Posts like these reveal how many reads the article.
This is a good thing done by Microsoft. They make sure that 3rd party software can’t change the default browser without the user knowing.
They will get prompted with the choice screen showing all installed browsers. And when they make their choice, even Edge wouldn’t be able to prey people into clicking a button that makes it the default instead.
The “choose the default app” modal has special code that makes it say “HEY BTW EDGE EXISTS CLICK HERE” If the modal is for choosing your default browser. It is absolutely about control.
The dma only speaks about easily changing the default application. It has nothing to do with this.
What the dma did allow was the “complete” uninstall of edge in windows 11.
The only thing that is left behind i noticed is the edge webview component for webview & webview2
So many headline readers. To be honest, 99% of these problems that folks rage about could be resolved with a group policy (local or domain). The problem is, Windows is like 73% of worldwide OS usage, so like it or not, there is a lot of trying to protect the user from themselves. Team Linux can’t fathom that because they come from the perspective that they can build thier experience from the ground up to be exactly as they like. The VAST majority of people don’t want that, they want something that works and they don’t really care what happens behind the curtains. I would wager that 90% of users could care less what browser they use (or would even notice if it changed!) as long as they still had access to their bookmarks.
I would like to share a positive experience from this new driver the article is about. I use notepad++ and setting it as the default was kind of a pain in the butt. It would work sometimes, but not consistently, and often depended on a registry hack or symlink to work. Now with the new interface for default apps, as long as I have the new Windows Notepad app installed when I change the defaults for “open with”, it just works! For all the file extensions, all the time. Honestly it’s a much better experience and it’s ACCESSIBLE to the lay person.
Considering that Edge makes itself the default browser and even PDF reader on its own every few weeks, I don’t trust Microsoft to keep Edge from taking over as default without user input.
No they don’t. At most they just have to detect automatic changes and ask the user to confirm. They have no reason for forcing the user to dig into menus and then also repeatedly override that same choice.
However, this new driver has also rolled out to Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices in the USA that do not have to comply with the DMA act, shedding doubt on this theory.
In principal, the change is good for reasons you mentioned. However microsoft has :
bypassed any default screens in the past, allowing edge to be set default without user input.
has added very annoying screens when changing default applications asking the user multiple times if they are sure.
has added special protocols for applications and set edge as default browser to bypass default application settings in all office applications ( outlook, teams, word, … ).
They just can not be trusted with this, they have proven this in the past…
To anyone saying “just use GPOs”, here’s a quote from the SetUserFTA page:
Microsoft offers a solution with GPO, but it is Computer-based and not User-based – and rather complicated. this means, you can not associate your Users on the same Server/Client with different file types. for example:
you have a PDF viewer and a PDF editing software on your XenApp server. Now you want that a certain group opens their PDF’s in the editor and the others only in the viewer (for licensing reasons for example). this is NOT possible anymore and Microsoft states “it is by design” and “this is a security measure”.
Said solution:
Set up a reference computer
Install applications
Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs and configure default apps associations.
Export/import the custom default app association with dism.exe
[…]
As some recommended applications can manage more extensions with each new Windows 10 version available, it’s a good practice to refresh your XML. For example, in Windows 10 1703, Microsoft Edge registers the epub extension. If you’re using an XML file from Windows 10 1607, epub is missing. As a result, you will get an app reset notification for epub.
[…]
Configure a policy for your domain-joined computer: file association will be configured at each logon. User will be able to change file association, but at the next logon file association will be configured using XML file. This policy works only for domain-joined computer.
This is just about the most convoluted, annoying way they could come up with for doing this, doesn’t help people whose machines aren’t part of AD and isn’t scriptable. If they were mainly concerned about security they’d have an option for not allowing the user to change these preferences even temporarily on domain-joined machines.
I mean, Windows is just such a weird proprietary distro.
It doesn't use the latest Linux kernel, or even a mainstream POSIX-compliant alternative like BSD. Instead, you have a strange CP/M-like monolithic kernel — I think they used to call it DOS — that's been extended to behave more like VAX and MP/M.
It also doesn't use either X11 or Wayland as a display manager. Instead, you have an incredibly unintuitive overblown WINE-like subsystem handling the display.
Because it doesn't use Linux, Wayland, or X11, you are limited in the desktop environment that you can use. There's really limited support for KDE, despite the best efforts of volunteers.
Instead, there's a buggy and error-prone proprietary window manager that ships with it by default. A bit like how Canonical tried to ship Unity as it's default desktop environment with Ubuntu.
And confusingly, they've named that window manager Windows as well!
That window manager lacks many of the features an everyday Gnome or KDE user would expect out of the box.
It also doesn't ship with a standard package manager, and most of the packages ship as x86 binaries, so installing software works differently to how an everyday Linux user would expect.
There's also only one company maintaining all of these projects. It insists on closed source, and it has a long history of abandoning its projects.
And sure, if you're a nerd who's into alternative operating systems, toying with Windows can be fun.
But if your grandpa is used to Linux, frankly he'll be utterly bamboozled by the Windows experience.
I'm sorry to be glib, because Windows does have some nice ideas.
But.
Windows on the desktop just isn't ready for your average, everyday Linux user.
I agree with every single bit of this but felt like I was being attacked the whole time I read it. Maybe it’s PTSD from asking questions in Linux forums as a kid and getting ripped into with long replies. Does anybody else feel that way?
@ajsadauskas@Naich@ardi60 And if you thought that was confusing, the same company also makes a “Windows Subsystem for Linux” but appears to have got the name backwards — it’s not FOR Linux, at all!
Is this why Windows has started opening all my chromium apps in edge? They fuck up constantly and it’s really making me want to ditch windows.
If I understood Jack audio as well as I understand Voicemeeter, and if I could get my damn push to talk button working properly in Solaar I’d be done by now.
If anyone has a solution to the edge thing please help.
I understand that software directly and silently changing the default software can be a security issue. But it’s only because it happens silently. Does Windows allow for showing a system prompt that confirms the change to the user? If not, then that’s just plain ol’ anti-competitive. Especially with how pushy Edge and Bing can be.
I don’t think the goal is to lock you into their browser, since you still can change it through the GUI. It seems to be part of the recent push to block software which changes hidden settings. The end goal being to lock down the OS and prevent users from disabling features MS wants to push onto them.
Meanwhile, if you use Microsoft Teams & Outlook with the Teams add-on installed … and you are wondering why your email links are suddenly opening in Edge instead of your default browser, disable the Teams add-on in Outlook and rage for a moment at the stupidity.
Teams is forcing Edge browser to open links in new Teams and by extension, in Outlook. Setting the default browser to open links within Outlook settings just leads to un-clickable links. The only way to fix it is to disable the Teams Outlook add-on.
Yes, same old Microsoft. Anyone who thinks they have changed in any way since the days of forcing Internet Explorer as the default are sadly and woefully mistaken.
At least not in the EU, there Windows should even allow you to uninstall EDGE. MS in the EU is way different, less restrictive and more private than MS US.
MS US not only use cookies, it logs even your keystrokes and mouse movements, apart to pass your data to Towerdata and Facebook. Cookies are not the problem if yo use uBO, Cookie Autodelete or similar.
This is horrible. I run several different environments of VMware Instant Clone VDIs and use the SetUserFTA to help a users default browser and other file extension defaults to persist for a user from session to session on a non-persistent VDI. Now it’s broken.
We are using Instant Clones. It’s a non-persistent Virtual Desktop.
We want to give our users the choice and then be able to persist those choices. Not force them to use just one option with a GPO that defines what they have to use.
SetUserFTA and Dynamic Environment Manager allowed it until the last Windows CU came along…
We do: Firefox, Chrome, or Edge. That’s not the problem.
The problem is with Microsofts new driver we can’t allow users to set the default browser in their VMware Instant Clone using SetUserFTA via Dynamic Environment Manager.
I said literally like two days ago “fine then; keep using windows until they take a feature you rely on and all your data is either gone, or trapped in an impenetrably useless shell”
Theres no practical value to being right, but fsmn does it feel good.
Uh, sorry about your shit. If you want to still have your computer in a year; switch to linux
We have 80,000 people that work for my company. That’s not going to happen. Now we have 10,000 VMs running a combination of Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, and Centos. But our employees choose the OS they want to run on their own work devices whether it be Linux, MacOS, or Windows and no way is everyone is going to Linux, even if that is my own OS of choice. Especially the C-Level and board member types.
I switched to mint in November, almost everything just works (I mainly use my desktop for gaming). And everything that doesn’t, works after visiting the mint forum or is just a minor inconvenience.
I dunno; ive had trouble trying to internally rewhatsit outgoing broadcast UDP packets to multicast UDP (or even TCP and then back on the other side) packets for use with some 25 year old windows software. So clearly Linux sucks.
Manjaro is amazing, but might have a little steep learning curve should you use it for something very advanced. Also, no .deb’s and .rpm’s for you, but AUR is arguably even more based (don’t rely on it too much though, troubleshooting issues with AUR-sourced apps is an advanced task indeed!)
Other than that, an insanely snappy (thanks, Arch!), beautiful (thank you, presets for various DEs!), almost bleeding-edge and very novice-friendly distribution.
Can’t endorse Gnome enough. I feel like something about it is anti ADHD for me. It optimizes screen size usage. And, the division of tasks into workspaces is glorious. It honestly bothers me a little that it helps me be productive despite myself.
It’s pretty much a program running in OS kernel space to handle specific function calls which need low level system access. Most hardware needs custom drivers to work because they need to interact with those low level OS components, so that’s why they’re mostly associated with hardware.
A lot of antiviruses use custom drivers to intercept and inspect program behavior to look for viruses, etc
Some people are saying this is good, but Microsoft recently changed my default search engine to bing “In case it was accidentally changed or changed by another program”. I have zero faith they won’t abuse this, they are becoming ever increasingly pushy about using edge and switching to bing.
Like the USSR, but somehow shittier, and expensive. And Theres human piss and shit on the streets because we don’t let the poor sleep in abandoned buildings.
BS like this has made it impossible to maintain a consistent experience for my parents who aren’t super tech savvy. It’s so frustrating helping them over the phone for hours only to realise that windows just on a whim changed major settings without any user interactions. Changed theirs OS to Debian now. Much better.
Seriously. Windows has become garbage enough that 20 years ago Linux is the better OS. Even though 20 years ago windows (well, let’s say 15) was better than modern Linux is.
I would guess probably not soon. Windows still needs to be able to comply with many industries needs for compliance (ITAR, HIPAA, Financial, etc etc.) If they remove the ability to control this, they cut themselves out of their largest profit area (corporate licensing).
I did a fresh install on a family member’s PC yesterday. Tried to change the region in the registry so I could uninstall Edge and it wouldn’t let me. I assume this is related.
But I also dual-booted Linux so they could try it at any time 🙃
Man I hate Microsoft pre installing Edge on these laptops to push their browser. Anyways here is your laptop bro, also I pre installed Linux so I can push it to you.
I’m not sure that a protection against changing the default browser with third party programs (maybe without the user knowing) via the registry is the evil thing being depicted here.
The way I read this article is that this is a move for compliance with the new digital markets act and I’m not seeing the maliciousness.
Willing to be wrong, I haven’t used Windows regularly for like 20 years.
You kidding? That means First party is now a protected method which will absolutely result in the expected outcome like they have done with every “feature” update blocking work arounds.
Add comment