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The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

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381–389 of 389 posts

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they are being deceptive?

Who knows for sure as to the current state of things, and what they may do in future. But, it's the kind of hole in their wording they could drive a truck though. ;) Personally, I'd be very surprised if they're not using people's written text as training data for various "AI" efforts. Let alone sharing the data with other parties. Watching MS operate for a couple of decades has shown that if they see an opportunity t…

Well, if we're going to do that.

Apple has shown that they'd willingly help themselves to your data, while protecting you from others accessing it. Who knows what Apple will do with it? For all we know, iCloud Drive is now E2EE because they've figured out a way to ingest metadata and other information about your file as they store them. I mean, we don't know for sure if it's encrypted before being stored or not. All we know is it is now encrypted if you turn it on and Apple has no access to it. But to say nothing of it before or after. (/tinfoil on)

I'm not a Microsoft apologist, but I don't think they'd need to lie: "No data is stored for any period of time."

Anytime they've done shitty things, they have more or less been caught.

> if they also share the text with third parties

Legally, they have to share whether this data is being shared with third parties. It's about all we can do these days - for all you know, HN is collecting data on your activity and selling it to third parties for extra $. (Unlikely, but if we're gonna put our tinfoil hats on... no one is beyond suspicion! /s)

In any event, I know what it's doing and I'm not under any illusions that this is a privacy issue. I only use it to write things that will end up in public spaces anyways (such as HN, or Reddit). Any of my more private type of writing is done with offline tools.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#382

Did you know that out-of-the-box, Edge will transmit the content of your text boxes on web pages to the Microsoft Editor service for the purpose of grammatical suggestions? I have no idea how this concept got past legal but hey, it’s on by default now. Holy shit. :( At what point are some of the major government legal departments actually going to step up and sort this shit out? It is so , so, so, so, so far past ove…

> At what point are some of the major government legal departments actually going to step up and sort this shit out?

At the point when their love relationship with US will end up in divorce. So not in the near future.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#383
post #95
post #54

Microsoft feels like two totally different companies. One company can produce amazing concepts and products. But then, the other company comes and adds nasty “features” on top to ruin everything.

That’s because it is. There’s Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. Anything that’s tied to the consumer side can’t make its returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract value otherwise.

> Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great

Yes, except Windows 10, Office 365, Teams, Edge, Calculator, Settings.

Copying UI from Google tells a lot about the spirit at Microsoft.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#384
post #39
post #3

I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…

I recently switched from Edge to Firefox. Edge used to be great, but all "features" it has added the past year is not features I need, like sending my text input to Microsoft, showing online shopping suggestions, discover features, sidebar apps and what not. Edge also has a annoying bug in combination with AMD graphics card where the bottom of the screen flickers when watching certain video content in Edge, like Netf…

Didn't you hear? 2023 is the year of Linux on the desktop.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#385
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just add two OS'es to UEFI BIOS. Bootloaders easily break.

Windows doesn't support multiple EFI System Partitions on one system¹, and it will nuke the default EFI boot image (bootx64.efi) on the ESP it uses whenever it updates or does startup repair. So if you do this make sure you have configured the Linux system to write EFI variables and know that if you ever clear them, you may lose the ability to boot Linux until you perform a repair. Dual booting sucks. Don't do it, es…

Buy a second SSD, install linux and duel boot by switching UEFI boot option. You can even reboot into UEFI from windows and Linux. It's about as easy as it gets with minimal effort. Or you can setup an efi bootloader on Linux disk that allows you to launch windows instead. These days duel booting is easier than ever, duel booting via a single hard drive has always been a clumsy way to do it.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#386
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we should start a revolt in the IT sector against this shit really. I’d start one but I don’t know where to begin. Personally, or at work? Personally, the first steps are actually pretty easy: install an operating system that doesn't do this stuff. And then deal with the fallout as best you can without going back — e.g. finding replacements for software that only ran on $OTHER_OS. Source: did it decades ago…

I’d more expect the revolt to be along the lines of calling Microsoft out for being a dick. More an intervention than a revolt.

> I’d more expect the revolt to be along the lines of calling Microsoft out for being a dick. More an intervention than a revolt.

To Microsoft, that isn't considered to be a revolt or an intervention. When receiving consumer input of such a nature, the preferred terminology is "Positive user experience report."

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#388
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the non-Pro edition (Home?) and I have the setting. I think this is a US-vs-Europe thing?

There are various unexpected limitations a given Windows experience can have. Recently someone’s laptop broke while visiting the Mexican beach I was living so they bought a laptop from the local shop. The Windows install was in Spanish and the language options offered no other language to choose from. All of the tutorials online showed menu options that weren’t there. I tried helping them change it to English. Appare…

You still can change language in single language Windows, but it requires a lot of registry changes and restarts. Also technically it breaks the licence.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#389
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because it is. There’s Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. Anything that’s tied to the consumer side can’t make its returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract value otherwise.

Teams?

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