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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

#221

Post by jeroenhd »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #162
barbs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bullshit like this that makes linux attractive.

I always think this, then remember I also like sound, Bluetooth, and low-power sleep. Maybe 2025 will be the year of the Linux desktop.

All three work flawlessly for me. It takes either luck or looking up known incompatibilities before purchasing a laptop, but it's no longer 2008. Not buying hardware from certain vendors (Nvidia) helps improve your chances.

The lack of hibernation with an encrypted system is an annoying problem, though. There's a good reason it doesn't work, and the explanation has made me doubt other hibernation implementations, but it's annoying that bypassing this restriction is so hard.

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

#222

Post by whyoh »

freeAgent wrote: post #142
whyoh wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 (IoT) LTSC 2021. It lets you uninstall Edge with just a right-click. And it doesn't have any 'modern apps' and Store preinstalled.

But a normal consumer can’t purchase that version of Windows, can they ? in a non-shady/license-compliant way

I don't know, honestly. But if it's just a matter of reducing bloat, you don't really need LTSC. For example, you can remove preinstalled apps on Home/Pro with a line in Powershell: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4689-uninstall-apps-wind...

LTSC is cleaner out of the box and has much longer support, but otherwise it's not that different. And Edge on LTSC still does annoying things, such as adding a Bing search box on the desktop, for example.

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

#223

Post by freeAgent »

whyoh wrote: post #222
freeAgent wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a normal consumer can’t purchase that version of Windows, can they ? in a non-shady/license-compliant way

I don't know, honestly. But if it's just a matter of reducing bloat, you don't really need LTSC. For example, you can remove preinstalled apps on Home/Pro with a line in Powershell: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4689-uninstall-apps-wind... LTSC is cleaner out of the box and has much longer support, but otherwise it's not that different. And Edge on LTSC still does annoying things, such as adding a Bing search b…

Checking with MS, unless you’re a registered developer or enterprise customer, you can’t purchase it. LTSC keys aren’t supposed to be sold by the single, so any reseller doing that is breaking MS’s terms.

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

#224

Post by alt227 »

csdvrx wrote: post #187

Mozilla receives money from Google, so I'd take whatever they say with a pinch of salt. Right now, the only serious alternative to Google Chrome is Edge, and if Firefox became too good or threatened Google in any way, Mozilla may see the money flow stop. I wish Google started innovating again, and that Firefox offered a good and competitive free software browser, but reality is what it is. So I've moved from Windows…

Out of interest, what is it about Firefox which you consider not good or competitive?

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

#225

Post by ametrau »

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.

Powershit is a good thing?

Here’s a genus idea, put an object oriented language in the terminal.

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

#226

Post by snazz »

LtWorf wrote: post #99
skrebbel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Game made 30 years ago needs dosbox, an open source project, to just work. Game made with directx6 20 years ago will render in CPU and just work but be so slow to be unplayable. Then you need to replace the .dll and make it link with an open source library that reimplements dx and converts the calls to the new API, so that it can actually render in hardware. Yes, solitaire.exe still works. 3d games less so. I'm full…

Or my personal disappointment: Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Feels like that ought to work on Windows 10, but I couldn’t get it to. If I remember correctly it did work fine on Windows 8.1 strangely enough.

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

#227

Post by baxuz »

jeroenhd wrote: post #214
ljm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I sincerely doubt it's the devs coming up with these ideas and pitching them to management.

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

#228

Post by baxuz »

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.

I can't take a crypto-shilling browser seriously. They lost all respect from me the day they added that feature.

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

#229

Post by jeroenhd »

mnahkies wrote: post #105

I had to install Google Chrome on my (Mac) work laptop recently in order for the expo/react native debugger to work. Every time I open it I get a nag prompt to use it as the default (instead of Firefox) I tried editing the raw config files with some values stack overflow suggested would disable it but it hasn't worked. Not a huge deal because I don't need to open it too often, but still annoying that there isn't a "d…

That's pretty interesting, because I don't ever get that popup when I open Chrome on Linux (usually for DRM reasons).

Edit: crap, I tried to see what happens when I do set Chrome as a default and now that I've switched the default back to Firefox, I get the popup on startup too. At least Firefox has a setting to disable the check, now I need to figure out how to make Chrome shut up again.

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

#230

Post by bmitc »

evilduck wrote: post #189
bmitc wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, and when the browser updates they often switch settings back, such as the default search engine. I still use it but am aggressive about tightening up the settings.

Why? What does it bring to the table over Chromium once you disable all the Microsoft nonsense?

Because I don't like Firefox and dislike anything to do with Google. Google also plays all sorts of dirty tricks to try and get you to download Chrome. I primarily use Windows because I get Windows plus Linux. For example, I have Ubuntu and Nix running through WSL. Apple also plays dirty tricks and has all sorts of nonsense, they're just better at getting away with it.

In general, I just use the browser that's "native" to the platform. On Windows I use Edge, on macOS and iOS I use Safari, and on Linux I use whatever I feel like at the time (Edge, Firefox, or Chrome). At the end of the day, features are effectively in parity, so I just don't care that much, and right now I use Edge on Windows and Android. Edge does have some nice features though. It doesn't keep me wanting.

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