[HN Gopher] Microsoft is now injecting full-size ads on Chrome w...
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Microsoft is now injecting full-size ads on Chrome website
Author : joenathanone
Score : 314 points
Date : 2023-02-21 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.neowin.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.neowin.net)
| sf_rob wrote:
| The escalation here (moreso than the size/language) is that there
| appears to be zero indication that this banner is part of the
| browser chrome (unlike previous iterations). I believe that it is
| still technically browser chrome, but the UI is indiscernible.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Yeah, this is a huge breach of trust! Ads in the browser would
| _merely_ be super annoying and unprofessional, ads injected
| into the content box of a competitor 's website is downright
| scary. What's next? Blocking users from downloading Chrome
| outright?! Replacing the Chrome installer with a program that
| extols the virtues of Edge?!
|
| Okay, I don't _actually_ believe they would go that far. But if
| you 'd asked me before seeing this article whether they'd even
| go this far I'd probably have said no, so who even knows at
| this point? Even if it turns out the misleading nature of this
| ad was unintentional, that's a pretty egregious oversight,
| especially since they _had_ to know an ad in this context would
| be closely scrutinized regardless of how they presented it.
| bombcar wrote:
| There was a good post about how the "red line" got crossed and
| you can no longer trust anything on the screen to be "from the
| program" anymore.
| samspenc wrote:
| Ah fascinating, I honestly thought they were injecting HTML on
| Google's Chrome page, that's what it looked like, and I was
| wondering how in the world that was legal.
|
| But this makes a lot more sense, if it's part of the browser
| chrome, and only shows up when people visit the Chrome page,
| there's probably no legal boundaries crossed here or injection
| into other websites happening. But man does that look like part
| of the website and injected in there.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Is anyone surprised? Microsoft has good parts in it, but wolf
| changes clothes something something.. core was rotten for so
| long, so what and when changed?
| jmclnx wrote:
| > with the added trust of Microsoft
|
| That is a cute quote. They should have a smiley after that quote
| on the ad.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| You are a bad user, for wanting to abandon me. I have been
| nothing but trustworthy and chrome-like. I am a good Edge. :)
| rgovostes wrote:
| That's completely out of line with Microsoft's brand. It should
| end with a J
|
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-seven-...
| guywithahat wrote:
| Reminds me of a brief moment in time where ISP's started
| injecting ads into websites through http
| mbwgh wrote:
| Oh boy do I have news for you:
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vodafone-plan...
| paweladamczuk wrote:
| Related: I recently opened a link from Outlook on Android. It
| asked me which browser to choose: Chrome or Edge. I didn't even
| have Edge installed on my device. The promot seemed to try to
| look like Android system prompt, but it suggested installing
| missing Edge browser.
| asmor wrote:
| I honestly feel like Edge is run by product owners with no
| accountability to anyone, who get paid substantially more if the
| numbers go up. Except they're different numbers per team, and
| some of them are working against each other.
| mig39 wrote:
| Just as annoying as having "Hey! Download Chrome!" ads in your
| gmail.
| vanviegen wrote:
| That's just ads. You are also welcome to pay for using Gmail or
| any other email provider.
|
| And fortunately, it didn't add these ads to your outgoing
| email, like Microsoft used to do.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It might be as annoying, but I don't find it quite as evil. At
| least that is just Google deciding to put an ad on their own
| website that is annoying... it isn't abusing the browser to put
| an ad on someone else's website
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Firefox is the only non-evil browser.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Even that's debatable.
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| This latest move just reeks of desperation
| blibble wrote:
| with the "added trust of microsoft"?
|
| 10 years ago this would have been on The Onion
| Razengan wrote:
| Microsoft _always_ reeked of "me too/notice me!" desperation
| :)
| avgDev wrote:
| Smells like war to me.
| favaq wrote:
| >Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its
| browser. More importantly, only on its own websites!
|
| Well yeah, because that's all they can do...
| LeonB wrote:
| In the chrome browser they could inject anything anywhere.
| favaq wrote:
| It doesn't make sense to insert chrome ads in chrome.
| [deleted]
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Does it make sense to insert Edge ads in Edge?
| satysin wrote:
| Not at all. Most people use Chrome as their browser. It would
| be trivial for Google to show a Gmail ad when you visit
| outlook.com using Chrome just like Microsoft are doing.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Happily living on Firefox for several years now on my Macs. I
| wish I could quit more of both Google and Microsoft. But I'm an
| Apple-whore and I don't see myself quitting them anytime soon. I
| probably should though...
| bogwog wrote:
| Whenever I have to (re)install/setup Windows on a family
| member's machine, it's a miserable experience. The only silver
| lining is the petty satisfaction I get from watching Edge and
| Bing pathetically beg me to not install Chrome. I actually
| always type "Google Chrome" into Bing instead of going directly
| to chrome.com, just for the show.
| graypegg wrote:
| There is something satisfying about the thought that some
| percentage on an analytics dashboard at microsoft just went
| down by 0.00001%. However small it is, at least with modern
| windows, your malfeasance is measured and logged! :)
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| > it constantly comes with more aggressive and user-hostile
| methods to make customers stay on Edge
|
| I think somebody just coined a phrase
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| "make customers stay on Edge" is a great corporate slogan
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| This simply must be illegal in the EU (or will be soon)
| naillo wrote:
| So happy this company is going to be the first in charge of
| deploying AGI to the world.
| alphabetting wrote:
| In my opinion AGI is much more likely to be first deployed by a
| country. If it is a company it would be a Chinese company with
| government backing. They are already funding massive models for
| their big tech companies and universities.
| margorczynski wrote:
| Gigachad move to be honest. I would against it in general, but
| hey, it's Google we're talking about so they're tasting their own
| poison.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Tasting their own poison? Does Google use Chrome to inject ads
| onto others websites under _any_ circumstance?
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| They used to bundle themselves to installers and updaters
| like literal spyware. I don't see how you can defend either
| of them so let them fight. Also their competitor Apple has
| normalized the idea that they have a say what gets installed
| to your machine and not, they can invite Apple to the party
| as well as far as I care.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Google uses their websites to inject Chrome into your
| computer. I'd say they have no right to complain
| threatofrain wrote:
| So Google advertising their own products _on their own
| website_ means we shouldn 't be complaining about Microsoft
| injecting ads when viewing competitor websites? And as
| users, we have to wait for Google to stop advertising on
| their own websites before having the prerogative to
| complain about Microsoft using their browser to inject ads?
| morelinks wrote:
| I must laugh that Microsoft adopted Google's work and then
| leveraged it against them with such force.
| kmac_ wrote:
| It goes deeper, Google forked Apple's WebKit, which was
| forked from KDE's KHTML forked from khtmlw.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is so weird to me. I was an early KDE user and
| remembering thinking KDE was great but the integrated web
| browser was absolute garbage. At that time it could only
| render a tiny fraction of pages at a usable level, I
| certainly never expected it to become what it has.
| dzonga wrote:
| Google and Microsoft are two of the worst companies I have seen
| that have no regard for the end user.
|
| to them we're just dumb consumers - who don't know know anything
| or have no personal agency.
|
| google will literally change your android settings on a whim,
| whether it's the how the icons looks etc, colors whatever.
|
| microsoft will try by all means to reset your personal choices
| about the applications you wanna use or the settings /
| preferences you want for your machine.
|
| both these companies treat consumers as landlords treat tenants.
| as a pest merely to be tolerated
| partiallypro wrote:
| Microsoft does so many good things, then does things like this. I
| don't get this company sometimes. Feels like half the company is
| one step into the future and the other is stuck in the 90s. That
| being said, Google has so many stupid nags when I use Edge. Not a
| justification, but this runs both ways.
| morelinks wrote:
| How would MSFT react if Google injected a "GOOGLE DOCS IS FREE
| AND BETTER!" banner on Microsoft365 pages loaded in Chrome?
| Disgusting tactic.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| How can they inject since MITM is impossible when the site is
| served via a TLS cert?
| phoe-krk wrote:
| TLS is worthless if they control the software that is
| rendering the website after it's decrypted. And, well, they
| do control Edge.
| bogwog wrote:
| Because Google owns the browser and can render whatever they
| want onto your screen.
| [deleted]
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Don't call anyone a weenie though, that'll get you in antitrust
| trouble for sure.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/15/technology/microsoft-inve...
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| the way they inject "CHROME IS BETTER" when you visit
| google.com?
| thfuran wrote:
| No, not like that. That's Google's site.
| wvenable wrote:
| Are you saying someone shouldn't be able to put whatever they
| want on their own website? Even _gasp_ market their own
| products on their own website?
| Arainach wrote:
| That's not injected. That's rendered by Google on the sites
| they control.
| mrits wrote:
| The main issue here isn't propaganda.
| Spivak wrote:
| Their reaction: "Oh damn, that's good idea, let me call some
| PMs."
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Google does not have clean hands here, they paid to have chrome
| bundled with all kinds of scummy (and not so scummy) software
| and made it really difficult not to accidentally install.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| And when I have to use Bing and go to google I get a similar (ok
| it is only half-size) Chrome advertisement :D Wonder who was
| first and if this is some kind of rebuttal, or just sad
| coincidence of today's world.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| There's a big difference between buying ads for your product,
| and corrupting the output of another companies website.
|
| This act basically says "Hey, use Edge and you cannot trust
| what you are looking at is what was transmitted".
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Maybe, but personally I don't care and feel that difference
| much at all - both can go and d... forcing me a specialized
| advertisement just because I use your unrelated search site
| with the wrong and not your browser is the same as
| advertising when I visit another browsers website that is not
| you - to me. But to be honest, I have a strange relationship
| with unasked and unconsented advertisements at all, imo they
| are one of the biggest unnecessary wastage sins today ;)
| [deleted]
| summerlight wrote:
| Looks like their fond memories of United States v. Microsoft Corp
| is fading away. Perhaps it's a great time to make MS recall this,
| and all other big techs as well?
| zuminator wrote:
| I just went right now to https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html
| using Edge and didn't get a full-size ad, but a little corner
| pop-up.
| tech234a wrote:
| That popup has been around in Edge for awhile, judging by the
| Bing icon in the top right corner of the article screenshot, I
| think the author is using a pre-release version of Edge that
| has the bigger version of the prompt.
| AJRF wrote:
| Microsoft snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with this.
| They have momentum and good cred built from their other bets then
| some overstuffed suit pushes for time to be spent on this.
| elforce002 wrote:
| Of course they are going to do it. I used edge to download other
| browsers, that's it.
| rom-antics wrote:
| > added trust of Microsoft
|
| What trust is left? Trust that they'll sell your data to loan
| companies? https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-
| pay-la...
| grouchomarx wrote:
| Trust and MS don't belong in the same sentence
| kdtsh wrote:
| Unless the sentence starts with 'Don't.'
| christophilus wrote:
| Or Anti.
| starbugs wrote:
| Trust and Microsoft in the same sentence is really approaching
| peak irony. Especially in this context.
| rmason wrote:
| I'm on a new Windows 11 machine. It seems every other time that I
| receive a Windows update it resets my browser preferences. Talked
| with a friend who manages thousands of Windows 11 instances and
| he says it is a freaking nightmare for him.
|
| I have good friends working for Microsoft and I am generally
| positive towards the company. But it is stuff like this that
| makes them rather hard to defend to their critics.
| vgt wrote:
| My (Zwift) gaming PC is on Windows. The contrast to my work/hobby
| OSX is jarring. I am constantly bombarded with ads with opt-out
| tricks. It feels unclean to say the least.
|
| The worst OSX gets is trying to get me to agree to iTunes ToS
| once a month without a way to turn it off.
| thepill wrote:
| How is this technically done by microsoft? Are they intercepting
| the network requests?
| Raed667 wrote:
| I would bet they have a "hidden" extension embedded in edge,
| that just injects a content-script
| lolc wrote:
| It's not part of the content area, but above it. The browser
| decides what it paints in its window. And apparently Microsoft
| thinks pushing an ad above a competitors page is a good idea.
|
| To the people who care, it's another reminder on why they don't
| trust Microsoft. For the rest, it's just another ad.
| Disregarded.
| luckylion wrote:
| It's in Edge, they control the browser and everything the
| browser does.
| jmull3n wrote:
| I'm curious what Chromium based browser HN users would recommend
| for web development.
|
| I stopped using Brave since they added a bunch of crypto garbage.
| Chrome and Edge both have telemetry and Google/Microsoft account
| sign in nagging.
|
| Currently using Firefox. Love Orion as well on my phone but the
| Webkit Devtools make it unusable for development.
| attentive wrote:
| Still brave. You can disable "crypto garbage" and still use the
| good stuff.
| jdlyga wrote:
| The problem with Edge is that it's become loaded with so many
| useless features. I like Chrome because it's fairly lightweight
| in terms of design. If I wanted a fully loaded browser I'd use
| Vivaldi.
| 71bw wrote:
| Exactly this, Edge was #1 until they started adding stuff. At
| this point, I'm honestly expecting them to add a OBD2 VAG
| debugging application as a built-in feature...
| pkulak wrote:
| I love the attitude of this article; trying to pretend that Chome
| is somehow better for privacy than... anything.
| mabbo wrote:
| If this is fair and legal, why not have Google do the same
| things?
|
| You're using Chrome and on the website to buy Office? How about
| an injected ad that says that Google docs is free and just as
| good.
|
| Attempting to buy a Windows PC? How about an injected ad
| explaining how good ChromeOS is?
|
| Microsoft are honestly insane to try to play these games with
| Google. Then again, I've read that 4% of Americans believe they
| could win a fight with a Grizzly bear.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The Lizardman's constant strikes again.
| danaris wrote:
| If Microsoft and Google get into a war over who can be the most
| obnoxious to people using the other's stuff, that sounds like
| great advertisement for Apple to me...
|
| "Use Safari! It won't yell at you for daring to visit a
| competitor's website!"
| pcblues wrote:
| And where will it show that ad? Whenever you use their
| devices to visit Google and MS sites, of course :)
| eertami wrote:
| Only if you're naive enough to think that Apple doesn't do
| the exact same thing with Safari when you launch other
| browsers...
|
| https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/153379/how-do-
| you-...
| tcheard wrote:
| No Apple just don't even allow you to install a non Webkit
| browser from the app store on their phones.
|
| Why waste time advertising on competitor's websites when you
| can just stop them from using competitors altogether (or at
| least require them to use you at the same time)
| someNameIG wrote:
| That's only the rendering engine, Chrome and Edge would
| still have all their tracking, marketing, default search
| built into their browsers on iOS.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Yeah, Apple isn't immune to this crap either:
|
| https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/TRYTHENEWSAFARI.html
| gretch wrote:
| There's no reason why Apple can't be pulled into a stupid
| war.
|
| Imagine going to the iPad product page on Edge and being met
| with "hey you should buy a surface tablet instead".
|
| Apple then retaliates with similar tactics.
| causality0 wrote:
| Microsoft has what Urban Dictionary would call "chronic Small
| Dick Energy". It's why they constantly erode user agency and do
| bizarrely counterproductive things like putting ads in the file
| explorer. It's not financial, it's the culture. They don't like
| you, and they want you to know they think the people who use
| their operating system are stupid.
| giobox wrote:
| On the contrary, search ad revenue is but a relatively small
| part of Microsoft's overall business. If you want to place bets
| search is a critical battleground for AI (Microsoft/Satya
| clearly seem to), it makes sense to attack them here.
|
| For google, search revenue largely _is_ the business. Every
| point Microsoft can take out of Google 's search marketshare
| hurts Google far more than the reverse. Attacking Google's
| browser share will also reduce the number of people with Google
| search as the default.
|
| Forcing Google to adopt more LLM/AI features will also
| significantly increase their cost per search query in the near
| term, if Microsoft can meaningfully change consumer
| expectations of search. These LLM queries are much more
| expensive to service today than a traditional search.
|
| This is all the more interesting because for the first time
| ever Google have wobbled in their dominance of search, there
| might actually be an opportunity here for Microsoft. That was
| almost unthinkable a couple of years ago.
|
| I personally don't see how this is any better or worse really
| than the billions of dollars Google pay Apple every year to
| secure the iOS default search engine setting, eliminating vast
| amounts of rival marketshare in a single move.
| c4nc3ld wrote:
| [dead]
| swarnie wrote:
| > says that Google docs is free and just as good.
|
| Because it would be referred to the trade commission for false
| advertising is my guess.
| eli wrote:
| They already push Chrome on you if you're accessing a google
| property with Edge.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Well, yes, because it's Google's website.
|
| It would be quite different if Google's browser started
| modifying Microsoft's websites, as Microsoft is Google's.
| Yujf wrote:
| It is not modifying the website. It is microsofts browser
| that shows you stuff above the website....
|
| I think both are absolutely disgusting
| wolpoli wrote:
| What Microsoft has done here is certainly an escalation
| of what Google had been doing in recent years. Perhaps
| Google shouldn't have started being so aggressive with
| the popups to begin with.
|
| Yes, I think both are absolutely disgusting too.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Then again, I've read that 4% of Americans believe they could
| win a fight with a Grizzly bear.
|
| I assume you're talking about a bare-handed fight? If we can
| use tools and have time to prep, I'd say the odds shift pretty
| handily in the human's favor. Anyway, I dunno about a bear, but
| the guy who invented Gunite managed to strangle a leopard to
| death in a bare-handed fight. Although, if I recall, he had
| shot it before it jumped him, and it did take him a few months
| to recover from the wounds he suffered.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Akeley
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Then again, I've read that 4% of Americans believe they could
| win a fight with a Grizzly bear.
|
| I bet I could. Maybe on a good day. Not, like, 9 times out of
| 10, but maybe 1 or 2. Sure, he outranks me in muscles and
| claws, but I can out-think him, and really, isn't our brain our
| most powerful muscle? Much like how the powerful and crafty
| coyote is more than capable of catching a roadrunner, even
| though the bird is ostensibly faster.
| [deleted]
| JenrHywy wrote:
| There's an interview with John Danaher talking about if his
| student, and widely considered the best grappler of all time,
| Gordan Ryan, could compete with a grizzly or even a chimp.
| It's a fun listen.
| kill_nate_kill wrote:
| Wile E. Coyote's main strength was his DoD-like blank cheque
| spending ability at the defense contractor Acme Corp. His
| access to advanced technology was the super power that
| ultimately leads to his downfall.
| [deleted]
| gear54rus wrote:
| Can't tell if you're serious haha
| poolopolopolo wrote:
| Except that chrome and edge are the same thing for the most
| part, meanwhile ChromeOS desktop is a piece of crap not
| supported by any major enterprise software.
| airstrike wrote:
| I don't think ChromeOS is losing any sales because customers
| don't know "how good" it is
|
| The analogy between people and Grizzly bears fails because
| Microsoft's market cap today is $1.8 trillion... Sure, I went
| on Google, not Bing, to check that $1.8T figure--Google may
| very well be the king of search, but Microsoft is the king of
| countless other products
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > If this is fair and legal, why not have Google do the same
| things?
|
| Google has never injected an ad from what I know, but they're
| bad actors too.
|
| - They push chrome when using Google via Edge
|
| - If you login from Edge or IE the security warning email
| includes a huge ad for Chrome, or at least it did.
|
| - On iOS they refuse to let you simply open links from YouTube
| in safari. They always prompt about what browser you want to
| use and ignore the default. The prompt is obnoxious, designed
| to make you misclick, and the app never remembers your choice.
| lolinder wrote:
| I can't believe I'm defending Google, but all of those things
| are on their own properties. Aggressive and user-hostile,
| yes, but they're not abusing their ownership of the browser
| to modify their competitor's site.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| I won't defend user hostile actions regardless of where
| it's done. Google is a bad actor when it comes to abusing
| their position, so is MS.
|
| I don't however think there's a strong argument to be made
| that MS is modifying the website unless they MITM it. It's
| well within their right to make their browser display
| something they want it to in a specific situation.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I don't particularly like edge but I'm happy someone is poking
| the bear. Chrome dominance is bad and is too much power in the
| hand of one company. Competition and diversity of browsers is
| good.
|
| And yes, I am getting "login with google" modal on half of the
| websites I visit even though I don't even have a google
| account, don't use chrome, and don't want touch anything
| google.
| grenoire wrote:
| Edge is Chromium.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| fight fire with fire
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Indeed, it's ridiculous to think that Edge does anything to
| keep Google in check. It's a sign of how thoroughly MS was
| defeated on this front that they now reskin the browser
| developed by their competition.
|
| Edge may be good for Microsoft, because it allows them to
| siphon off even more user data and (apparently) inject more
| ads, but it surely doesn't do anything to help the browser
| ecosystem.
| pc86 wrote:
| And Chromium isn't Chrome. What's your point?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| But Chrome, Chromium, and Edge are all Blink. IMO the
| GGP's fear of "Chrome dominance" is better expressed as
| "Blink dominance". I don't think anyone particularly
| _liked_ Trident or EdgeHTML but at least they represented
| a more diverse rendering-engine-world.
| GabeIsko wrote:
| Isn't the login with google just an OAuth thing? Most of the
| time, websites that use OAuth still want me to make an
| account with them. It's like, what is the point? Are people
| just implementing OAuth and then later deciding that they
| would like to be a provider for some reason? It seems tied to
| capital investment based on some conversations I have had
| with startup engineers...
| cm2187 wrote:
| Maybe, but google will create a modal that will overlay the
| website to notify me I can login to this website using
| google even though I am not even trying to login. Given
| that it is the same modal across very different websites,
| it has to be google being obnoxious.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| That's something developers explicitly enable, probably
| because it increases conversion.
|
| It's bundled with the Sign in with Google SDK but
| defaults to off.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| They're just going to improve Chrome dominance when they fuck
| around with website content like this.
|
| You can't trust Edge not to edit what you see. That's hard
| trust to win back.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Google has been doing this for years to Firefox and Edge users
| proto-n wrote:
| On their own websites, which is a huge difference
| anothernewdude wrote:
| Fuck, why have browsers display the pages at all? They should
| all redirect to Bing and Chrome, unless its a page their
| companies approve of.
| slim wrote:
| I think you're not agressive enough. Why not hijack the whole
| page? How about you go to bing.com and find google search
| instead.
| revskill wrote:
| Curious to know which HN user is the developer behind this ad.
| tencentshill wrote:
| [dead]
| gerash wrote:
| This is a great reminder that Microsoft is still the same old
| company with a similar mindset even under their new management.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Something is off there... those look like mock-ups, not real UI.
| Also, I just tried on my Windows 11 machine, running the latest
| Edge and all I see is a pop-up (not injected into the HTML of the
| page, but separate from the browser window), just like in the
| past.
|
| It's possible they got some PM's "smart idea" that no one will
| ever greenlight. Or it's possible they're on some pre-release /
| insider builds where MS is testing / experimenting with it.
|
| Either way, I'll reserve my outrage for when I see this in a
| released version.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Nothing about it looks like a mock-up to me, and the author is
| clear they were running real software. Can you point to what
| specific part of the interface doesn't appeal real?
|
| Also, the author clearly states it "might be a thing Microsoft
| tries on a limited set of Edge insiders or only in specific
| regions".
| gigel82 wrote:
| The UI controls don't look like that in Windows 11 (even on
| the white theme), and also who actually installs the Bing
| add-on? (or are they saying that Bing icon thing should now
| be in Edge as well?).
|
| Again, it's possible they're signed up for insider builds (or
| dogfooding, or otherwise obtained some branch build of
| Windows); but with all the latest updates applied to my
| Windows 11 OS (and Edge) I see nothing like this (so no
| repro).
| ezrast wrote:
| The article states that the ad is in Edge Canary and not
| stable builds.
| someNameIG wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be in the dev build (at least on macOS)
| either.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| "With the added trust of Microsoft"
|
| Trust? (Eyeroll)
| bogwog wrote:
| Fuck Google and their internet monopoly, but I have to give it to
| them for not doing shit like this. If I had to pick a tech giant
| to run the internet, I'd rather have Google than Microsoft.
|
| ...although, fuck Google still (and the rest of big tech)
| harry8 wrote:
| No google took your (and your mum's) gmail sign in from the
| gmail website, intercepted it in their browser to log your
| /browser/ into their servers that have /nothing/ to do with
| email so they could better spy on you and build a better
| database about your online activity. Without your consent.
| Without your mum's consent. Knowing they didn't have it.
| Knowing exactly what they were doing when they did it and
| making shitty excuses pretending it was something anyone
| wanted.
|
| They did it dishonestly, covertly and knowingly for profit.
| People should have gone to jail the same as if they broke into
| sergey and larry's houses and photographed everything and sold
| the pictures to the highest bidder while claiming "consent"
| because they typed the question into chrome which larry and
| sergey have decided to monitor.
|
| The idea that Google is better than Microsoft is like arguing
| whether fresh horse manure is worse to eat than fresh cow
| manure.
|
| Take each crook entirely individually.
|
| Google is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and needs
| to be broken up into tiny pieces.
|
| Completely separately to that and in no way is it related:
|
| Microsoft is horrible, market abusing, foul, dishonest and
| needs to be broken up into tiny pieces.
|
| In the race to the bottom everyone who passes the threshold of
| acceptable behaviour in civilized, democratic society that
| upholds the rule of law and equality before it needs to dealt
| with separately in the strongest terms. "But s/he does worse!"
| is as ridiculous a defence as it sounds.
|
| And when you look at what Apple are doing, google are not
| interesting.
|
| And when you look at what facebook does, microsoft are not
| interesting.
|
| And so on.
|
| Break them up.
|
| /me waves to the cia/fbi/nsa aplogists who clearly want them
| all big and controlled.
| yborg wrote:
| It's all different now that Satya is in charge. /s
| aimkey wrote:
| [dead]
| btown wrote:
| There are echoes of the net neutrality debate here, where one
| might argue that: beyond the OSI Application Layer (HTTP etc.)
| there is also the Layer Where The Browser Decides What Pixels To
| Show, and that we would want that new layer to be every bit as
| neutral as, say, whether T-Mobile can shape lower-layer video
| traffic based on its business partnerships.
|
| But there's also a lot of nuance here. Imagine there was a law or
| regulation that said that a browser manufacturer must only write
| code that is agnostic to the current URL; imagine it said, say,
| that Edge developers cannot deploy code that detects that Edge is
| on google.com/chrome and decide based on that information to
| execute certain code.
|
| Unfortunately, a version of this per-site customization is
| arguably exactly what Chrome does for the HSTS preload list:
| https://hstspreload.org/ - and disallowing this would not be good
| for security at all!
|
| And imagine if there is an urgent Chrome security fix that, as a
| side effect, causes the Outlook login screen to bug out - or any
| other mission-critical login page on the web. The most reasonable
| hotfix might be to push a quick fix that whitelists certain
| domains for the legacy behavior. But this, too, would be
| disallowed.
|
| We definitely don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater
| just because Microsoft got a little cute - arguably _too_ cute -
| here.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| Go look at the amount of times IsGoogleHost or HasGoogleHost
| are called from within Chromium. For instance, autofill works
| differently for Google-owned services:
|
| https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com...
|
| Additional network telemetry is enabled when interacting with a
| Google-owned property ( this is known as "domain_reliability"
| --
| https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com...
| )
|
| Chromium is not a neutral browser already.
| attentive wrote:
| If I read this [1] right, brave has removed it.
|
| 1. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1734
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I don't think there's a realistic baby-bathwater trade-off
| here. This is just leveraging, using your power in one market
| (PC operating systems) to gain a competitive advantage in
| another market (browsers). It's not some deeply technical
| subject the courts and legislators are incapable of
| understanding, they just haven't cared since US v. Microsoft
| ended.
| dokem wrote:
| Wow that is ballsy. 90s Bill would be proud.
| teknopaul wrote:
| Is it legal? Isn't injecting stuff into other people's websites
| protected in some way?
|
| It's a nasty precedent. One stop of browsers banning you from
| access to competitors websites.
| dokem wrote:
| I think the only legal issues is from an anti-competetive
| angle which the courts would have to settle. I don't think
| they are violating any sort of computer crime laws. It
| definitely feels slimy, though.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Net neutrality? Trademark infringement?
| qingdao99 wrote:
| Worst case scenario, they could just move the banner to be
| "within the browser's GUI" (while still seeming to extend
| over the page) rather than actually in the page and that
| issue would go away.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think it's already this way right now. Look at the
| scrollbar height on the screenshot in the article.
| joenathanone wrote:
| I would imagine the antitrust judgement would have given them
| pause in implementing something like this but here we are...
| heisenbit wrote:
| Listening in to what users do is the way to earn their trust
| and if they don't get it by themselves what could be better
| than telling them straight away.
| clement_b wrote:
| I nearly considered moving to Edge on my last Windows install.
|
| In the end, it's true that IE/Edge were bad choices before moving
| to WebKit. Now, why not? A more integrated browser (as Safari is
| for Mac) makes sense x Google being evil(er) x Firefox being left
| behind (for bad reasons, but still) x Bing being a good Bing x
| Google Search being less useful.
|
| I agree the method isn't good, but feels like Edge is not a bad
| choice anymore.
| junon wrote:
| Firefox certainly hasn't been left behind. I'm not a Firefox
| fanatic and don't use it all the time but it's far from a
| bad/abandoned browser.
| [deleted]
| vanviegen wrote:
| "Edge is not a bad choice anymore"!? _That 's_ your response to
| discovering Edge is injecting ads in competitors' websites?
|
| Any browser that crosses this line is irredeemably corrupt in
| my book. I will not have it.
| attentive wrote:
| It's bad for privacy. Worse than chrome IMHO. For me it's
| either firefox or brave.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Google is using much less annoying banners to promote its
| browser. More importantly, only on its own websites!
|
| In fairness, they only show the message on their website, but
| their website is most people's home page, and it is how most
| people would find an alternative browser in the first place. It's
| debatable whether it's actually less visually annoying.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Lol! I can't even use Google anymore because half the screen
| asks me to sign in even when I've repeatedly denied to do so
| when searching in Safari on iOS. I simply use DDG now.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| I tend to block these elements via ublock's node selector. I do
| thr same on youtube for all their "context" boxes that try to
| lie to you via appeal to authority.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I don't know how they didn't get fined for their decade-long
| Chrome spam campaign. They even used to bundle it with other
| software downloads, a la Ask Toolbar
| cortesoft wrote:
| Is Google most Edge users home page?
| gerash wrote:
| Wait, so if you live next to a busy road you must be ok with me
| posting lawn signs for my desired candidate on your front yard
| because everyone sees your front yard and not mine.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > In fairness, they only show the message on their website,
|
| And all of their apps which conveniently "firget" user
| selection:
| https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1625756307297914883
| com2kid wrote:
| People forget that when Chrome first came out, Google was
| paying to have it bundled alongside antivirus updates, and
| pretty much every other place they could shove it in.
|
| At some point I gave up switching my mother's computer back to
| Firefox, there was no way I could keep Chrome off of her
| machine, it just kept getting installed.
| tjoff wrote:
| And before that it was the google toolbar. Literal spyware.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Toolbar was made back when IE lacked a search bar and
| omnibar wasn't even considered of.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Exactly. This is such a weird half-assed defence of Google.
| It's like saying you should be grateful cos they only shot you
| once not twice.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| just.. WTF
| gogglefox wrote:
| I'd quite like to see Microsoft do this for other software and
| services too.
|
| Like if someone goes on the Adobe Illustrator website, it shows a
| little banner informing them of Inkscape.
|
| Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it
| gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the
| server administrator will probably read your private messages.
| brenns10 wrote:
| > Or if someone is about to sign up to a Mastodon instance, it
| gently points out that this isn't really Twitter, and that the
| server administrator will probably read your private messages.
|
| If you want the server administrator to _definitely_ read your
| private messages, there 's always Twitter! :P
| koromak wrote:
| Micrsoft yet again destroying the last shreds of its goodwill
| with the tech crowd
| itslennysfault wrote:
| The google site should detect the window size shrinking and
| inject their own banner below.
|
| Something like... ^^ THE ABOVE IS A LIE. GOOGLE
| ROCKS!!
| graypegg wrote:
| Honestly if this is really injected into the DOM being rendered
| by the web view... I'm sure someone at google with an insider's
| windows license has a branch somewhere that silently waits for
| it to be added, then removes it.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Desperation is a stinky cologne.
| impulser_ wrote:
| Google should one up them and add banners to Outlook, Office,
| Bing, and Teams.
|
| Based on customer surveys Google is more trusted than Microsoft.
|
| I'm sure Microsoft will love it.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Likely this would have the opposite of the intended effect.
| Leave Microsoft to go the lower road.
| dspillett wrote:
| While I can't say I particularly trust Google,
|
| _> "with the added trust of Microsoft"_
|
| is comedy gold. Next they'll be advertising WSL as "the
| friendliness of Unix combined with the stability & security of
| Windows".
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(page generated 2023-02-21 23:00 UTC)