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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

#321

Post by hilbert42 »

_heimdall wrote: post #283
hilbert42 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps so. But they're too late the damage has been done. Unfortunately, they should have acted 30+ years ago. The need to regulate back then was just as obvious as it is now.

What should they have done differently in the 90s, and what would the regulations have looked like?

Classed and regulated operating systems differently to applications. For example, the rules and regulations for building highways are very different to those for building and regulating motor vehicles even though one depends on the other.

Microsoft would not have been able integrate Internet Explorer into Windows nor even the IP stack as these are actually applications. The whole world of security would have been different and more manageable not to mention much improved competition from other vendors.

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

#322

Post by youngtaff »

IshKebab wrote: post #21
youngtaff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is barely relevant compared to Android and iOS

It is for Firefox.

It’s really not… In terms of installed base Chrome is way in front on Windows, followed by Edge with Firefox have a tiny percent at the rear

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

#323

Post by Alifatisk »

fsflover wrote: post #287
Alifatisk wrote: post #107

Isn't there a dumb / light version of Windows 10 that removes all these anti-features and bloat? I just want to play games and surf the web with FF.

Yes, it's called Linux (with Steam).

I don’t think a kernel is comparable to an operating system.

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

#324

Post by Anamon »

RGamma wrote: post #315
squigz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And now we can't make the taskbar vertical anymore. I'm not sure I can make it another 40.

My number one grievance with Win11. Also, I think it's in the top 3 of all feature requests on Microsoft Feedback by votes. Yet, no movement. It feels so anachronistic to force the waste of space that is a horizontal task bar, in an age of wide (and still widening) screen aspect ratios. Microsoft's UX team is... not good at their job, to put it very mildly.

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

#325

Post by [deleted] »

LtWorf wrote: post #93
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.

power toys is buggy. It has had this bug that shows on non-US keyboard layouts, and of course it will never be fixed because who cares about non-US keyboard layouts? Meanwhile on KDE I have an easy option to swap caps lock and ctrl, without having to install some weird .exe file off github.

[deleted]

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

#326

Post by okanat »

ametrau wrote: post #225
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 .

Yes an object oriented language that has meaningful command names that make sense and not require you to be born in 1950s to understand its trivia.

An object oriented language that doesn't have weird-ass pitfalls: https://web.archive.org/web/20240112161109/http://mywiki.woo...

An object oriented language that takes the piping concept and improves it so one can actually form pipelines that make sense and not waste limited resources in just parsing text. However at the same time add more powerful and efficient text parsing tools. So one can actually script on the go with ease.

An object oriented language that is not C which is the language which most stubborn Unix developers usually reach for when their shell is too inefficient or too unwieldy for certain tasks and create even more security holes.

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

#327

Post by ljm »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #255
executesorder66 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why microsoft only hires people who fail any ethics test you can imagine, and who pass any asshole test that you can give them.

Xbox team has some good eggs at least. They didn’t need to make certain x360 titles forwards compatible, you can’t even get the disks new anymore, but they did it anyway.

Certain, as in those that are likely to sell, not all. These days the hardware is basically commodity and the time of innovating on CPU arch and hardware is over (remember the PS3 Cell CPU and the PS2 Emotion Engine?). You're getting commodity PCs in a unique form-factor and walled-garden support.

MS might be making a move to break the garden with GamePass, but only because they want people in GamePass's walled garden so they start renting games from MS instead of buying them from competitors. For over a decade they have failed to compete with Sony and Nintendo on quality first-party gaming.

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

#328

Post by ljm »

baxuz wrote: post #227
jeroenhd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I got moved into a 'growth' department in one job and that was enough for me to put my feelers out and tender my resignation. All the work in the pipeline was about pulling the rug under from customers, increasing prices, and not adding value but removing it from general availability and paywalling it. It just felt wrong with me and what was important to me at the time.

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

#329

Post by pxmpxm »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #191
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 wouldn't be surprised if some of the settings "accidentally" get reversed after the browser updates, since it's been known to happen with Windows settings...

blank new tab page (no revenue for msft) gets reset on every update. That's how I ended up back at firefox.

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

#330

Post by pxmpxm »

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.

It's impossible to control updates on that one; same google people I imagine?
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