Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

ctrl.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 499 posts

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#51

Post by PaulHoule »

Ygg2 wrote: post #32
Nition wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who actually likes this? Microsoft.

I don't think they like it. But their customers - advertisers - sure do.

You can turn all of that crap off with some effort.

Contrast that to the Linux desktop where you can't turn off the "it just doesn't work" (unless you mean just disable the GUI completely and only use the CLI), and the enthusiast who says they have it working just the way they want probably has "just not working" more thoroughly than the defaults.

The thing is that those ads are: (1) almost always for other Microsoft products, (2) frequently are for MSN articles aimed at Trump Voters, (3) probably destroy Microsoft products more than they promote them.

As an example of (3), consider how Microsoft launched a product called SkyDrive without doing a Trademark check, had to rename it OneDrive (just like they had to call the third XBOX the XBOX ONE, contrast that to Sony where even Mom can tell a PS5 is better than a PS4) then made Office save to OneDrive by default and leave you not being able to save at all if it couldn't connect to OneDrive.

That's like killing your product with 900 cyanide laced bullets, if they ever want me to use OneDrive again there is no amount of heavy handed marketing tactics that will work, even if I have to click 500 times and edit 30 registry entries to disable OneDrive I'll do that.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#52

Post by saghm »

biogene wrote: post #37

I don't care for edge for the most part, but there is actually one integration with edge that I have come to like. When I click on an email link inside outlook, edge opens the link, and also displays a sidebar which displays the email. Super handy IMO. Somehow we need to find a balance that allows vendors to tightly integrate their apps but prevent abusing this. MS is everyone's favorite whipping boy, but I fear what…

> Somehow we need to find a balance that allows vendors to tightly integrate their apps but prevent abusing this

A vendor of a web browser and email client, sure. A vendor of an operating system and one (or both) of a web browser and an email client, hell no. If anything, an operating system should be forced _not_ to tightly integrate to vendor-specific apps and instead should provide integration loosely and in a way a user can plug in their choice of app (or disable entirely).

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#54

Post by tkuraku »

backendanon wrote: post #36
p1necone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu kinda sucks now too. "Sign up for an account" is part of the install flow just like Windows. Fedora is my default "easy" Linux install nowadays, the excessively corporate vibes I get from Ubuntu feel very wrong for a Linux distro.

First, there's nothing overbearing about the Ubuntu install. Second, Fedora uses rpm management, rpm repositories sooner or later corrupt themselves, happened to me and others I know on Red Hat, on Fedora and on SuSE. I'd use Debian but I've found Ubuntu's driver management to be far more stable and reliable, especially for WiFi.

Exact opposite experience here. RHEL and friends have been much more stable reliable for me than Ubuntu.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#55

Post by sshine »

monero-xmr wrote: post #4
heavyset_go wrote: post #2

Looks like nothing much has changed on Microsoft's end. I posted this 2 years ago on HN[1] about how Microsoft goes out of its way to manipulate users when they search for "Firefox" on Bing using Edge: > Tangentially related, but I recently spun up a Windows VM and used Edge to search Bing for "Firefox" and this is result I got[2]. > It's a giant banner that says, "You're already browsing in Microsoft Edge. Keep usin…

I installed Windows on a media PC (all other laptops are macOS or Linux) and it was like the entire OS is a web browser without ad block installed. Just endless nags, pop ups, notifications, ads in my start menu, ads in the login screen, holy shit. Who actually likes this? It’s insane!

That’s what get when you don’t pay for... oh, wait.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#56

Post by userbinator »

piyh wrote: post #7

I gave my old parents the latest hand-me-up laptop and installed ubutntu on it because of windows 11. The install process and default configuration is so user hostile to someone that "just needs to use chrome". My niece & nephew have only known ChromeOS/iOS/Android. They will never use windows until a college course requires some specific software, or they get a desk job. I think they will for sure eventually "learn…

I recommend to switch them to Firefox instead.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#57

Post by heywoodlh »

brirec wrote: post #27
dc3k wrote: post #5

Glad I switched to ReviOS and don’t have to deal with these shenanigans. https://revi.cc/

Huh, I thought people around these parts knew better than to trust some hacked up Windows “distribution.” At that point you might as well just use an illegitimately-activated copy of LTSC — at least you can be sure it wasn’t tampered with. Especially since installing Windows using customized install media is explicitly prohibited by the EULA of almost all Windows editions. You have to have the same sort of enterprise…

Interestingly, they seem to address this on their legal page[0].

Despite this, it does seem like just installing Windows and then attemting to debloat post-install is the least risky option than just trusting a third party Windows installer.

[0] https://revi.cc/legal

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#59

Post by teawrecks »

userbinator wrote: post #3

the new version still aggressively prompts you with a captive full-screen experience on start-up IMHO that is the peak of user-hostile behaviour. The urge to pull the power cord or hit the reset button when I encounter things like that is very hard to resist because of how insulting it feels, but I do wonder if most of the user population have already been beaten into submission and consider it only a minor annoyance…

Not ever experiencing this stuff anymore on linux is the best feeling.

Re: Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users

#60

Post by foxylad »

biogene wrote: post #37

I don't care for edge for the most part, but there is actually one integration with edge that I have come to like. When I click on an email link inside outlook, edge opens the link, and also displays a sidebar which displays the email. Super handy IMO. Somehow we need to find a balance that allows vendors to tightly integrate their apps but prevent abusing this. MS is everyone's favorite whipping boy, but I fear what…

Sad you didn't see Linux as a better alternative to OSX. I credit it with making me at least 10% more productive over the twenty years I've used it, partly because it is stable and fast, but mostly because it isn't trying to sell me stuff while I work.
Post reply on HN