Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome - The Verge
(www.theverge.com)
from schizoidman@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 25 Oct 2023 02:29
https://lemmy.ml/post/6985592
from schizoidman@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 25 Oct 2023 02:29
https://lemmy.ml/post/6985592
#technology
threaded - newest
This is the best summary I could come up with:
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Google Chrome download in Microsoft’s Edge web browser?
How many times will the company try to steer me away?
The pop-ups are nearly two years old, and the injected ads are from earlier this year.
I cannot believe how many stories we’ve written about the shit Microsoft has pulled to steer you away from Chrome.
Even today, the company still won’t always respect your choice of default browser, though that may finally be changing in the EU.
Sadly the poll doesn’t include an “I’m boycotting Edge because you don’t respect me as a user” option.
The original article contains 133 words, the summary contains 108 words. Saved 19%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Honest to god, the browser that wins is the one with the least bullshit popping up in my face when I open it
These things aren’t mutally exclusive. Edge sucks even on this level
Firefox then?
Yup.
Now with Mozilla VPN! Click here to connect and upgrade your account!
The containers UI is damn near unusable, they’ve squeezed so many of those “offers” into the tiny addon manager popup.
I wish Mozilla had management who understood their userbase. But instead they keep pulling this crap which only makes me (and likely most other power users) less likely to use Mozilla branded products.
Suggest a better way of advertisement then that is free and geared towards privacy seekers. Yes, I do not love Pocket, but I do not find 5 minutes of debloating “unusable” tier.
If they had a mandatory subscription or account model, you would accuse them of privacy invasion. They have donations, and they do not get funded even 10% that way. Mozilla exists only because Google wants to avoid antitrust lawsuit.
LibreWolf. I don’t need to see “sponsored shortcuts”, recommended bullshit, abd Mozilla VPN ads when I open my browser. Firefox is by far superior to Chromium based alternatives but let’s not pretend Mozilla are saints when it comes to annoying bullshit in their browser.
That would probably be GNOME Web, because it literally does not pop up anything. Not on the first launch, not on any other launch.
But that’s really only helpful if you’re on Gnome, so Firefox, more likely.
The Microsoft Edge marketing team is indicative of what’s wrong with Windows.
I’d say all of Microsoft, not just Windows.
Somewhere there is a designer and or an engineer that was forced to make that stupid thing and they hated every minute of it.
Off topic but I love that people still remember Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Tad Ghostal.
Nah, Microsoft devs are there for the money, not the passion, just like all the other big tech companies. They got paid, so they don’t care.
I mean, I’m a dev at a big company, and I would definitely feel gross about implementing this.
I’d still do it, cause I gotta pay my bills somehow, but I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it.
Fair enough. I worked at Facebook, Google, then LinkedIn, so I guess all the passion got drained from me until I quit and started working on my own product.
(LinkedIn was actually pretty good. I was working on an internal tool though.)
Honestly, fair point to you as well. I’ve been lucky enough to work at a company that does at least try to care about things. I imagine if these soul-sucking tasks were an everyday thing, I’d probably tone down the ol’ moral compass a bit just to get through.
That’s pretty likely, but there are plenty of crappy developers who are proud working on stuff that makes peoples’ lives shittier.
“Thirstily”? Really? You couldn’t find any alternative word?
Moistly?
Microsoft now penetrates it’s poll when you download Google Chrome
Microsoft THRUSTS it’s throbbing poll into Google Chrome’s wide open download page.
Microsoft edge is pretty soggy
How you took it is exactly how it was meant to come across.
Off-putting? Sort of a “fellow kids” thing?
Yeah this is the bullshit that drove me to linux. It may not be quite as easy, but when it fucks up it’s not because I was insufficiently a customer
MS is getting so thirsty it's pathetic. All the Win 11 garbage and now this. It's sad really.
I develop software that runs on Windows, so I have to use it to some degree. I would pay so much money for an officially-supported version that lets me cut out all the shit I don’t need and not deal with stupid thirst tricks. For the longest, I just ran Windows Server in a VM.
try Windows LTSC
Sadly only available for large corporations
^or ^the ^ports ^of ^the ^bay
Lemmy (as in the default frontend) requires an extra caret at the end of superscripts:
^or^ ^the^ ^ports^ ^of^ ^the^ ^bay^^not^ ^a^ ^bot,^ ^but^ ^at^ ^this^ ^point^ ^I^ ^might^ ^make^ ^one^
Huh, looks fine to me
edit: checked in browser and yours looks fine in that, but in my app it adds an extra ^
Oh nice, another client-dependent formatting thing.
I might actually do that.
…or www.wubuntu.org
The real crime here is downloading Chrome.
Firefox, for privacy protection.
I’m also greatly concerned by the Chromium engine supremacy on the Internet.
There are interesting privacy-focused Chromium-based browsers but I still refuse to use them. Google shouldn’t have a near-monopoly on web rendering engines and on web “standards”. Firefox is the only proper competition I can get behind.
Firefox is great, but :has (a CSS selector supported by WebKit but not Gecko) is starting to get a lot more popular.
Good?
What does Microsoft gain out of pushing Edge so hard. It’s running on Chromium now, they’re not going to break people’s Google habits, they don’t even charge for it.
So why the unwavering push?
Ad revenue from their startpage, Bing as default etc
“Okay, I’ll pack my stuff up. But can you fill out this short questionnaire on how I could have been a better boyfriend?”
Not even that, it’s like you ask for a number of someone you’re attracted to from their friend and they give you this survey asking why don’t you want their number instead
Everyday is the perfect time to switch to Linux and Firefox. Come back to computing!
I am awaiting my new SSD (already got 2 in there lmao) to dual boot into Linux Mint (though I suspect I won’t remain dual booted for long at current trajectory.
Being slightly forceful might work, but being too forceful has the opposite effect. I’ve seen a lot of people avoiding Edge not because of its technical demerits, or due to lack of knowledge, but because MS forces it so much down your throat that something “feels” off.
I recently installed Edge for a technical reason and was instantly grossed out by all the stupid bling they’ve added to it.
I’ve used it at work since it often is the only installed browser and it feels like it’s already infected by toolbars and other malware out of the box.
The new tab page reminds me of the weird ads you see at the bottom of tabloid websites.
As a sysadmin, if I’m ever told to not provide browser choices to my users, I’ll quit. It’s sad that your work pigeonholes you into a single choice.
Luckily on my actual work PC I can use whatever I want, but on other devices I’m forced to use Edge both because of restrictions on what I can install and because there’s a lot of internal applications that still rely on vbscript.
was it playing around with bing’s AI chatbot? because I did it for that reason. all of ten minutes before getting bored at least.
No, it was to run Teams as a PWA on Linux.
On our company PCs we have both Edge and Chrome, after the latest Windows update a few days ago, every time I try to set Chrome as default browser, a window pops up saying something on the lines of “are you sure? please try out the fabulous Edge first, you might change your mind”.
That annoys me to no end, first we are in EU, where Microsoft has been fined in the past for not allowing a browser choice, second, we’re talking about Windows ENTERPRISE !!, keep that shit out of it, policies on PCs are decided at enterprise level, you can’t spam users about it.
And not only that, but the stupid front page with stupid irrelevant news, some of which are literal, blatant attempts at fraud - "[random B-celeb from your country] has a money making tip They don't want you to know!" and that sort of shit - in the browser they relentlessly push, nag about or just "accidentally" reset as default every cunting week.
Dozens of popups, random notifications - like... why? What person with, I assume, at least half a brain stem in their head could possibly think these were good ideas?
"I don't give a shit, show me the web page and shut the fuck up!" has turned into a mantra when I have to use Edge. That's not good.
I’ve uninstalled Chrome on all computers in my home. Back to Firefox with Edge as a backup browser if needed.
Yes I strangely have more confidence into Microsoft than Aphabet.
Yeah, same, although I’m cautious. Edge has grown on me, I do like it more than Chrome.
Ungoogled Chromium is infinitely superior to Edge, for a second opinion web browser. Using Edge, or any of these infinite Chromium forks, is just stupid and lazy.
Desperate ex girlfriend, Microsoft.
One of their choices should have been: "This survey is exactly the reason I am going to a different browser. "
Way too realistic, they don't want to hear shit like that. Way too true.
Because they know what’ll happen. And they don’t want to have to address it at the next quarterly.
They really had the foresight not to add an “other” option. Says a lot
“My reason is not listed” is the same thing.
I was thinking more like an “Other” with a free input field
Akira! Leave me alone! Aach!
I swear Microsoft, particularly the Windows and Edge divisions, have consultants on retainer directly from Hell - specialists in making things absolutely infuriating for no particularly good reason.
Who wants to use any product or service this desperate to try and keep you.
I never had this problem to put Vivaldi or any other browser instead of EDGE. Maybe i’m still with W10, maybe the last Windows which can be tamed. The only thing is that in Windows it isn’t enough to declare the browser as default in the browser settings, you must do it also in the Windows default app settings too, but after this you’ll never seen EDGE again, at least in W10.
So those random things that sometimes still pop up edge can be overcome? Colour me surprised. Thanks, I’ll be doing that as soon as I’m on my PC.
I have to use Windows for work, and every single day, I open Outlook and I’m greeted with “WE RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY, please share your data with us.” And every day I say “Don’t share optional data.” Clearly there’s a fucking problem here.
No you misunderstood, that’s “WE INSPECT YOUR PRIVACY”
I always bypass ever launching Edge by installing with
winget install mozilla.firefoxOr just install Linux.
Could you elaborate on the custom installer?
last time i removed edge on win11 my svg files and the open with menu broke. It’s ok to remove on win10 tho
That’s probably because you’ve installed a full install and removed it later (with inherited permissions or using TrustedInstaller) in which case several things do indeed break.
i used the aveyo script on a fresh win 11 install (since it’s compatible eith MSER/MSEdgeRedirect)
JuSt iNsTaLl LiNuX
If you decapitalised the letters, it would be a profound, enlightening advice.
But not Firefox? Lol
Chrome is where the market share is.
Also the 2 people per month downloading Firefox probably do it for privacy reasons, harder to convince them than a user using a Big Tech browser to use a different Big Tech browser.
Using marketshare as a metric to see how good something is, is a delusional idea. By your logic, iPhones would be the best phones and Macbooks would be best laptops, none of which are true. Both are bought majorly by people who want to throw money for social status, and FCP or FL Studio users are somewhere below 3%.
Why would Microsoft go out of their way to defend against Firefox? The people who primarily use Firefox (including me) are set in their ways and far less willing to switch browsers than, say, the 90% of people who use Chrome.
Persistence is the key to changing minds, sometimes chipping away at your liberties with reasons, sometimes with excuses. Each privacy-less person is a puppet in the making for the elites.
I’m not saying Firefox is less good or anything.
Just that I’m not surprised Microsoft doesn’t bother targeting Firefox with this popup. Microsoft’s goal is to get more market share and going after Firefox users is not going to get much of it. Even if they somehow convince every single Firefox users to use Edge they would still be far behind Chrome.
Microsoft targeted Firefox many times in the past with Edge default popups.
Yeah, using Firefox is a real hassle compared to Edge or Chrome. It’s really only worth it if you’re hardcorde into privacy but barely usable for your average Joe /s
Come on, you gotta go all the way to www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/windows/, click the big download button and install it. What a chore ! Who would willingly do all of these three steps ?
Exactly! Chrome is just so much easier to install. All you have to do is go to www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/, click the big download button and install it. So much easier!
I dont really use windows often outside of my work devices these days, but even if I did I wouldnt use edge as a primary browser based on how things rolled with IE6 and active X.
Yeah yeah youre a new friendlier Microsoft, webstandards and html5 are more locked in, and your browser is a chrome fork, and you “<3 Linux”. I remember what you are and how you locked down the web when you had a chance. Personally I dont use chrome for the same reason given the direction google has been heading.
But to answer “why not Edge?”: because you spent the better part of the last few decades sucking and amoral companies dont deserve the benefit of good faith.
The only Chromium browse you should use, as second opinion, is Ungoogled Chromium. Use Firefox or its forks as your primary browser.
Use Revo Uninstaller or Chris Titus winutil script to purge MS Edge.
Ungoogled Chromium requires so much work to be usable, on top of having no built-in updater. That’s a really bad recommendation. Have you looked at the steps to even install widevine? You even have to open up chrome flags to manually install an addon that lets you install add-ons.
Chrome flags and developer addon option sounds like 5-10 minutes of work to me, and for updates zero work on Linux since it exists as Flatpak, and you update your Flatpaks with
flatpak updatecommand. On Windows and MacOS, likewise, you just download the newest binary setup or use one of those new fancy package managers.Ungoogled Chromium is the only clean, non-spyware version of Chromium, which makes it the only correct Chromium recommendation. You want to recommend adware/spyware/cryptomalware for 1% more convenience?
That’s rich.
If you type your username into the android dialler, it has a easter egg
Yup! But I think it only works on stock dialer.
Thirstily?
The article doesn’t count the popups you get when you try to change your default browser