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Vivaldi CEO: Stop Your Anti-Competitive Practices With Edge, Microsoft! (betanews.com)
Reader Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft is no stranger to pissing people off, particularly when it comes to Windows 10. There have been endless cries about forced updates, complaints about ads, moaning about privacy, and now the CEO of Vivaldi has lashed out at the company for its anti-competitive practices with Microsoft Edge. Jon von Tetzchner says that Microsoft has forgotten about the "actual real-life people that use technology in their daily lives." He takes particular umbrage at Windows 10's continued insistence of resetting the default browser to Edge. Indicating that his patience has now run out, von Tetzchner points to a 72-year-old friend who was confused by the change and unable to reverse things. He says that Microsoft is failing to respect the decisions made by users, and this is something that needs to stop.
In the brave new world of Big Data, users are not customers. Users are raw products to be quantified, classified and sold to advertisers and marketers. What users want is not important - it's the ones that actually pay Microsoft that matter.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Major updates often do reset user defaults for some people.
"Vivaldi Technologies is a Software Development company, most known for its creation of the Vivaldi browser." https://vivaldi.com/
Minor detail the article and summary leave out.
Until they're slapped with SIGNIFICANT, ongoing, escalating fines, or the company is seriously threatened with a breakup, not a single fuck will be given.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I suspect that Microsoft has a huge amount of A/B testing going on. 50/50 chance your browser gets reset and the 50 that don't go out and blame the 50 that do for screwing it up somehow.
My coworker and I both ended up with the win10 home version after the 7 to 10 upgrade. She regularly gets popups when launching Chrome about how secure Edge is, I have never gotten one.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
If you could uninstall Edge, then it would be a non-issue, since you could then make sure that a given user would never encounter that problem. Since you can't get rid of Edge, however, the problem will inevitably be encountered. Therefore it is an issue.
Vivaldi to Microsoft: Stop Your Anti-Competitive Practices!
Microsoft to Vivaldi: No.
Seriously, Microsoft barely even listens to governments anymore, you really think they care about about browser that has less market-share than even Firefox?
I don't get it reset...but now every time I start up a browser that isn't Edge, it pop ups a little warning saying how Edge is a better and safer browser.
It feels like it's acting like the guy who never gets picked, but keeps trying, hoping that one day he'll be the one who gets out of the dugout, dropping hints to the coach that _he_ could do better than the regulars. "Boy, you wouldn't even be on the team, but you're the owners son, so I can't fire you."
It reset the default browser after the big October update; re-enabled Cortana and put it back on the task bar if you'd disabled it IIRC. Several updates (including the big October one) have also put Edge and the Windows Store back in your task bar if you had unpinned them.
Source: I maintain a few dozen computers spread among various clients (small businesses) as a side job. My SOP was to disable Cortana and remove it, Edge, and the Windows Store from the task bar. It was a major PITA having to do this over and over on so many computers. I seriously doubt it was user error - that would've required a few dozen users to simultaneously decide "I think I'll re-enable Cortana and pin it, Edge, and the Windows store back to my task bar" to jive with my experience Microsoft may have done it again recently - I got fed up with it and just disabled the update service on my personal Win 10 machine so I wouldn't know. My next planned update is beginning of Feb. Haven't yet made the rounds this month to check my clients' computers.
I'm only aware of one confirmed user of Edge, the brokenbrowser guy who finds tons of exploits in it.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Every major windows 10 build update resets your program defaults to all of the Microsoft applications (including edge) and pins several Microsoft applications to your taskbar if you've unpinned them. Namely edge, store, and cortana.
So far in the history of windows 10, this has happened four times.
Which is 4 times too many
She regularly gets popups when launching Chrome about how secure Edge is, I have never gotten one.
Settings > System > Notifications and Actions > "Get tips, tricks and suggestions as you use Windows" > NO! WTF WERE YOU THINKING, NO!
Wow, people still posts these replies? Because, if there is ONE thing windows is known for over the years, it is a complete guarantee of consistency. That what happens on one machine happens on millions of others.
As a counterpoint, my work machine would reset html and pdf file associations back to edge on a weekly basis. Had to edit the registry to get rid of the behaviour.
I wonder if the Trumpian political environment has emboldened MS to return to its pushy monopolistic ways.
Table-ized A.I.
A friend of mine has a visual impairment. He has often complained that Windows 10 updates have reset his accessibility options, like the mouse button binding he uses for the magnifier. Microsoft won't care about browser preferences being reset, but maybe a fine for disobeying the Americans with Disabilities Act will get them to get their act together.
I can tell you that this is done at the product group level. They are goaled with user adoption metrics so you will find many of these things types of anti-competitive 'features' in their releases and updates. Ultimately it is the fault of management for not reigning in this practice.
You are right. Most Linux supporters don't complain about systemd, in the same way. Except for the small few that have moved to Devaun Linux, Slackware Linux, Void Linux, Alpine Linux, Guix Linux, etc. They might still complain because they moved to Distros that don't have forced systemd and the bigger box distros developing everything as if systemd is the only init system that matters. This means that systemd free or optional systems need to do extra development on anything glued to systemd.
Then there are the one like me that moved to BSD systems. I treated Linux the same way I did Windows when it got stupid. With that said, at least people can officially support Linux without systemd.
But you still have a valid point. There are plenty of Linux users that don't realize how powerless they are, even when GNU, Libre and OpenSource are under their hoods. I'd like to see a show of hands for all the folks that have examined even RMS' GNU version of Firefox to see how well that code respects them as a user. Or is the trust all based on assumption? I won't ever use Windows again, If I have a choice. But at least you know outrightly that you shouldn't trust their products. Which is good for a hand full of people that follow labels around like facts.
Those that trust Linux because it is GNU/Opensource(and sometimes Libre) are almost as bad as those that trust Microsoft because it is a paid for product.
As much as I dislike systemd, it's hardly the same thing at all. IE and Edge are applications that should be no more or less embedded than any other application. Systemd is a system-level component/utility. The equivalent would be demanding that Microsoft take out, say, the event logging system.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We can tell Microsoft to go fork themselves.
Just avoid win 10!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Clearly Windows isn't ready for the desktop.