Microsoft defends Edge's predatory practices with cringe, audacious reply on X(neowin.net)
neowin.net
Microsoft defends Edge's predatory practices with cringe, audacious reply on X
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-defends-edges-predatory-practices-with-cringe-and-audacious-reply-on-x/
84 comments
You seem to have only witnessed the Nadella era. Those of us who have been around longer will confirm that the leopard has not changed its spots.
it's exactly the same awful company it's always been?
apparently putting out some "<3 Linux" ads, a somewhat usable terminal and a free IDE is enough to make people forget 40 years of abusive control
(not to mention their mostly unreliable software)
apparently putting out some "<3 Linux" ads, a somewhat usable terminal and a free IDE is enough to make people forget 40 years of abusive control
(not to mention their mostly unreliable software)
Let's not forget the free IDE comes with a telemetry tracker.
As usual..
The target market for Windows are not you and I. The target market for Windows absolutely love this stuff. For every complaint about candy crush there are three decision makers playing it. He'll I've dealt with a cto that wanted help buying candy crush credits of whatever they are called.
The target market for Windows are not you and I. The target market for Windows absolutely love this stuff. For every complaint about candy crush there are three decision makers playing it. He'll I've dealt with a cto that wanted help buying candy crush credits of whatever they are called.
Fullscreen HDR support is coming with KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland (which should be available with Fedora Linux 40 and other distributions depending on their timelines).
Nightlies are available to try out now: https://openqa.fedoraproject.org/nightlies.html
Nightlies are available to try out now: https://openqa.fedoraproject.org/nightlies.html
Sadly we will still have to wait for application. Firefox doesn't have HDR support even on Windows right now.
I seriously believe there's no institutional knowledge left at Microsoft. Seemingly everything they've been doing in the last five years has been the exact same thing inexperienced organizations who are used to the layers of abstraction do. They even failed at keeping their UI chimp simple, which was the one thing you could reliably give them credit for, even if it ended up being ugly and unwieldy at times. There's seemingly three operating systems hiding in Windows 11 and none of them were designed even knowing the others exist.
Can confirm, at least in what concerns anything WinRT/UWP/WinUI 3.0 related.
Mostly interns and fresh people out of university, with a couple of old timers as managers.
Everyone that actually knew Windows development already saved themselves into Google, AWS, Azure or jumped into AI craziness going on MS.
Those of us with long time Windows development background, would make remarks on community calls or Github issues, regarding Windows Forms or WPF capabilities still missing, both in framework features or Visual Studio tooling, and get stare looks about what we were at all talking about.
Mostly interns and fresh people out of university, with a couple of old timers as managers.
Everyone that actually knew Windows development already saved themselves into Google, AWS, Azure or jumped into AI craziness going on MS.
Those of us with long time Windows development background, would make remarks on community calls or Github issues, regarding Windows Forms or WPF capabilities still missing, both in framework features or Visual Studio tooling, and get stare looks about what we were at all talking about.
Yeah, Windows is an absolute shitshow now. I disliked macOS for a long time (and mostly still do), but Windows is such an aggravating experience that I've switched over (though if Apple Silicon wasn't so amazing, I'd probably have reverted to Linux).
This is the Microsoft of the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s winning out over the 2010s shift to actually building good products. I don’t know what changed at the executive level but it really looks like the old guard is back.
To be honest, the "old Microsoft" made better products --- or at least wasn't as focused on invasive user-hostility as now.
You can easily find the installation media for older versions of MS-DOS and Windows, as well as other MS products; and try them out in a VM to see what the experience back then was like. You can even do it in a browser now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38376731
You can easily find the installation media for older versions of MS-DOS and Windows, as well as other MS products; and try them out in a VM to see what the experience back then was like. You can even do it in a browser now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38376731
They were more focused on preventing competition than mining user data, yes. I remember that era well but I will agree that they had better UI design and documentation, in no small part because you couldn’t just assume people would find a YouTube video explaining how to use something.
Definitely, GUI frameworks went down the drain after Windows 8.
>notifications
Nobody at Microsoft pays attention to these. I'm sure of it. It's the only way to explain why, upon clicking the [x] of a notification, it remains in the notification widget. Surely they - like all the rest of us - are just letting that number above the button tick up and up until the next restart.
If they're going to shoehorn phone features into their desktop OS, do it properly! Once they've fixed this, they can get started on fixing Modern Standby.
Nobody at Microsoft pays attention to these. I'm sure of it. It's the only way to explain why, upon clicking the [x] of a notification, it remains in the notification widget. Surely they - like all the rest of us - are just letting that number above the button tick up and up until the next restart.
If they're going to shoehorn phone features into their desktop OS, do it properly! Once they've fixed this, they can get started on fixing Modern Standby.
> Man, what on Earth has happened to Microsoft?
> It’s not just Edge, Windows is a disaster too
It was always like this, getting in the way of the user.
> It’s not just Edge, Windows is a disaster too
It was always like this, getting in the way of the user.
HDR support is under heavy development and should be shipping soon
Edge started as a reffreshing take on a chromium-based browser, then they regressed to absolute early 2000s bloatware-Microsoft. I was an avid user for about 4 years. Now I avoid it like the plague, except for their awesome “Read Aloud” feature. Can’t recommend Arc browser enough, it’s a browser built with craft and designed to streamline modern workflows.
As soon as whatever team turned Windows into bloat spyware gets a hold of a project at Microsoft all bets are off. Marketing / Telemetry Driven Development is the bane of good software. They took the lesson of screwing up colossally on Windows 8 and decided to spy on everything to make sure they don't make the same mistake, and with every change that they justify by "more people are joining" I'm inching closer to becoming a Mac / Linux absolutist. If .NET wasn't my bread and butter I'd be on Linux permanently.
Edge has been problematic for a long time: "But the most intrusive phoning-home features were found in the new version of Microsoft Edge and the official Yandex Browser." https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-deemed-most-private-brow...
No, Edge started as an attempt to make a better browser engine. Then MS gave up and it became another Chrome-clone before acquiring its own brand of user-hostility.
The additional features they added were quite nice though...until it got all the extra telemetry and bloat was added.
The JS engine is open source: https://github.com/chakra-core/ChakraCore
That's https://arc.net/
The initial version wasn't based on Chromium.
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first thing it does is force me to sign up for an account? that's a no for me, dawg.
what's the business model of Arc? Don't want to switch if they run out of cash one day.
Uncertain: https://arc.net/faq
Playing with Windows 11 on a laptop after being exclusively on KDE+Wayland and using Vivaldi, surprisingly I'm enjoying using Edge. Love the vertical tabs without needing any extensions. No crashes or struggles with accelerated graphics. And the "read aloud" selection and quality of voices is pretty impressive.
The Vivaldi new release has a session manager and workspace rules which might keep my main setup there for now. I think it's the only other game in town with vertical tabs, unless that Arc browser gets windows/linux availability
The Vivaldi new release has a session manager and workspace rules which might keep my main setup there for now. I think it's the only other game in town with vertical tabs, unless that Arc browser gets windows/linux availability
Arc for windows is in private beta. I don’t know if they have a Linux version in the cards.
Yeah I think Edge uses neutral voices for TTS. They work in its iOS app as well!
Neural*
This is what I hate the most about edge. I wouldn't use it even if it were the best browser around, just because they keep trying to cram it down my throat.
Make a product that's so good it speaks for itself and spreads like wildfire through word of mouth. That's what doing a good job is.
Make a product that's so good it speaks for itself and spreads like wildfire through word of mouth. That's what doing a good job is.
Microsoft might as well say “eat shit peasant <3”
Who would prefer to use Edge, which has more telemetry than Chrome and more bloatware than Firefox?
It was for a while the only browser on Windows which allowed 4k Netflix and it was faster for me for a while than Firefox. But I'm still back to FF, just for the "we need something else than Chrome engine browsers" reason. Also, it's fast again here. Yay. Probably some support for codecs was added or it was just a few bad builds.
Also, Edge has left side tabs without the top tab bar, which Firefox still hasn't allowed again without hacks in modern extensions. Hate.
Also, Edge has left side tabs without the top tab bar, which Firefox still hasn't allowed again without hacks in modern extensions. Hate.
what's the source behind 'edge has more telemetry than chrome?"
What sane person would willingly use Microsoft's software?
With a little savviness most of it has workarounds, and at least for custom pc builds it's still the easiest OS to deal with. I do wish there were more OS options with support for latest hardware without needing to manually deal with drivers.
Windows is the most frustrating software to deal with in regard to anything. Want a dumb browser for Fac ebook, Youtube, and Google? Get a Chromebook. There is not Windows excels at that a user would want.
Many people, including tech professionals.
I’ve been an engineer for over a decade, have setup various flavors of Linux throughout my various machines, use Linux at work and for various tasks. But I still happily installed win11 on my latest PC build and am enjoying it as an OS.
Why? Simple answer. Windows is comfortable and, most importantly, everything just works. I don’t have to go hunting for drivers or worry about my hardware. It being supported on my current flavor of Linux. When I sit down to use my personal machine, I want it to just work, not to have to tinker with it to get the latest video game to play.
Windows is the Toyota Corolla of OSes. It just plain works, with everything.
I’ve been an engineer for over a decade, have setup various flavors of Linux throughout my various machines, use Linux at work and for various tasks. But I still happily installed win11 on my latest PC build and am enjoying it as an OS.
Why? Simple answer. Windows is comfortable and, most importantly, everything just works. I don’t have to go hunting for drivers or worry about my hardware. It being supported on my current flavor of Linux. When I sit down to use my personal machine, I want it to just work, not to have to tinker with it to get the latest video game to play.
Windows is the Toyota Corolla of OSes. It just plain works, with everything.
Billions of people.
do they willingly use it?
having IT provide Windows, Edge and Outlook installed on some awful underspecced HP box doesn't count
having IT provide Windows, Edge and Outlook installed on some awful underspecced HP box doesn't count
Most regular folk use the tools that come with the computer. That means running Microsoft.
The question is whether they would choose something else if given the choice.
Most probably won't. I think you're greatly overestimating the technical chops of the average PC user.
Probably not as better the devil you know. The alternative is scary to most.
Exactly. Most office workers don't really have a choice. Someone in the corporate hierarchy decided to get the Office 365 subscription because that way everything would come bundled up together.
Tangential question: Is there a utility than can get rid of Microsoft’s pesky defaults and useless functionalities like widgets via tweaks done to gpedit and registry?
I just really hate how brands use twitter to show their “character”
Well microsofts brand is "corporate pirate lawyers" the character shown here is just some asshole who will likely be fired for this or some other stupidity, two different things.
I think you’re giving them too much credit.
More likely they have some PR think-tank that came up with the idea to tweet like the cool kids in an attempt to rebrand the company
>Hey look, we’re not really corporate pirate lawyers! We tweet just like you, fellow kids! on god we deadass bussin fr no cap
More likely they have some PR think-tank that came up with the idea to tweet like the cool kids in an attempt to rebrand the company
>Hey look, we’re not really corporate pirate lawyers! We tweet just like you, fellow kids! on god we deadass bussin fr no cap
So what is the "never" button then? The little X in the top right corner perhaps? Dark patterns indeed.
Given what I've seen from MS, it's more likely that X means agree.
Or "disable until next windows update then silently re-enable it and claim it's a bug if you get caught"
Unfortunely this is the kind of stuff that kills .NET adoption outside Windows ecosystem.
same thing with android studio where google doesn't give an option to never send usage data to it (yeah, i know its that it most likely spies in some other way, but whatever). and every launch i have to say "maybe later"
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God I’m glad Apple exists
Apple is worse; MacOS is slowly becoming the locked-down hellscape of iOS. If Apple had its way with MacOS, not only would you not be able to uninstall their browser, but you also wouldn’t be allowed to install any alternative browsers.
Safari never bugs me like this.
macOS (and iOS) don’t have ads or bloatware. They are totally different from windows. Not perfect, but way better.
macOS (and iOS) don’t have ads or bloatware. They are totally different from windows. Not perfect, but way better.
> macOS (and iOS) don’t have ads or bloatware.
I beg to differ. I get prompted on iOS to upgrade my iCloud storage regularly, thanks in part to the completely nonsensical way that you manage storing messages in iOS. There is no way to disable this behavior.
And on macOS, every time I press “play” on my wireless headphones when no media is playing, Apple Music opens and prompts me to subscribe.
I beg to differ. I get prompted on iOS to upgrade my iCloud storage regularly, thanks in part to the completely nonsensical way that you manage storing messages in iOS. There is no way to disable this behavior.
And on macOS, every time I press “play” on my wireless headphones when no media is playing, Apple Music opens and prompts me to subscribe.
It's a different product because it's coupled with the hardware.
Microsoft has historically been the ugly one out of the ones that made it.
Always they had a reputation of being slimy with low quality code, bugs.
Of course the whole Casey Muratori incident also made it clear how terrible Microsoft programmers are.
I worked with 2 Microsoft principal engineers in my life and I swore I would never work with another Microsoft dev since then.
Always they had a reputation of being slimy with low quality code, bugs.
Of course the whole Casey Muratori incident also made it clear how terrible Microsoft programmers are.
I worked with 2 Microsoft principal engineers in my life and I swore I would never work with another Microsoft dev since then.
No idea what the "Casey Muratori incident" is but basing your opinion on thousands of engineers at a company on three data points, while that company has put out the most widely used software on the planet with the most diverse user base ... I don't think you have a good case here.
most widely used software
Quantity != quality.
Especially when the majority of those users are likely not using it by choice.
Quantity != quality.
Especially when the majority of those users are likely not using it by choice.
I assume you mean Excel? Launched in 85 most of the original developers probably dead.
What was the Casey Muratori incident?
Microsoft’s new terminal application rendered text extremely slowly, like 10 minutes to cat 1gb of text slow.
Casey submitted a bug saying that it’s slow and should be much much faster.
Microsoft responded something like “text is hard … … phd dissertation on rendering text”
Casey made a terminal renderer with more features than Microsoft’s renderer in a weekend, it performed orders of magnitude faster, had zero optimization work performed and he jokingly (and hilariously) titled the video “a phd dissertation”.
Next, the excuse parade rolled in and came up with all manner of excuses as to why Muratoris renderer was so much faster, so he made a follow up video addressing the excuse parade, as well as containing some very minor optimization.
Also note that Casey’s implementation isn’t even as fast as things could be. His optimizations are minor.
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEMXAbCVnmY6zCgpCFlgggR...
Casey submitted a bug saying that it’s slow and should be much much faster.
Microsoft responded something like “text is hard … … phd dissertation on rendering text”
Casey made a terminal renderer with more features than Microsoft’s renderer in a weekend, it performed orders of magnitude faster, had zero optimization work performed and he jokingly (and hilariously) titled the video “a phd dissertation”.
Next, the excuse parade rolled in and came up with all manner of excuses as to why Muratoris renderer was so much faster, so he made a follow up video addressing the excuse parade, as well as containing some very minor optimization.
Also note that Casey’s implementation isn’t even as fast as things could be. His optimizations are minor.
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEMXAbCVnmY6zCgpCFlgggR...
Assume its related to this:
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362
It's nothing serious just microsoft engineers writing slow as shit code and reacting poorly to someone trying to help.
https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362
It's nothing serious just microsoft engineers writing slow as shit code and reacting poorly to someone trying to help.
I think that response is hilarious. Tongue-in-cheek recognition that it’s bullshit.
I feel dumb, but I don't get their response or why it's hilarious. It's just wrong?
So’s your face.
Some random social media manager is not Microsoft.
they're part of the PR team, their job is to literally represent the company to the public
It’s not just Edge, Windows is a disaster too. I just got a new laptop, and I was surprised by the sheer amount of bloat (widgets, notifications, crappy Bing AI integration, Edge, etc). It took me a whole afternoon of delving into the registry and group policy editors to clean things up. (EDIT: forgot to mention) And then I started getting a “totally not marketing” “this is a series of welcome emails” spam with no unsubscribe links.
I really want to switch back to Linux. The only thing stopping me is the lack of HDR display support.