[UPDATED] Stop Dave. I'm afraid. - Microsoft tests soft blocking Firefox and Chrome Installs

[GoodBytes]

10 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Lol, MS wants you to use Edge...I wonder why? I couldn’t possibly be the massive amounts of easily linkable telemetry that Windows 10 sends to Microsoft all the time and they want even more. 

Sigh, that is not the reason at all. Beside Chrome tracks you even in incognito mode, and yet its has majority market share by considerable margins at 65%. Opera, Chromium and other Chrome engine based web browsers which have 0 tracking, and sometimes actually better than Chrome, people don't use them.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

Sigh, that is not the reason at all. Beside Chrome tracks you even in incognito mode, and yet its has majority market share by considerable margins at 65%. Opera, Chromium and other Chrome engine based web browsers which have 0 tracking, and sometimes actually better than Chrome, people don't use them.

Microsoft tracks what you do across multiple programs. 1-1.

[mitchpman13]

Personally, I would rather use edge over chrome. I've never been a huge fan of chrome. I used to like it back when it was first made but I long since haven't cared for it. I know a lot of people complain of IE being bad with popups or it's slower, but I've never had this issue with IE unless I left it alone for years and was careless enough to fall for extension downloads or bloatware. I can see why MS would want to show more support for their browser, I mean it's on their OS and they manage it to their likings. Chrome for me uses too much memory for not a good enough reason "Oh we're the fastest browser, but at the cost of your other programs if you don't run a high-end PC/laptop". I'm not even a huge extension user, just adblocks and sometimes a minor macro tool for more keyboard shortcuts. I still use firefox to this day, but if it was between chrome and edge, I'd rather use edge.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, GoodBytes said:

Sigh, that is not the reason at all. Beside Chrome tracks you even in incognito mode, and yet its has majority market share by considerable margins at 65%.

Then what other reason would there be to try and force Edge on users?

 

Microsoft doesn’t profit from Chrome data collection, so of course they want more people on Edge so they can profit from that collection. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

This is the quote from the photo on OP:

 

 

It's objectively untrue.  I know they are saying "safer" because it was found to block more phishing pages or something like that, but Edge is routinely beaten by Chrome and other browsers in hacking contests, so there goes the "safer" claim.  As for faster, look no farther than YouTube and you'll see that Chrome beats it substantially.  Granted that's due to borderline monopolistic behaviour by Google but that's besides the point.

 

If they are going to say safer and faster, they have to qualify that with which tests it's true for, or it's lying, plain and simple.

Yes, but they claim "for windows 10", being that they control the code in windows ten they can argue it is the safer, faster more betterer browser than a wowser "for windows 10".   They do not claim it is the fastest browser over all for everything, just for windows ten and youtube is not windows 10 it is a google website.

 

Interpretation is everything in law.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Then what other reason would there be to try and force Edge on users?

 

 

Like all business, the more your product is out there the more opportunities you have.  Even if your product is free like FF, opera, etc, market share is still money to them.

 

or

 

To reduce the number of help desk calls they get because 3rd party browsers aren't working.  When they do get one at least it is for their product and they can do something about it rather than look bad because they can only tell the customer to contact google or FF.  

 

[vanished]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Yes, but they claim "for windows 10", being that they control the code in windows ten they can argue it is the safer, faster more betterer browser than a wowser "for windows 10".   They do not claim it is the fastest browser over all for everything, just for windows ten and youtube is not windows 10 it is a google website.

 

Interpretation is everything in law.

That's absurd and would hold no water since Chrome, Firefox, etc. are all also available for Windows 10

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

That's absurd and would hold no water since Chrome, Firefox, etc. are all also available for Windows 10

 

Conjugation of the meaning.   It doesn't matter if chrome is faster on youtube, it only has to interact with windows faster than the others to be labeled as such.  In fact it only has to be faster in one thing when running in windows to be accurately labeled faster.  The statement does not indicate it is faster than everything across all uses, just that is the faster browser for windows.  

[Master Delta Chief]

Only reason you should use Edge is when something doesn't work in Chrome or Firefox. For the rest, just use the browser you are used to. But this move of Microsoft doesn't seem to be new at all. It's a shame Microsoft has come to this to almost enforce the user to use their own software instead of others. Feels like they're trying to do what Apple does, trying to convince people only to use their ecosystem. That's bad. 

[ScratchCat]

7 hours ago, Sousuke said:

Edge is an ok browser but still not good enough to replace a WebKit based browser such as Chrome (Windows & Mac) and Safari (Mac only as Windows Version is ... shit). 

 

This is why I've decided to switch to MacOS and stay there as Microsoft are just wrecking everything.

Chrome uses Blink and Safari for Windows last was updated when IE 11 was new. Apple forces the use of WebKit for iOS browsers which is quite useful as all get the same performance benefit but keep their unique features.

[vanished]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Conjugation of the meaning.   It doesn't matter if chrome is faster on youtube, it only has to interact with windows faster than the others to be labeled as such.  In fact it only has to be faster in one thing when running in windows to be accurately labeled faster.  The statement does not indicate it is faster than everything across all uses, just that is the faster browser for windows.  

The fact that they haven't specified what ways in which it's faster or safer means that they are claiming it's in all ways, which as we know is untrue.

[GoodBytes]

48 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Microsoft tracks what you do across multiple programs. 1-1.

Telemetry data collecting, which is not hidden on what it collects for each level, is not tracking you for money,

Google makes profiles on its users, to a point in guessing or getting your actual age, name, and sale that information.

 

[kting15]

I get why this is annoying and everything, but its a one time prompt unless you're what, installing multiple browsers?

Anyways, this is kinda the same as the prompt I get every freaking time I log on to gmail in a browser, it tells me that I'm not using the Gmail app on my phone and I should download it and use it. No Google. I don't want to use your mail app. No Microsoft, I don't want to use Edge. No Google, for the 100th time when I go to your search engine, I don't want to use Chrome.

 

A lot of you people are overreacting about this. Google uses similar tactics to try to get people to use their services. Most of you guys don't see it though because they already got you to switch. But yeah, Microsoft is the big bad company and is the only one that tries to get you to completely switch over to their services and mines your data. Oh wait. Google does it too.

[mynameisjuan]

13 minutes ago, Master Delta Chief said:

Only reason you should use Edge is when something doesn't work in Chrome or Firefox

Or battery life. Huge different on some laptops/ultrabooks. I went from 4 to 6 hours switching to Edge from Chrome on my GO. Similar with my Matebook X pro.

[ScratchCat]

5 hours ago, Dietrichw said:

I would use FF but the UI just drives me nuts. It feels like it takes up more screen space and is distracting.

You can shrink the UI and rearrange almost every portion of the UI:

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

Edge is still just a heavily modified version of IE (I keep on seeing the same damn problems and bugs). Even after the update all it will be good for is downloading a non Microsoft web browser.

IE had Trident as an engine while IE has Chakra. Edge has a HTML5Test score 66% higher than IE (492 vs 312). It is different enough for Microsoft to keep IE for compatibility in Windows 10.

40 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

I wonder if Google and other browser publishers might seek legal action against Microsoft for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

 

 

Lies are Microsoft's native tongue. The way to tell if Microsoft is lying is to see if its corporate (including digital) lips are moving.

Google was sued successfully by the EU for prioritising it's shopping offers above others, they can expect a another lawsuit addressing advertisement of Chrome in their search engine with a >80% market share.

 

Lies are the tongue of any large corperation: Microsoft, Google, Apple (battery fiasco), ISPs (Comcast reducing speeds for your convenience) and so on.

[mr moose]

16 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The fact that they haven't specified what ways in which it's faster or safer means that they are claiming it's in all ways, which as we know is untrue.

Take it up with consumer affairs,  this appears to be standard of practice and from what I gather rarely ever gets to court.  

 

Personally I would like to see a global crack down on dodgy advertising and misleading statements, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon.  The best we can do is try to educate the consumer, however as has been pointed out several times by prominent psychologists, you can't teach critical thinking, you can only point out the variances as subject and hope they start to critically question them.  From my experience people tend to just assume they already know and consequently don't see the other side of the debate let alone question its validity.  

[mynameisjuan]

20 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The fact that they haven't specified what ways in which it's faster or safer means that they are claiming it's in all ways, which as we know is untrue.

Puffin is really the only browser that is faster handsdown. Edge and Firefox trade blows where Chrome loses most the time. 

 

As far as security, no fucking clue. Too many exploits to truly judge. But seeing how market share tends to follow popularity, Edge might be the most secure being the least used browser. 

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

You can shrink the UI and rearrange almost every portion of the UI:

Oh damn really? I haven't used FF on my desktop because I hated having have the screen being taken up by a title bar. I might try it.

[Guest]

Great news, this is encouraging you to install Safari

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Great news, this is encouraging you to install Safari

Mods, how do we delete other people's post?

[ScratchCat]

1 minute ago, mynameisjuan said:

Oh damn really? I haven't used FF on my desktop because I hated having have the screen being taken up by a title bar. I might try it.

If you mean the title bar on Linux, you need an addon to hide it: Link

4 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Puffin is really the only browser that is faster handsdown. Edge and Firefox trade blows where Chrome loses most the time. 

 

As far as security, no fucking clue. Too many exploits to truly judge. But seeing how market share tends to follow popularity, Edge might be the most secure being the least used browser. 

Tor probably would win due to it's (rightly so) paranoid defaults it we don't include nation state attacks.

11 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Telemetry data collecting, which is not hidden on what it collects for each level, is not tracking you for money,

Google makes profiles on its users, to a point in guessing or getting your actual age, name, and sale that information.

 

The telemetry data is not anonymised and has a unique UserGUID. Why would telemetry which is meant to be used to highlight bugs need to record which specific user created the data?

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Mods, how do we delete other people's post?

How do we add and 'angry' reaction?

 

It is a little odd though they included only Chrome and Firefox. Does this mean they think people prefer Edge to Opera/Safari/Netscape?

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

How do we add and 'angry' reaction?

 

It is a little odd though they included only Chrome and Firefox. Does this mean they think people prefer Edge to Opera/Safari/Netscape?

Safari is not a threat nor is netscape. Opera is and it is weird its not included. Also Safari has the same market share but 99.99999% of that is because Macs. 

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

The telemetry data is not anonymised and has a unique UserGUID. Why would telemetry which is meant to be used to highlight bugs need to record which specific user created the data?

It is user account, not user. And it is probably used to associate users behavior on multiple devices when they do fancy charts. Regardless it is not being sold directly. The data in Edge, Cortana and other Microsoft services is, or is used for Bing ad platform for targeted ads. But telemetry data collection of Windows isn't.

[Arika]

they already do this when trying to change the default browser