made it almost impossible to use as a privacy-respecting browser that lets you pick your search engine. There are a very large number of "on by default" settings that I had to change to turn of things like "Microsoft Rewards" and "creator…

> "They've really made it almost impossible to use as a privacy-respecting browser that lets you pick your search engine." Brave Browser let's you customize.

Yeah, I'll probably wind up with Vivaldi or something else I'm not thinking of now. Opera maybe? Brave seems fine as well.

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

#216

Post by jqpabc123 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #184
jqpabc123 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...there seems to be demand for something that isn't FF. There is a demand for something that is really privacy focused. In other words, something that isn't directly connected to Google with a blatantly obvious conflict of interest.

But all the other alternative browsers use Google's Blink rendering engine. How is that less associated with google?

How is that less associated with google?

Blink is an open source rendering engine.

This allows alternative browsers to fork Blink/Chromium and strip out and remove any and all tracking, telemetry and data collection and produce a product that is privacy respecting by default.

Mozilla could easily do the same with FF --- but they simply refuse to.

Instead, every install of FF downloaded directly from Mozilla is unique. It comes with a unique identifier embedded along with lots of telemetry and data collection enabled by default --- including allowing Mozilla to install and run "studies" on your computer with no further consent required.

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/17/each-firefox-download-has-...

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

#217

Post by jeroenhd »

steve1977 wrote: post #85
userbinator wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WinPE and other stripped-down unofficial "distros" of Windows do exist. Someone will try to run the Win2k shell on a Win11 kernel, if it hasn't already been done. Based on what MS has done with backwards-compatibility, I wouldn't be surprised if it almost "just works". Win10's UI on Win11: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/o6ysyb/so_i_repl...

I actually once saw the Win 7 UI appear behind the Win 11 UI in Acrobat Reader. Not sure if this was some Acrobat specific stuff or if it’s still “there” in general.

For compatibility mode, there's a bunch of old theming stuff. If you manage to crash a program in the right way, you can even get a Win2k-style grey-and-blue window to appear in some places, though it's hidden well.

This is the company that put the entire Windows 95 memory manager into later versions of Windows to keep compatibility, there are tons of old code paths still lying in wait for old software to reuse.

You can't use this stuff as your main UI well, it's no longer tested or optimised for that use case.

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

#218

Post by jeroenhd »

speed_spread wrote: post #135
falcor84 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish Satya Nadella would pull a Steve and yell at some people for this shit. Just to check, are you suggesting a Steve Ballmer yell or a Steve Jobs yell?

No confusion there for me, Ballmer's signature move is throwing chairs. Soo many chairs are waiting in the Windows department...

Is that why Bill's party trick was jumping over chairs? Finally, the pieces are starting to come together?

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

#219

Post by pyrophane »

halfcat wrote: post #134
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.

> laden with ads, "Rewards" Points Serious question: Where do you see ads? I’ve used Windows 11 since it came out, and have never experienced a single advertisement.

What comes to mind are the Office subscription prompts that come up frequently with updates and the OneDrive, basically, ad that is in the settings app.

I think there are others, but I believe I've figured out how to turn most of it off.

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

#220

Post by jeroenhd »

halfcat wrote: post #141
neogodless wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you install it? They advertise cloud storage, office software, and gaming in the setup process.

Maybe that’s it. I untick all of the boxes during install and use a local account instead of a Microsoft account.

Note if you installed with a local account and expect Bitlocker to work: make sure to actually enable it. With a local account.

Bitlocker may state that it's on, but by default, it doesn't encrypt the drive unless you log in to a Microsoft account or manually add a key protector.

This is documented on a Microsoft site somewhere, but it's shit like this that make me wary of the "bypass Microsoft's shit" approach; the bypass methods often lead to behaviour that Microsoft never bothered to test and has side effects they don't bother to warn you about.

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