[HN Gopher] Outlook now ignores Windows' Default Browser and ope...
___________________________________________________________________
Outlook now ignores Windows' Default Browser and opens links in
Edge by default
Author : mfwit
Score : 711 points
Date : 2023-06-27 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.microsoft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.microsoft.com)
| atlgator wrote:
| The Outlook mobile web app has been down all day. Would be nice
| if Microsoft fixed it.
| jdlyga wrote:
| I wouldn't mind Edge if it were a Microsoft branded version of
| Chromium. It started out that way, and it was nice. But it's
| attracted every team at Microsoft and a total explosion of semi-
| useful features until it became totally bloated.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| The final straw for me and Windows was when I took the time to
| remove some annoying feature, cortana or edge, can't remember.
|
| Then an update replaced my work.
|
| It wasnt some 'uninstall program', but a multi-step process that
| involved registry editing.
|
| I don't feel like I have control over Windows.
| contravariant wrote:
| I think I mangled the ownership of the folder it tries to
| install edge in just to prevent it from reinstalling it every
| single time.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| You don't. Windows even overwrites custom boot loaders on
| certain updates, to try to make your life miserable if you dual
| boot linux. It's a roughly twice-annual problem to solve
| dbg31415 wrote:
| I think these two things help make Windows more usable.
|
| * O&O ShutUp10++ - Free antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11 |
| https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
|
| * StevenBlack/hosts: Consolidating and extending hosts files
| from several well-curated sources. Optionally pick extensions
| for porn, social media, and other categories. |
| https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
| gabereiser wrote:
| You never had control over windows. Not since the ME/XP days.
| You don't have control over MacOS either. The only OS you have
| any control over is Linux and even some of those you don't.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| I suppose there was enough freedom from 95-XP, it didn't
| matter that much. I never had an issue perfectly customizing
| my experience.
|
| Today I can't get rid of ads/news/cortana/edge.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| XP was the version that started pushing updates despite
| whatever you would configure and deny executing if you
| didn't jump through the correct hops.
|
| You still had some amount of control on 95. MS had the
| power to take your control away at any point, but they
| didn't at that time.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I suppose they weren't as obnoxious/desperate about it in the
| past, though. I feel like past methods were more about
| lawsuits and software patents than about annoying every
| individual consumer that paid for your damn product
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I don't know if it's still happening, but for a while windows
| updates were helpfully "fixing" the EFI boot partition (or
| maybe it was a boot firmware thing, I never figured it out) by
| making windows primary and breaking my Linux entry .
|
| My friends would be like "do you want to play games?" and I'd
| be like "yeah hang on while I make some boot media so I can
| recover afterwards."
| cma wrote:
| SteamOS Linux does this too on Steamdeck, wiping out dual
| boot setups on updates.
| rjh29 wrote:
| This happened on my new PC. I dual-boot Ubuntu with grub2.
| After Windows update, it booted into Windows immediately and
| bypassed grub. The EFI had been "fixed".
|
| I worked around this by installing Ubuntu on a second SSD,
| then I can use my bios menu to change the boot device.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| This bullshit still happens with the latest version of
| Windows 11. I found that I had to demote Windows Boot Manager
| to a lower position in my EFI boot order, whereas removing it
| completely from my boot order and removing the boot entry
| cause Windows to install itself as first priority the moment
| it booted. I have not tried retaining the boot entry
| (skipping efibootmgr -b0000 -B) but removing it from the boot
| order (efibootmgr -o 0001).
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Windows 10 updated my laptop's BIOS and in the process reset
| it to defaults. This basically bricked my laptop. Yeah I know
| how to go in and set a boot drive again, but not everyone
| should have to understand how that works.
| yrro wrote:
| This is 100% on your laptop manufacturer.
| yrro wrote:
| Windows and GRUB will both compete for who gets to own
| \EFI\boot\bootx64.efi; but that file is only used when you
| tell your firmware "boot off this hard drive".
|
| If Windows is removing another OS's entries from the boot
| list (displayed when you run 'efibootmgr -v' in Linux) then
| that's 100% deliberate anticompetitive behaviour from
| Microsoft; this list is where the entires like Windows,
| Fedora, and so on appear in the list of boot entries your
| firmware shows you.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I always love how Windows 10 shows Cortana using something like
| 0.1% or 0.2% of system CPU even after I disable it. Really what
| is it doing at that point?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Collecting telemetry to "improve your user experience".
| LorenDB wrote:
| OK, the page gives us a guide to submitting feedback about the
| feature. Everybody with Edge installed, please fire it up just
| this once and submit a plea to revert this! We can make Microsoft
| notice!
| spandrew wrote:
| It's AMAZING to me Microsoft is framing this as a UX improvement,
| when it's going against explicit user choice... which is one of
| the tenants of good UX?
|
| The Windows Start menu is already so broken though.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Not on my Mac it doesn't =)
| mgbmtl wrote:
| I get so many support requests of "I clicked on a link and then I
| was logged-out".
|
| They weren't logged-out, they just didn't notice that the link
| was opened in the wrong browser. Doesn't help that most browsers
| kind of all look the same.
| dizhn wrote:
| Thank God for remote desktop access software. My dad's story of
| the issue is always 100 percent useless. :)
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| Honestly, for a non-techie I think the "I was logged out" is
| totally reasonable. I'd bet that a majority of Internet users
| aren't going to recognize that the UI has changed,
| _especially_ when they 're focused on getting some other task
| done.
| ezconnect wrote:
| My biggest complain on Outlook is loading external image. The
| settings to turn it off is so hard to find. I don't understand
| why is was so simple before now it's hidden and its also hard to
| find in the help files.
| icelancer wrote:
| I just noticed this today. I was wondering if I screwed something
| up. Total bullshit.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I'm one of the dinosaurs who still uses Skype to talk to some
| non-computer people who haven't moved away from it.
|
| Skype similarly gets worse and worse each update. They removed
| the ability to have multiple windows, they made links open in
| some kind of in-Skype browser I can't find a setting a to turn
| off, they added a weather widget which is dumb.
|
| Thankfully the weather widget exists, though, because their new
| in app browser doesn't have any way to close the in app "window"
| it opens - no x, nowhere to click to close it. The only way I've
| found to close it is to click the weather widget which loads into
| the same space and that has an x to close it. I bet they're
| getting tons of positive numbers about weather widget use from
| users just looking to close the shitty in app browser. I don't
| know if it even counts as a dark pattern - I can't tell if the
| Skype designers are this incompetent or actually hate the few
| users left still on that shitty platform. Maybe they're purposely
| trying to get Microsoft to shut it down by making it worse every
| update?
|
| Every second I use skype I want to get away from it, I just have
| to convince a handful of people to move as well, or I guess let
| them know they won't be able to reach me through there and give
| up talking to them.
|
| I noticed the outlook link handling thing on my personal machine
| and figured out how to turn it off but damn that was annoying.
| I'm not going to be annoyed into using edge - I won't be tricked
| into it either. Every time this happens my willingness to go
| along with this gets smaller and smaller. I have a bunch of paid
| Microsoft licenses - windows, office365, etc. Once gaming off
| windows matures a little more I think its time to move away from
| this abusive shit.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| If anyone from Outlook (or Microsoft) is reading this: It would
| be extremely useful to include a screenshot in the linked
| article.
| moss2 wrote:
| Glad I uninstalled Windows and use Ubuntu on all my computers
| jeroenhd wrote:
| That was great, until Ubuntu introduced snaps for everything,
| to the point where `apt install` started installing snaps.
|
| The ads for Ubuntu Pro every time I open a terminal or update
| my computer aren't very welcoming either. If Ubuntu had a
| browser of their own, it would be as worse as Windows.
| RGBCube wrote:
| Sure, Ubuntu is still a level-up from Windows, but it isn't
| really the best Linux experience - Canonical isn't all that
| great.
|
| I would recommend Fedora if you want the bleeding edge or
| Debian if you want a super stable system (Or NixOS stable, but
| NixOS is kind of hard to get started using).
| Aleklart wrote:
| RedHat also has been declared isn't all that great recently.
| Looks like only decent operating system remains is MacOS,
| others are highly specialised, like BSD, box of unfinished
| toys like most of Linux distros, betas as Windows 11 or ads
| and spyware infested services upsell platform: android,
| windows again, redhat and ubutu..
| pluijzer wrote:
| Parent comment mentioned two great disrros, Fedora and
| Debian to which I like to add Arch. They certainly are not
| unfinished toys.
| COGlory wrote:
| What's wrong with openSUSE or Debian?
| david422 wrote:
| I did this many years ago, ran into a bunch of issues and
| switched back.
|
| Tried again maybe 4 (?) years ago and have stuck with it -
| everything is pretty smooth for my purposes now. I do run into
| some random issues sometimes - like display drivers randomly
| resetting. That seems to be the biggest one.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Pick your poison.
|
| My USB wireless mouse randomly disconnects on Linux.
| Unplugging and replugging fixes it.
|
| My sound is flaky on windows + Microsoft dark patterns.
|
| Maybe I'll find a hardware solution to the mouse thing.
| Tade0 wrote:
| For me it was always Nvidia Optimus not working properly,
| causing poor battery life.
|
| Turns out I now have a related problem in Windows, with the
| integrated GPU spinning at full throttle despite not doing
| anything important.
|
| I've somewhat improved battery life(and CPU temperature) by
| setting the system to prefer the discrete GPU, which is a
| ridiculous solution to a problem which I shouldn't have had
| in the first place.
|
| At this point I think I can live with selecting one of the
| GPUs and sticking to it for a given session, like I did in
| Linux on my previous machine. Even if I have to restart the
| system each time.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Windows has random issues, too. Everything has random issues.
| When it happens on Windows, people think it's Just The Way
| Computers Are, but when it happens on anything _but_ Windows,
| it 's Not Ready For Prime Time.
| II2II wrote:
| You're absolutely correct on your assessment and it makes
| them sound absolutely ridiculous when you are on the other
| side of the fence. I have used Linux for decades and barely
| notice its issues. Every time I use Windows, all I notice
| are the issues. It has nothing to do with being biased
| towards one operating system or another. Rather, it is the
| outcome of being accustomed to something and unfamiliar
| with the other.
|
| People should really try putting themselves into the place
| of those they are speaking to before making broad
| statements, and temper those statements with the
| realization that different people have different
| experiences and expectations.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Yeah, that's how the world works. New alternatives have
| always had to meet a higher bar than existing incumbents.
| TheDesolate0 wrote:
| [dead]
| BirAdam wrote:
| I actually switch to Tiny11 after a little over 2 decades of
| only Linux... mostly due to performance issues on newer
| hardware. Windows does substantially better on graphics and
| Wi-Fi on my desktop, so there it goes.
| devinprater wrote:
| Ugh can't wait until Linux is accessible for blind people like
| me. Y'all seen the new Windows File Explorer context menu?
| Freaking sucks. I'm sure I've posted this here before but dang,
| it just keeps getting worse.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| It's incredible how bad it is. Tiny icons of the most important
| actions, like copy, paste, rename, along the top that are
| unique designs with no tooltips. If an action isn't available
| it's not disabled, but missing entirely. This is all not to
| mention the new strange delay and how it doesn't match the
| theme of file explorer at all. And if you want to access to
| options not in the very limited default ones, you have to click
| "show more options" that opens the classic menu in the old
| theme. It's just a mess.
| eska wrote:
| Sorry for being ignorant, but I always imagined that the
| terminal workflow should work much better for blind people than
| Windows' reliance on graphical widgets. Or is the issue
| elsewhere?
| firebaze wrote:
| Thanks to wayland, it's about to get even worse instead of
| better. Linux had surpassed windows in most aspects already
| (and I am enjoying this - no Windows on any machine, not even
| for gaming, thanks to Proton), then came Wayland and
| unfortunately it wasn't widely ignored.
|
| Please understand that I understand the reasons behind Wayland,
| that the Wayland Devs are also behind X, and that X is an awful
| mess. I know and I believe, but Wayland is still the worst
| solution for the problem X created, in my humble view.
|
| Please also accept that this is not a criticism of the
| awesomeness of Wayland/X devs. They _are_ awesome. But they
| also were tired of X, and the result is, Wayland is
| undercomplex by at least a gut-factor of 10. And anything
| accessiibility-related is part of that.
| rchivalry wrote:
| Have not seen this reflected yet. Links I click on in outlook
| still open in my default browser.
| dahwolf wrote:
| At least old Microsoft tried to hide or wash away their anti-
| consumer anti-competitive behavior. New Microsoft proudly
| announces it.
|
| And this reflects on other tech giants. They understand that
| they're in an era of near-zero regulation and can get away with
| seemingly anything.
| 0xedd wrote:
| It's part of a long term plan. A couple of years ago I noticed
| the same decision in Control Panel help links. They do not allow
| choosing a different Open With other than Microsoft programs.
| Even though I had some other browser installed, the only browser
| in the list of Open With was Edge.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Weird, I just updated, and nothing changed for me. My links open
| in the same browser they always have (not Edge). I guess I'm one
| of the lucky ones.
| kramerger wrote:
| Wait until HN hears about how Microsoft is using Purview and DPL
| to force enterprise costumers switch to Edge...
| haolez wrote:
| I'm currently using Linux due to this kind of hostile behavior
| from Microsoft on Windows.
|
| However, we are power users and the big masses won't care about
| an ever increasing misalignment between the users' needs and
| Microsoft's. We cannot vote with our wallets, e.g. by using Linux
| instead. It won't matter.
|
| What we could maybe do is contribute to projects like ReactOS[0]
| and make it easier for the layperson to migrate to it if modern
| Windows finally annoys them. Just food for thought.
|
| [0] https://reactos.org/
| lucb1e wrote:
| I keep thinking that when my grandma's laptop gets too slow
| from all the Windows updates, I'll install some linux on it and
| teach her that so she doesn't have to keep learning how the new
| Windows works every time (because, indeed, the masses aren't
| switching). Won't have a problem with malware either. Cinnamon
| is 100% stable for me and very similar to Windows, that's going
| to be as much effort to learn as Windows 11 would be.
|
| Now, if only I could convince my dad, he might allow me trying
| to put it on my mom's computer as well... he insists on buying
| Microsoft Office for everyone under his roof so that I don't
| have an excuse to install LibreOffice
|
| Sometimes it seems like old-ish white men is why we can't have
| nice things (I'm gonna be one of those :/)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Obligatory reminder Microsoft has been pulling bullshit like this
| (and worse) for over 30 years, at least as far back as the AARD
| code.
|
| https://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/archive/aard/ind...
| lucb1e wrote:
| > Some programs and drivers in some pre-release builds of
| Windows 3.1 include code that tests for execution on MS-DOS and
| displays a disingenuous error message if Windows is run on some
| other type of DOS. The message tells of a "Non-fatal error" and
| advises the user to "contact Windows 3.1 beta support". Some
| programs in the released build include the code and the error
| message, and even execute the code, performing the same tests,
| but without acting on the result to display the error message.
|
| > The code in question has become known widely as the AARD
| code, named after initials that are found within.
|
| From your link, for those not in the know
| LispSporks22 wrote:
| I have a Windows box just for playing a few games, but even for
| that Windows is freaking rubbish. It keeps asking me to sign in
| with some BS Windows Live account!
|
| How painful is the Steam on Linux/Proton experience on average?
| entropie wrote:
| > How painful is the Steam on Linux/Proton experience on
| average?
|
| Its way better than 2,3 years ago and at this time is was
| already useable. Give it a try.
| entropie wrote:
| https://github.com/rcmaehl/MSEdgeRedirect
|
| That should fix it, right?
|
| I use it for quite a long time now and it works with the search
| bar in the startmenu.
| SpaceL10n wrote:
| I changed it back to use default browser. It took all of 60
| seconds to google the answer. They totally should take a
| calculated risk like this in order to gain more market share.
| Exercising control over software defaults rarely causes users to
| abandon a product entirely. The pain of changing the default back
| is much less than the pain of finding a new tool. Microsoft will
| not lose Outlook users by doing this. They will gain Edge users
| though. Yes, they will enrage the craftspeople who aren't a part
| of THE GRID, but that still won't affect the bottom line enough
| to matter.
| mihaaly wrote:
| They should NOT try this manipulative approach as what remains
| in the heads is the attitude they employ towards their users:
| ignoring them! If this was the one and only one of their dirty
| attempts it may have been gone unnoticed but their attitude
| they allow themselves is approaching of a scumbag through the
| repeated user hosility and ruining usability, proactively
| wasting the time of the very people they live on.
|
| There may be many who does not care but growing number of
| people on the grid - who they ask advice from - will spread the
| dirtball reputation of Microsoft, reaching a lot of people,
| fortunately.
| amackera wrote:
| They also reinforce their reputation of using dark UI patterns
| hostile to their paying customers.
|
| This type of thing doesn't come for free, IMO. There's a cost
| to this, even if they don't pay it in the short term.
| dtx1 wrote:
| > They totally should take a calculated risk like this in order
| to gain more market share. Exercising
|
| God I hope we get another anti competitive lawsuit over shit
| like this in my lifetime.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yes, this dirty tactic will almost certainly work unless we
| conk them with the regulatory hammer, which we absolutely
| should. Harder than last time, so that they remember.
| [deleted]
| loganc2342 wrote:
| Will this be a "good" move for them, money-wise? Perhaps.
| SHOULD they do this unequivocally user-unfriendly move?
| Absolutely not. Businesses SHOULD never screw over their
| customers for a little extra profit, but of course this
| sentiment will never stop them.
| umvi wrote:
| I would use edge if I could have shared bookmarks, passwords, etc
| with chrome (not simply import). But since I can't there's no
| point to using a Windows only browser when I also use Linux
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Edge has been available on linux for a while
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download?form=MA13FJ&ch
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I hate this behavior. I've stopped using MS first party tools on
| Windows altogether because of this.
| nanidin wrote:
| To me this isn't a huge loss as I have set firefox as my default
| browser, but I really use Chrome. The net result is that all of
| the tracking links I click in email get opened in a browser that
| I hardly use and that has hardly any context about me - no
| cookies, etc. Then I can copy the actual destination url into my
| real browser.
| dm_me_dogs wrote:
| Microsoft, why?? It's an easy fix sure (within the Microsoft 365
| Apps admin center) but why is it so hard for you to respect
| people's default browser choice?
| elboru wrote:
| Even respecting the settings. Every time Windows gets an update
| it asks me if I want to change my Edge settings, the first
| couple of times I didn't pay attention and it changed my
| default search engine and started showing the useless news
| thumbnails that I explicitly took the time to hide.
|
| I'll need to reconsider Chrome or Firefox, which is a shame
| since I really liked some Edge's features.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Try brave browser? The bitcoiny stuff can be hidden (and
| blocked). As for the rest, I'm remarkably impressed. I even
| go through the brave://flags for extra oomph. I rn it from a
| ramdrive, too.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| > why is it so hard for you to respect people's default browser
| choice
|
| Why should microsoft respect anyone if they don't have the self
| respect to use literally any other OS? They keep getting away
| with this shit, because people keep letting them.
|
| If you choose to use Windows then I have no pity for you.
| throw7 wrote:
| Extend.
| Giorgi wrote:
| huh... it surprised me this morning, easy change trough setting
| though.
| coding123 wrote:
| I don't really want links - I want a machine learning algorithm
| to summarize and categorize, provide action, and ultimately reply
| for me so that I can converse with my relative's AIs regularly.
| hardware2win wrote:
| Is this because not all browsers support stuff equally?
|
| A few days ago on fresh windows install I couldnt watch netflix
| on ff/edge, but on chrome it worked. Player error.
|
| I guess it was related to some missing drivers?
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Tip: spoof your user agent to a chrome one and Netflix
| magically fixes itself :)
| bradly wrote:
| It is opening the links in a sidebar pane so you can view your
| email and the link contents at the same time. You now aren't
| being taken out of Outlook to view the page.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| This is funny since, according to Netflix, it has better
| support for edge than for chrome.
|
| https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
| Goronmon wrote:
| My understanding for that is because Edge implements DRM and
| allows up to 4k resolutions, which you can't get on other
| browsers in Windows.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| so this is their website, showing you how they document the way
| they taunt their own customers?
|
| fucking lmao, linux since years ago don't care
| mrlatinos wrote:
| Also, it opens the email itself in a sidebar. Edge has been super
| hostile in the past few months, and it seems to coincide with the
| Bing Chat push. So much garbage like Workspaces and Discover.
| cm277 wrote:
| This does make a bit of sense; Edge on Windows logs you into 365
| and keeps the authentication around. So company links/attachments
| on Outlook can open easier on Edge using the 365 credentials.
| Now, if only they were actually smarter about which 365 profile's
| mail you are reading in Outlook (for those of us that are working
| across multiple orgs) and open the link under that profile on
| Edge, that would be awesome.
|
| Edge makes a lot more sense as a smarter 365 client than it does
| as a browser, but it's not a bad browser either.
| Sakos wrote:
| Yeah, no. This is insanity. Firefox can keep your
| authentication too. Just login on FF or show a prompt. WHAT WAS
| THE WHOLE POINT OF TOKENS. It _already_ works perfectly fine
| with non-Edge browsers. This is ridiculous anti-competitive
| garbage and I can 't believe people are defending it.
| jksmith wrote:
| Outlook doesn't display that behavior in Linux. I checked.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Google has been trying to do this for years in Android. They're
| absolutely anti consumer trying to get you to use their app or
| their thing.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| You have the option to turn off this feature in Outlook settings.
| henry2023 wrote:
| We can't call this a "feature"
| causi wrote:
| What if you've removed Edge from your system?
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Haha nice try.
|
| Ready for a 15 minute long process that will restore itself in
| the future, not to mention trusting some random website for a
| guide.
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| I was able with winget in the past. Dont know if it is still
| possible.
| stranded22 wrote:
| I didn't think it could be easily removed (yes - I appreciate
| the audience here) - and if removed, it is so ingrained into
| the OS I expect the problems it'll cause would be incredibly
| frustrating...
| pierat wrote:
| Microsoft's cramware is always "inexorably integrated at the
| deepest of levels", all the way back to Windows95 when they
| shoveled IE in OSR2
|
| And it's always a 100% complete lie, and abusing their
| monopoly position.
| recursive wrote:
| It's not a lie that mshtml.dll was the IE (trident)
| renderer. And it's not a lie that it was a dependency for a
| number of OS features.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| you might find that it mysteriously reappears
| jeltz wrote:
| Source? You may very well be correct but I would like to see
| a source for such a claim.
| netsharc wrote:
| Windows has had a mechanism called Windows Resource
| Protection[1] for a long while now, if you delete
| notepad.exe (I guess nowadays that file isn't even
| deletable), after a few seconds it will reappear again. If
| you delete edge.exe (or whatever it's called) or replace it
| with a copy of, let's say firefox.exe, the WRP will see the
| file has been removed/modified and restore it, because
| somewhere inside C:\Windows there's a backup copy of the
| files..
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Resource_Protection,
| previously Windows File Protection, introduced in Windows
| 2000.
| timbit42 wrote:
| What if I tell my A/V it is malware to keep it from being
| reinstalled?
| 23B1 wrote:
| The sooner we realize that 'product managers' and 'UX designers'
| are now as bad as used car salesmen and NFT hucksters, the
| better.
|
| I'm sorry, I LOVE building products and I LOVE design... but
| these fields have become grift central. No disrespect to folks in
| these fields, but remember how you came into this field talking
| about usability, cooperation, beautiful typography, color theory?
|
| Bring those back.
| zgluck wrote:
| Microsoft has always been horrible at building web-based
| products. Recently they are also horrible at building Windows-
| based products. And at building Windows.
|
| But VSCode is okay, for now!
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Right in the KB:
|
| "Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft
| Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that."
| tremon wrote:
| So ultimately though, Outlook ignores the Default Browser
| setting of the OS, unless you tell it not to? Does that mean
| that it's ok for every application to ignore the system-wide
| settings until you explicitly configure it otherwise?
|
| Then what it the point of having system-wide settings in the
| first place?
| domador wrote:
| Still inexcusable. They're wasting power users' time by making
| them have to search for a way to change this unexpected and
| undesirable setting. I'm glad that the first time Edge hijacked
| my Outlook link I saw a popup message that allowed me to change
| the setting to use the default browser. But I could have easily
| missed it and it would have wasted my time.
| charcircuit wrote:
| If you just set Edge as your default browser none of these bugs
| would affect you.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Yeah, but then I'd want to kill myself.
| pc2g4d wrote:
| Recently went all-Linux on my new workstation, and news like this
| makes clear that it was the right move to give up on Windows
| completely. I dual-booted for... 20 years? Just not worth it
| anymore. The disk storage reclaimed, the file system partitioning
| undone, the user-hostile patterns avoided. Couldn't be happier.
| andrewcamel wrote:
| This is reminiscent of the USA vs Microsoft case in 2001... I
| wonder how much the antitrust team at Microsoft gets a say in
| product decisions like this. Just feels like they're toeing a
| line...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
|
| Also definitely not in the best interest of users, which isn't
| the Satya Nadella way of operating, at least not as demonstrated
| in the developer tools side of the business.
| awiejrliajw wrote:
| [flagged]
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| > Also definitely not in the best interest of users, which
| isn't the Satya Nadella way of operating, at least not as
| demonstrated in the developer tools side of the business.
|
| Oh yes, good tsar, bad boyars.
|
| Whenever Microsoft does something good, like open-sourcing some
| dev tool, it's because of Nadella. But he isn't responsible for
| the state of Windows. If only someone told him about the forced
| telemetry, forced updates, forced Microsoft account login,
| pushing Edge down users' throats, and so on... I'm sure he
| would fix all those problems, but sadly, he doesn't know. And
| it's just a coincidence that all this stuff intensified when he
| became the CEO.
|
| I even saw a comment on HN saying that it's "Ballmer loyalists"
| who are truly at fault for the current state of Windows.
| gbraad wrote:
| I believe I have seen the same behaviour on Android for their
| apps.
| jeltz wrote:
| Virtually all apps do this and some like Google Chat and
| Facebook Messenger do not even allow you to change browser.
| privacyking wrote:
| That's different and an unfair comparison. Android will open
| the system browser (which will be chromium based in most
| instances). It can't just open the default browser because that
| might break certain functions of android apps if the non system
| default browser is broken
| probably_wrong wrote:
| That argument is surprisingly similar to the one that
| Microsoft argued back in their antitrust case [1]: that "the
| merging of Windows and IE was the result of innovation and
| competition" and "that the two were now the same product and
| inextricably linked".
|
| For those who were too young at the time, Microsoft lost the
| first instance of that trial and eventually reached a
| settlement.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsof
| t_C....
| gbraad wrote:
| just checked, and Bing opens their own webview. I believe
| when Edge is installed they opt to use this first before. you
| get the option to use the default, but this is not happening
| without interaction. note: not going to test this further...
| but regardless, why not use your default!
| Regnore wrote:
| Doesn't your comment apply equally to all platforms including
| Windows?
| microflash wrote:
| That's not my experience. I use Firefox as default browser on
| Android and every app opens the webview in Firefox.
| gbraad wrote:
| also for Bing? curious to hear
| benlivengood wrote:
| The solution is to only use the web version of outlook.
|
| The nice thing about the web versions of office is that they're
| powerless on the local machine.
| AJ007 wrote:
| The solution is don't use outlook. Unbelievable how terrible
| the UI is for an email app.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| Some of us have to use it for work :(
|
| (and forwarding was disabled 'for security reasons' -- that
| may very well be a company decision, not a MS one)
| mfwit wrote:
| It, too, has its issues. Especially the 'New Outlook', which is
| esentially the web version in an app wrapper. Like always
| wanting to open the web versions of Office products when you go
| to open attachments instead of the actual app installed on your
| machine.
| regularjack wrote:
| Edit: I was wrong, it opens in Edge.
|
| I dislike Microsoft as much as the next person, but AFAICT this
| is about opening the link _inside_ Outlook, in a sidepane:
|
| > ... browser links from the Outlook app will open in Microsoft
| Edge by default, right alongside the email they're from in the
| Microsoft Edge sidebar pane.
|
| Also the title has been editorialized here, the original title
| describes what is actually happening:
|
| > Outlook emails open next to web links in Microsoft Edge
|
| You can also turn it off:
|
| > Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft
| Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that.
| clnq wrote:
| No, it opens in full Edge and then it shows your email in the
| new Edge toolbar/sidebar.
| briffid wrote:
| This can be good if I have multiple mailboxes/profiles and it
| opens private mails in my private browser profile, and work mails
| in my work profile.
| karlerss wrote:
| The web based outlook is an extremely well-polished and usable
| piece of software. You can use it in any browser you like.
| yrro wrote:
| It runs like treacle, gobbles memory and pegs my CPU. It's
| truly, utterly awful.
| skc wrote:
| For you.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's honestly sad to think there are people who have never used
| good software.
| meepmorp wrote:
| It's been consistently better than the desktop apps for years,
| too, despite the fact that they're Electron now.
| frob wrote:
| Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these days.
| I've considered building a windows box just to have a gaming rig
| multiple times over the last few years, but every time an article
| like this or their crusade against Chrome reminds me that Bill
| Gates is still the same anti-trust monster he was in the 90s.
| creshal wrote:
| Gaming on Linux is a joy these days. Less driver bugs than in
| Win10/11 in my experience.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| What? Bill Gates doesn't set policy at Microsoft anymore.
| DAMunzy wrote:
| [flagged]
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| It feels like we're back in the '90s during the browser wars:
| our website only works with IE.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| You seem to have lost the memo.
|
| We have standards wars, a stale browser that just woke-up and
| became a bit less stale (but no promises for the future),
| anticompetitive practices all around. We are right inside a
| browser war.
| Longlius wrote:
| Windows has basically already been relegated to an OS I run on
| a PC dedicated just for gaming. I do all my serious computing
| on a mac now and my windows PC is a glorified game console.
| skeaker wrote:
| I wonder why in these threads nobody ever says to just pirate
| Windows. It's not hard to do. Sometimes people will float
| security concerns but it's a safe process if you just load an
| official ISO and then crack it, and even if it were
| questionable on the security front it's not like you're doing
| anything that really needs that sort of security if you're just
| playing video games. If Windows is going to make itself
| mandatory for some games but they're also going to pull
| nonsense like in the OP, piracy seems like a reasonable option
| to voice your objections without abstaining completely.
|
| And yes there are also ways to stop data collection if you're
| concerned about giving that to them.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Sometimes people will float security concerns but it's a
| safe process if you just load an official ISO and then crack
| it,
|
| What makes you think the crack you apply to your official ISO
| isn't compromising your OS?
|
| > even if it were questionable on the security front it's not
| like you're doing anything that really needs that sort of
| security
|
| If you're going to install steam on your PC, then you'd be
| giving an attacker access to your steam account and if you
| ever install or use a platform that doesn't already have your
| credit card info stored then the attacker gets your credit
| card data.
|
| > And yes there are also ways to stop data collection if
| you're concerned about giving that to them.
|
| This isn't true. There is no way to stop windows from
| collecting data. No version of windows is capable of
| disabling all data collection, and there's no setting you can
| configure that can't be undone by MS at any time, and without
| any notice at all to you.
|
| At best, you can install a copy of windows on a machine that
| is left offline 100% of the time, but i think most gamers
| would find that unacceptable since even if you don't care
| about MMOs or multiplayer, steam is still pretty popular.
|
| I don't object to the idea of pirating software you don't
| like, don't want, but feel "forced" to use, but the idea that
| there are no real risks to your security or your privacy by
| doing it is just plain wrong.
|
| Just use linux. It can play plenty of games.
| bilegeek wrote:
| Because that's not objecting; you're still feeding into the
| power Windows has over computing.
|
| Bill Gates said so himself in 2007: "It's easier for our
| software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when
| there's not,"[1]
|
| I'm not pretending that the intervening 16 years hasn't
| changed things; I am happily gaming exclusively on Linux
| after all, something most people didn't truly expect back
| then. But that statement remains true regardless.
|
| [1]https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/20
| 07...
| skeaker wrote:
| I think at some point the onus lies with the games that
| have Windows as a requirement. Them having that mandate at
| all is what's feeding the power Windows has over computing.
| Of course that also relies on people playing those games so
| you could still in some way blame them, but gaming has hit
| such a critical mass that certain games will always be
| sustainable regardless of how predatory they are. At that
| point if you want to, for example, play with friends and
| not be left out, the least wrong option for you would be to
| pirate Windows to deny Microsoft of everything else.
| philistine wrote:
| With Valve finally managing to make fetch happen, any
| large company starting a project today must consider the
| value of releasing on Linux for Steam Deck.
|
| The problem is the games coming in the next years started
| development five years ago.
| bilegeek wrote:
| The real sore spot is with multiplayer anticheat, about
| 50/50 according to https://areweanticheatyet.com/ ...
| plus maybe a few singleplayer games with draconian DRM.
| Otherwise, things usually just work with the occasional
| hiccup (those hiccups, in all fairness, can be a real
| PITA to resolve though from my experience; but things are
| getting better with time too!)
| racl101 wrote:
| Is Bill Gates even making decisions at this point? It's weird.
| When Microsoft does something good it's credited to Satya
| Nadella but when they do bad shit, it seems to be blamed on
| Ballmer or Gates. lol
|
| Shouldn't it all, good or bad, be attributed to Satya Nadella
| at this point?
|
| Or does the great CEO lack agency?
|
| Even weirder, for some reason people have no issues blaming
| Google's sorry state directly on Sundar Pichai.
|
| _shrug_
| squarefoot wrote:
| Not to defend in any way his past stances against Open Source,
| but Bill Gates has nothing to do with today's Microsoft
| choices.
|
| About the Windows gaming machine, you can surely build one just
| for gaming; just never put any personal data on it, never use
| it for surfing or doing anything that is not gaming, never give
| it any unfiltered access to your LAN, assume it contains
| malicious software then put it on dedicated Ethernet port on
| the firewall, setting up rules that allow only very restricted
| storage sharing so that it can't read or write anywhere but
| directories set up to contain exclusively what one would want
| to be readable/writeable by that machine.
|
| Yes, it's a nightmare, but I don't see alternatives, save for
| giving Windows the middle finger for good also wrt gaming,
| which might end up easier than expected given the recent
| development with Proton and DXVK.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| LookingGlass is an alternative.
| autoexec wrote:
| You've basically described my plan for a windows gaming
| machine, but these days I'm thinking it won't even be needed.
| I think the steam deck has shown that linux can run plenty of
| games without much issue. I'll start there at least and if
| that +consoles isn't enough for me I'll go down the road of
| turning a windows machine into a locked down game console.
| rileyphone wrote:
| Gates set up the (toxic) culture that continues today, and
| still provides high-level input. Definitely has something to
| do with their choices in the same way Jobs still does at
| Apple.
| bombolo wrote:
| jobs died
| gochi wrote:
| This is a niche but effective reason to get a console.
|
| Alternatively, a Windows box locked down to LTSC.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Windows + 3rd party game launchers + shitty buggy games on
| release is triple the nightmare, better reserve 2h of your time
| for surprises if it's first time in a while you turn on your PC
| to play something on Windows. Probably reason #1 I love PS5, it
| has it's flaws but never takes longer than 5 minutes to go from
| power off to playing the game.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Google has an equally annoying crusade against anything that
| isn't Chrome. Visit google.com with Edge (on desktop) and you
| immediately get a popup on the top right "Google recommends
| using Chrome. Built for Windows. Easily search on Google with
| the fast, secure browser". As if there was any material
| difference between the browsers.
|
| We need a comeback of antitrust enforcement with teeth to get
| both Microsoft and Google to do honest competition, instead of
| backhanded methods.
| jenscow wrote:
| Have you tried downloading Chrome from Edge?
|
| The both the browser and OS actively advise against it.
| kernal wrote:
| > Visit google.com with Edge (on desktop) and you immediately
| get a popup on the top right "Google recommends using Chrome.
| Built for Windows. Easily search on Google with the fast,
| secure browser".
|
| You make it out as if this is only done by Google. The same
| company that tries everything it can to make you use Edge on
| Windows also tries to make you switch to Edge on their site.
| Google is perfectly entitled to do what they want on their
| site, Microsoft however takes it to a whole new level - which
| is par for the course with Microsoft.
|
| "Experience AI-powered browsing with the new Bing built-in.
| Get comprehensive answers and summarized information side-by-
| side in Microsoft Edge"
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I discovered a fun one yesterday; downloaded google drive for
| desktop, wasn't able to sign in, got an "unknown error".
| Search for it, try all the solutions, delete gdrive cache,
| reinstall, reboot, etc. Started to think it might be registry
| related (I had done a bunch of weird stuff to the storage
| recently), then it ocurred to me to try the login flow
| through chrome instead of firefox.
|
| It worked first try.
|
| I don't think they explicitly broke it in ff, just that they
| don't test on anything that isn't chrome, which results in
| these nice side effects.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| I'd say it's far better because messing at the OS level is
| straight out evil.
|
| On Firefox I can stand the suggestion to use Chrome when I
| use google, I can even block it with uBlock, but haven't
| really bothered to.
|
| Now, when they keep tweaking my OS settings, and use every
| upgrade as the excuse to reset my browser settings over and
| over, then I get mad. When I get ads on my start menu too.
| That's why I don't use windows anymore.
| lucb1e wrote:
| This doesn't make much sense to me
|
| > I can even block it with uBlock
|
| You can also block such things in your OS. It requires more
| expertise to modify machine code rather than obfuscated
| HTML, but in the end, it's cosmetically altering software
| to make it look the way you want it to.
|
| Equal levels of 'evil' either way, to me
|
| If they had gone out of their way to add DRM specifically
| to the pop-up (detecting div deletion for the web version,
| for example), that would be more evil, but such things
| aren't being done for showing browser advertisements (might
| come as a side effect for Windows licensing, but one who
| chooses to employ licensed software naturally invites that)
| acdha wrote:
| I agree in general but Google has done things like let
| YouTube be slow in non-Chrome browsers or "accidentally"
| break GCP logins or Meet for months at a time.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| TBF internal sites break on firefox for months too.
| People foocus on Chrome outside too, I think it's just
| that the mindset of coding against the standards and
| tracking all the version rollout for multiple engines is
| gone now that many "browsers" are just chorme reskins.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Google has an old crusade against Microsoft browsers. It
| doesn't do the same with the other ones.
|
| What doesn't negate anything you said, it's just a detail
| worth adding.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Its so weird that one company isnt mentioned, but will
| straight up not allow you to run any programs they want.
|
| These have dark patterns, but freedom still. (Not M$ anymore,
| they restore defaults with each update)
| tredre3 wrote:
| You're all over this thread being deliberately obtuse. Of
| course iOS is bad, that's not the point.
|
| We're discussing desktop operating systems, Windows is the
| only one that _deliberately_ messes with the default
| browser.
| post-it wrote:
| Which company? You can run an unsigned .app on Mac with a
| ctrl+click, and there's also a system flag to change the
| block to a click-through popup. Apple is _generally_ good
| at providing hidden flags to permanently turn off nanny
| mode, with a few exceptions (the context menu translation
| feature will happily tell you that a language isn 't
| supported instead of letting you use Google Translate).
| lhoff wrote:
| I believe he was referencing iOS were it is not possible
| to use a third party browser engine. Just safari in
| different dresses.
| thayne wrote:
| I think maybe they are referring to iOS, where you can't
| install any software not on the app store, and all non-
| safari browsers are required to use webviews instead of
| their own engine.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I like that they do that for Windows for ARM too (admittedly
| niche) but can't be bothered to produce a native ARM Windows
| port of Chrome (you can get Chromium though) so the
| experience is just absolutely dreadful.
| guerilla_prgrmr wrote:
| I have a windows gaming rig. You can download windows for free
| (11, 12, 13 or whatever the latest one is I can't remember) on
| the official website. That's what I use. It comes with some
| missing features like not being able to change certain
| personalised settings and a weird background but it's 99% the
| same and more than enough for steam and gaming.
|
| Enjoy!
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I recently switched from Windows to Kubuntu for my gaming
| machine. It works pretty well, and all of the games that I want
| to play are supported. Proton gets you pretty far, and many
| games these days even have native Linux versions.
| pndy wrote:
| > Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these
| days.
|
| I wonder since the initial "free" W10 upgrade, where the hell
| are the regulators? The browser selection window happen these
| years ago and seems they call job well done both for themselves
| and MS.
| postalrat wrote:
| Well at least Microsoft allows you to install other browsers.
| Apple only allows skins for their mobile browser.
| jeltz wrote:
| That is on iOS, on MacOS they allow other browsers and
| respect the systemwide defaults.
|
| Personally I use Linux unless forced to use something else by
| my employer.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > on MacOS they allow other browsers and respect the
| systemwide defaults
|
| on a new install of MacOS, when you have installed Chrome
| and _explicitly set it as the default browser_ , MacOS will
| still ask you, albeit once, whether you really want to open
| that resource in Chrome, or Safari. And Chrome isn't the
| default option.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > That is on iOS, on MacOS they allow other browsers and
| respect the systemwide defaults.
|
| Why is that in any way exonerating? Most people do most of
| their actual computing on their phones now, it is not an
| irrelevant toy platform. We should be more, not less, hard
| on Apple than Microsoft for pulling this shit on their
| mobile platform.
| briffle wrote:
| In many families, ipads have replaced computers for kids
| as well.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Can I I stalk another browser on ChromeOS?
| kernal wrote:
| Open the Play Store on ChromeOS and pick any browser you
| want.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > Why is that in any way exonerating?
|
| I think you're reading into the parent too much. They
| were simply stating a fact.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Apple sells the ability to be part of an 'in-group'.
| People don't buy their phones for their computing
| abilities, they do it to have access to other Apple
| users.
|
| Its a psychology trick that took decades of marketing to
| pull off, but they are deeply entrenched as someone's
| identity. These users have a religious devotion and will
| defend them, because an attack on Apple is an attack on
| them and their group.
|
| If you don't care about a corporate in-group, you are
| most likely wanting a quality computing platform. Which
| is why people are so hard on Google an Microsoft when
| they restrict computing.
| splendor_spoon wrote:
| This is such a funny take I see so often parroted by the
| self proclaimed 'out-crowd'. Your need to feel different
| and therefore superior clouds your judgment. Some users
| like iPhones since they are reliable and consistent,
| exactly like a phone should be.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >Some users like iPhones since they are reliable and
| consistent, exactly like a phone should be.
|
| That is just the bare minimum. Its 2023, every phone is
| like this.
|
| Anyway, any teenager can tell you what its like to have
| the wrong kind of bubbles. They are extremely susceptible
| to in-group bias. Heck I wore Abercrombie and American
| Eagle, it wasn't because the clothes fit.
|
| I even had a single buddy, age 30, recently get peer
| pressured into getting an iphone because his sister said
| "I don't date green bubbles". He took it to heart.
|
| At some point, its denialism to think in-group bias
| doesnt exist. Not that someone exploited can easily admit
| to it, its far too difficult to imagine your brain being
| incorrect about something. Much easier to say things like
| "they are reliable and consistent" than to accept that
| marketers have exploited us.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to confuse the preferences
| of teenagers (a market group who, overwhelmingly, don't
| buy their own phones) with adults. In other words: the
| fact that teenagers prefer the same kind of free devices
| as their friends have is not particularly strong evidence
| that adults make purchasing decisions based on _just_
| chat bubble colors.
| acdha wrote:
| > I even had a single buddy, age 30, recently get peer
| pressured into getting an iphone because his sister said
| "I don't date green bubbles". He took it to heart.
|
| Shallow people are shallow, and it's hardly like Apple
| made them that way. People do the same thing about cars,
| shoes, clothing, alcohol, zip codes, etc. The only upside
| is that it lets you very quickly identify and avoid them.
|
| In the messaging case, it's important to remember that
| Google is currently funding a huge lobbying campaign
| trying to get governments to restore the market position
| they gave up a decade ago. SMS messages have been green
| on iOS since the first iPhone - and shortly after the App
| Store launched most people were using Google Chat since
| everyone using Gmail was on it and it even federated with
| other XMPP services. Google spent the next decade pushing
| users away with a bunch of poorly conceived and executed
| attempts to lock users into their proprietary system.
| Only after those failed did they start picking up RCS,
| but most of their catch up with iMessage work has been
| proprietary extensions which help sell carriers on
| Google's Jibe cloud service.
|
| I like the idea of open protocols but Google is acting
| out of self interest and I have no doubt that they'd try
| to lock things up in a heartbeat if they think they could
| get away with it.
|
| Let them park for their own PR, and we can talk about
| more open alternatives.
| philistine wrote:
| Exactly. The power over iMessage is in Apple's hands. Yet
| Google, with their RCS push, have not made something
| open-source were they have less power than Apple.
|
| RCS is controlled by Google just like iMessage.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| That isnt factual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSMA
|
| Google doesnt control RCS. Its a general format. Apple
| could implement RCS. At most, they are a loud voice. Any
| phone can adopt it.
|
| This is completely different from a closed imessage that
| cannot be adopted by others. Not to mention, imessage has
| been pretty anti-consumer with all their security
| problems, inability to accept high quality video, etc...
| None of this is good for the consumer.
|
| What is good for the consumer is that the color of the
| bubble are different, this is important for status
| seeking individuals who want to be part of the in-group.
|
| Back to the parent comments, RCS is better if you want a
| computing device. iMessage is the best if you want to buy
| your way into an in-group.
| acdha wrote:
| Google does control the proprietary extensions to RCS
| they use to try to catch up to iMessage on security and
| features. The developers of apps like Signal, etc. have
| been asking for access for many years but Google chose to
| exclude them as they try to build their user base.
| Similarly, most of the carriers in the US haven't
| actually implemented it themselves - they're just paying
| Google's Jibe subsidiary to host it for them. This is not
| open in practice even if there's a theory where it could
| eventually be open.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >Shallow people are shallow, and it's hardly like Apple
| made them that way.
|
| Oh yeah its not a Apple thing, its a human thing.
|
| Apple takes advantage of that weakness in humans and
| reinforces it with their marketing. I personally don't
| have the ethics to take advantage of people who are class
| insecure, but Apple stepped up in the tech space.
|
| Anyway, the original point was that Apple gives less
| freedom and its fine because they sell a social club, not
| necessarily the ability to compute. If they aren't
| selling a social club, they are doing a poor job at
| letting people compute.
| acdha wrote:
| > Anyway, the original point was that Apple gives less
| freedom and it's fine because they sell a social club,
| not necessarily the ability to compute.
|
| Yes, that's the claim but it's glaring how it's an
| emotional position presented as a given but completely
| unsupported by any evidence and bears a striking
| resemblance to a competitor's PR campaign. If this was
| true, it'd be easy to point to things like ads or
| marketing material disparaging SMS users - not to mention
| some effort to extend this outside of the United States
| where apps like WhatsApp are far more popular.
|
| > If they aren't selling a social club, they are doing a
| poor job at letting people compute.
|
| Here's the thing: most people don't buy phones (or
| computers) to "compute". If you look at an Apple ad, it's
| full of people doing things like creating photos or
| videos, sharing moments with their friends, traveling,
| etc. - that's what they're selling and the repeat
| purchase rate suggests most people feel like they are
| getting what they were promised.
|
| I get it may help you feel more confident about your
| Android preferences to concoct these weird theories about
| iOS buyers being brainwashed or part of some weird social
| club but you might want to consider why you need to
| justify your preference this way. Most iOS users are
| buying something which they find useful and you'd be far
| more successful in your advocacy if you focused on what
| tangible benefits normal people are missing out on. What
| you're doing sounds insecure, not persuasive.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > I even had a single buddy, age 30, recently get peer
| pressured into getting an iphone because his sister said
| "I don't date green bubbles".
|
| All the people she didn't date thank her.
| bacchusracine wrote:
| >This is such a funny take I see so often parroted by the
| self proclaimed 'out-crowd'. Your need to feel different
| and therefore superior clouds your judgment.
|
| This is such a funny take I see so often parroted by the
| self proclaimed 'out-crowd'. Your need to feel different
| and therefore superior clouds your judgment. _Likes this
| post._
|
| Yeah, there isn't anything going on beside out-group
| cope. Really glad most plans have unlimited text these
| days. Having spam texts where the person I'm
| communicating with just parrots what I'd just typed with
| the words "Liked this" would have driven me insane back
| in the days when you only got a thousand texts for the
| month.
| 8note wrote:
| Which is also what a computer should be, and thus why
| windows should only allow edge
|
| I think you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who wants
| an unreliable and inconsistent laptop
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| I'm in that group. I like the "openness" of Android more.
| But the iphone 7 gifted from my mother is still supported
| while the samsung i bought in 2019 is not anymore.
|
| I don't really care particularly about the
| icloud/imessage ecosystem but all close people around me
| have iphones (the network effect was not the primary
| reason for the switch).
| whstl wrote:
| This only applies to the US, if anything.
|
| I don't think I ever used iMessage or Facetime in my life
| and I've been using iPhones for 15 years. Most people I
| know that have an iPhone also don't care, in the 3
| countries I lived in. We use WhatsApp, Signal or
| Telegram.
| wlll wrote:
| I buy Apple stuff because it's good quality, largely
| secure and generally Just Works and gets out of my way
| while I concentrate on the stuff that matters. I'm busy,
| I've got better things to do than try to make my tech
| work the way it should.
|
| I don't buy Apple for fashion reasons, some mythical "in
| group" or any of the reasons you say.
| perfect-blue wrote:
| I agree on all points, but the access you get to other
| Apple users comes with access to iMessage, FaceTime, and
| all the other services specifically tied to the iOS
| ecosystem. A lot of people, me included, hate Apple for
| the way the wall their garden, but these services are
| valuable to me and others. So I would caution against
| everything being a psychology trick. They objectively do
| make a great product.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes, it's all "marketing" that 60% of phones sold in the
| US are iPhones. Poor little Google couldn't just "market"
| their phones better?
|
| I was just talking to my 80 year old mom yesterday and
| she was telling me how much she loves being part of the
| "in group"
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't know whatever weird psychology junk you're
| talking about. I bought an iPhone Mini because it's
| literally the only phone on the market that fits in the
| human hand. iOS sucks and I'd love to go back to Android,
| but there are zero Android phones of a usable size
| available for purchase. So iPhone it is.
| lowercased wrote:
| > but there are zero Android phones of a usable size
| available for purchase. So iPhone it is.
|
| My local dollar store has a couple of prepaid android
| 5.5" phones. Not much size diff from my iphone 12 mini.
|
| Point still taken though - 'regular' sized phones from 6
| years ago are mostly gone from the mainstream market. I
| really hope there's another mini or a bumped up iphone
| se. I would like them to keep the physical home button
| with touch id as well. Or maybe a touch id sensor
| someplace else...?
| eldaisfish wrote:
| those android phones will have terrible materials,
| terrible internals and non-existent support. Their
| existence doesn't really say much.
|
| I also dislike many things apple does but all too often,
| their hardware quality is good and lasts a long time. I'm
| still using a 2014 macbook. it is on its last legs but
| eight years out of a piece of tech is borderline amazing.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >it is on its last legs but eight years out of a piece of
| tech is borderline amazing.
|
| I think that is pretty normal. I'm still using my 2014
| $700 Asus 'gaming laptop' for CAD, emulators, gaming,
| etc.... Only reason I even upgraded was so I could have
| 6gb VRAM for various AI purposes.
|
| Time for my kid to use it for a few years... Then I'll
| turn it into a server.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Apple sells the ability to be part of an 'in-group'.
| People don't buy their phones for their computing
| abilities, they do it to have access to other Apple
| users._
|
| This reads like the whining of a 14-year-old standing in
| a dark corner during the school dance. Translation:
|
| "Look at me! I'm different! I'm so very counter-culture.
| People like Apple products, so I'm going to pretend it's
| a problem with the people and not other products. That
| way I can cosplay like I'm better/smarter/cooler than all
| those 'lemmings.' Now I'm going to smoke cigarettes, wear
| jeans, pop a leather jacket because nobody's been doing
| that since the 1940's. I'm special!"
| whelp_24 wrote:
| I mean that is exactly what happened more or less. Apple
| made their phones a status symbol, and locked in users to
| their ecosystem. And now, even if you don't care about
| being cool you care about imessage and airdrop with
| friends.
| nullindividual wrote:
| > People don't buy their phones for their computing
| abilities, they do it to have access to other Apple
| users.
|
| Since you're projecting onto people, I'll provide a
| counter point in that I dislike Android enough, the
| hardware is often of poor quality, support for updates
| don't last very long, OEMs install unremovable software
| (unless you root).
|
| All in all, an awful ecosystem, in my personal
| experience.
| trampi wrote:
| is it? tell me how to configure the play button on the
| keyboard to open spotify instead of apple music :)
| CharlesW wrote:
| https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice
| [deleted]
| e-shrdlu wrote:
| Are you saying all ios browsers are just safari with a
| different UI?
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| Yes and it is common knowledge!
| iso1631 wrote:
| Didn't Opera used to do remote rendering?
| hulitu wrote:
| Opera mini.
| atkailash wrote:
| [dead]
| Bootvis wrote:
| Yes, they must be because Apple doesn't allow a Javascript
| JIT engine to be released in the app store.
| scintill76 wrote:
| Doesn't that mean alternative browser engines are
| permitted, albeit they might perform slowly?
| janoc wrote:
| Have you seen a viable "alternative browser engine" that
| doesn't require javascript support these days?
|
| It is not about "performing slowly" but about getting
| your app rejected from the App store because it violates
| an Apple policy of scripting languages/interpreters not
| being allowed. And also another one that forbids you from
| competing/replacing the Apple applications, i.e. Safari.
| So if you want to display a web page you have to use
| webview (i.e. Safari behind the scenes).
| subtypefiddler wrote:
| It's all WebKit on iOS and iPadOS
| rationalist wrote:
| Is Bill Gates still involved with Microsoft, I thought he
| retired to run his foundation?
| kjellsbells wrote:
| He's completely gone from Microsoft. To invoke Gates now on a
| anti-Microsoft screed would be missing the point. If anyone
| has beef with Microsoft about Windows, their ire is better
| directed at Panos Panay and Satya Nadella.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Everything you said is accurate except for the word
| "completely". He's no longer on the MS board of directors
| or in any officer role, but there is this bit of ongoing
| involvement:
|
| > In 2020, Bill Gates left the board of directors of
| Microsoft, the tech giant he cofounded in 1975. But he
| still spends about 10% of his time at its Redmond,
| Washington headquarters, meeting with product teams, he
| says.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/02/06/bill-
| gate... (article is from early February of this year)
|
| Still, agreed, that doesn't really make him responsible for
| MS's current decisions.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Eventually, only the owners are responsible. Every second
| they don't kick the managers that implement this crap to
| the curb is a moral failure on their part.
|
| Gates owns 100x more shares than Nadella - about 1% of all
| shares - and thus has 100x the responsibility.
|
| They are both guilty of greed and disrespecting their
| customers through their actions, or their willful or
| negligent ignorance and inaction.
|
| I don't know how they can live with this, they are already
| rich, why not try to be better even if you earn less money
| in the short term?
|
| Disrespecting your customers will get you nowhere in the
| long term.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| Public companies are out for one thing, and one thing
| only.
|
| Shareholder returns.
|
| It has nothing to do with CEOs "already being rich",
| their job is literally to run the company properly so
| that the shareholders make more money.
|
| Like it or not, that's how it is. Now, if this "crap"
| actually hurts the brand and the bottom line, they
| shouldn't implement it. If they are seeing more profits,
| and not many complaints, it's likely it will stay.
|
| Moral faiure does not come into play.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| They are not obligated to do that.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-
| are-co...
|
| (arguably)
| Anarch157a wrote:
| I disagree. The company's DNA and general approach to the
| market was set by Gates 40 years ago, the culture he
| established still stands, so invoking him when criticising
| MS for it's monopolistic practices is still valid.
| ninju wrote:
| Bill Gates' involvement with Microsoft fully stopped on June
| 27, 2008 -- 15 years to the date
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| He was still involved after that, because he was on the
| board until 2020.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Dear European-Union!
|
| How about enforcing direct control about Microsoft business?
| Not just another "low" fine in the ten to twenty billion range.
| Just stopping Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.
|
| Enforcing AT&T to not enter any new business worked well. In
| consequence we got UNIX, C, open-source and documentation and
| finally the TCP/IP-stack of BSD, GNU and Linux. This had a
| positive effect for the complete computing industry and
| society. Reagan relaxed all rules, allowed AT&T to split up -
| the results were bad. No IT company had to fear any regulation
| afterwards, either politics didn't want regulate or didn't
| understand computing at all.
|
| We don't need this companies with too much power using
| incompatibility, vendor lock-in and storing away our data (the
| newest approach).
|
| Chances for regulation Europe seem a little better? Less
| lobbyists and less tax money involved and people don't believe
| in capitalism. Too late (10xtimes) and too little but at least
| they react.
| hinkley wrote:
| I'd be good with exponentially increasing fines that don't
| reset after each repeat occurrence. Sort of a contempt of
| court sentiment.
|
| Microsoft already lost this case twenty years ago? Repeat
| offenders do not get the mercy of the courts.
| aerzen wrote:
| Hmmm, interesting. How would this be implemented in practice?
| EU passing laws about specific things that Microsoft should
| and shouldn't do?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's something done completely inside the Judiciary, with
| only oversight by the Legislative.
|
| Indeed, the AT&T case at the US is the textbook example,
| it's worth looking at it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| EU can only implement laws regarding companies doing
| buisness in europe.
|
| EU cannot tell Microsoft in general what to do.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It can tell what Microsoft does in Europe. But, of
| course, MS can always decide to abandon the region
| instead of complying too.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| That "region" is a very big market. So that is not really
| an option for them. On the other hand large parts of the
| economy and government in the EU are totally dependant on
| Microsoft products and would be screwed if they would
| pull the plug.
| yomlica8 wrote:
| They wouldn't abandon the market, they'd just introduce a
| complying version for Europe like N or K versions in the
| past. That way they can continue to screw everyone else.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| IMO, abandoning the EU would be fatal to MS, not exactly
| because of lost revenue but because of second order
| effects. But I didn't want to put my opinion on the GP
| post.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Yep. Default Win for Red Hat, Suse and Canonical!
|
| And after some (hard) years of actual competition
| benefits of compatibility will lead to lower prices and
| more choices.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "but because of second order effects. "
|
| Which is why Bill Gates personally intervened, when
| Munich switched to Linux a couple of years ago.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Munich itself is weird case. There some smaller
| municipalities which have done better with Linux, lower-
| saxony and the police and the recent switch to Matrix of
| the Army.
|
| Regarding Munich: Three competing IT-Departments! Repeat,
| three. An own special distribution. They didn't migrated
| all applications (either do it or not) and a lot of stuff
| was always done on Windows. Finally Microsoft moved a
| headquarter to Munich and solved it with "tax money".
|
| Rumors say that the reverse migration to Microsoft itself
| was also "bumpy". Let me guess, three IT-Departments?
|
| The former major of Munich also gave an interesting
| interview about the "experience".
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Just eliminate vertical integration in the space.
|
| Enforce the kernel team must be separate from the
| application layer - let other people build operating system
| UIs on top of the kernel.
|
| For the operating system team to be separated from the
| product teams.
|
| Even go further and unbundle the product teams - make
| office separate from bing which is separate from edge, etc.
|
| Just make sure you also do it to Apple, Google, etc.
|
| This is what the US almost did in the 90s.
| ho_schi wrote:
| You probably could do that for some parts but have to
| control the interaction. For big integrated parts is is
| probably easier to control them as howl?
|
| A mere split up will lead to "baby bells" and the bigger
| one will just buy others - and centralize again.
|
| PS: We should remember that Microsoft was able to destroy
| Nokia with an installed CEO (Stephen Elop) of their own.
| Killed the already shipping Linux smartphone. Installed
| Windows Mobile and Nokia was finally dead. Nokia itself
| did mistakes before but from outside this was
| questionable?
| kernal wrote:
| I have an even better solution. Just get Chromium to change
| their license to make it a requirement to always respect the
| user's chosen browser.
| moss2 wrote:
| You don't need Windows for gaming any more. Ubuntu 22.04 comes
| with graphics drivers. Steam has Steam Play and Lutris has a
| huge library of install scripts, so everything is handled for
| you.
|
| The one thing you will need to do occasionally is experiment
| with different Wine distributions. This means you will need to
| right click on your game and select the distribution from a
| drop-down box. Exhausting, I know.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Did linux eventually get HDR support or is it still one (of
| many) sacrifices you make to game on linux?
| creshal wrote:
| It's far from being ready, but as usually Valve is making
| the most progress:
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support
| happymellon wrote:
| HDR is currently experimental.
|
| Red Hat is working on getting it integrated, and Valve have
| it in their display manager.
|
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support
|
| But for general users, out of the box, no.
| hulitu wrote:
| Funny that SGI some 20 years ago supported more than
| 32bpp.
| COGlory wrote:
| It's in progress, but it's one of _very few_ sacrifices you
| make. Anti-cheat is really the only other one of note, and
| many games are now supporting anti-cheat on Linux.
| Filligree wrote:
| There's no AutoHDR at all, so yeah.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| That's not entirely true. Most games are still built for
| Windows, and all of the tools for playing games on Linux have
| come a long way, but there are still a lot of combinations of
| games and drivers that don't work.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| I'm past the deadline to edit this, but rereading it after
| coffee, I wanted to add: If you haven't tried in a few
| years, definitely try gaming on Linux. You will be
| surprised at how much just works. But I wouldn't suggest to
| someone who has no Linux experience that they can just
| wholesale drop Windows.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| Here's the thing... I have limited time for gaming and when I
| want to play I just want to sit down and play. My days of
| sodding about with (the equivalent of) autoexec.bat,
| config.sys, QEMM configurations, drivers and IRQ allocations
| are way way behind me for one when one of these combos of
| drivers and scripts doesn't work, or my game isn't supported,
| and I just want to spend a hour or two gaming to chill out.
| floundy wrote:
| Your comment describes the perpetual state of Linux desktop
| use in general. Every couple of years I check it out again
| because people on HN, Reddit, or some other forum *swear*
| that it "just works" now and you don't have to mess with
| config files, drivers, or spend hours researching some
| strange issue. After booting a Linux distro I learn that's
| still not true within 15 minutes or so, and go back to
| Windows.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Steam on Linux is like that 99% of the time. Download the
| game and play it.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| What distro would you recommend for maximising gaming
| performance and compatibility do you think? Valve seem to
| have gone for Arch but
| beebeepka wrote:
| I think Manjaro is a great choice for gaming rigs. You
| get easy access to latest kernels and drivers without
| having to babysit your computer.
|
| Only problem with Linux gaming is that you don't get
| stuff like fan, voltage, frequency control for newer AMD
| hardware. This hasn't been an issue for me until I got a
| 6800XT. I thought about RMA until I remembered their
| Adrenaline software exists. I wish I could save my
| settings to the card's BIOS.
|
| I no longer use this machine for anything but gaming.
| Going back to windows sucks
| cherryteastain wrote:
| https://github.com/ilya-zlobintsev/LACT
|
| This application lets you adjust everything and the
| settings are saved on reboot
| Timon3 wrote:
| Better yet, check reports of other users in ProtonDB:
| https://www.protondb.com/
|
| They are not necessarily applicable to everyone, but most
| of the time they are accurate. Makes it easy to see
| whether setting it all up under Linux is worth it for
| your library.
| Faaak wrote:
| I didn't even know about this when I installed steam on
| Linux in order to play two games. "Nice, they support
| linux" I thought. It wasn't until the third time that I
| understood that they were windows games supported by
| steam/wine
| pluijzer wrote:
| I really want to second this.
|
| All games I want to play these days work under Linux
| without effort. Older titles work even better where under
| Windows you could run into compatibility issues not so
| under Linux because of the great effort put on backward
| compatibility by Wine.
|
| Also, a bit susprising and unfortunate, the Windows
| version of a game that has native Linux support often
| runs better.
|
| I run Manjaro Linux and have an Nvidia GPU for if it
| matters. My Steam games I run with Steam and for the
| games I bought on GOG I use Lutris.
|
| I would really suggest people to check out how far it has
| come.
| baq wrote:
| Steam deck runs most games as well as Windows, some even
| better than windows. Of course it runs some worse or not at
| all... but it's precious little.
|
| It's really mind blowing that winapi is the binary cross-OS
| API of choice.
| wink wrote:
| If by "gaming" you mean "be able to play a selection of games
| you might or might not be interested in, in varying states of
| support and performance", then yes - absolutely true.
|
| None of the games I've played recently even are on Steam, so
| no, your answer is misleading at best.
|
| And no, I've not tried it recently on my main machine but
| I've tried it often enough that my summary is still: Feel
| free to try it, but many (or most) of us still have to stick
| with Windows even if we don't like it.
| LamaOfRuin wrote:
| Unless you are playing the competitive games that won't
| turn on anti-cheat for Linux, this seems statistically
| incorrect. Valve prioritizes fixes for the most popular
| games, so the games most people want to play will work (if
| they are not actively prevented by the publisher as with
| anti-cheat).
| tokai wrote:
| Its a two click thing to run non-steam games with proton
| through steam.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Bill Gates doesn't run the company any more. It's the new ceo,
| who everybody on hn is such a gushing fan of, who has been
| transforming windows lately
| gigel82 wrote:
| More like abandoning it to the wolves.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| They're frickin killing it these days with devtools though.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Isn't the bigger issue that Edge is really just Chromium with a
| different UI (AFAIK)?
| RajT88 wrote:
| Correct - Edge is Chromium with a bunch of different features
| surrounding it. Same core engine. Generally, they release a few
| days after a Chrome stable release comes out with the same
| code.
| sisve wrote:
| I would expect the EU to have something to say to this. For
| people more into the legal side, why do MS think that EU will not
| think about this as abusing its monopoly?
| bbotond wrote:
| I switched to Linux 4 years ago because of these dark patterns.
| No regrets.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| I think anyone using outlook is probably using it out of
| necessity for work.
|
| Not everyone can just jump to Linux when they work in a
| company.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Doesn't Outlook have a web version?
| extr0pian wrote:
| I'm using Thunderbird on Linux with an Outlook work account.
| Granted, I have to pay for 'Owl for Exchange' for it work,
| but I absolutely hate the Outlook program, I'm willing to
| fork out the $10/yr of my own money just to avoid it.
| jfhufl wrote:
| If you still have IMAP access, thunderbird supports OAuth2
| for connecting to O365 IMAP. tbsync for calendar access.
| Seems to work pretty well currently.
| Krssst wrote:
| The web version of Outlook probably works well on other OSes.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| does on my linux mint, no problem (for now...)
| 1ain0n_dev wrote:
| Do you not have different machines for work and personal use?
| iso1631 wrote:
| I switched to Linux over 20 years ago
|
| However I still have Teams. And Teams occasionally opens up a
| webpage for oidc authentication. Unlike Slack this isn't my
| default browser (firefox), it's some embedded browser in teams,
| which has no access to my password store. It's terrible, but
| it's microsoft, what do you expect?
| trollied wrote:
| The title is a little clickbaity - the behaviour can be changed:
|
| " Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft
| Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that. "
|
| Having said that, Microsoft seem to be entering another phase of
| baiting antitrust regulators.
| noahjk wrote:
| > Microsoft seem to be entering another phase of baiting
| antitrust regulators
|
| On the "FedEx Accused of Largest Odometer Rollback Fraud" post,
| llimos says "When did we move to a "do whatever you think you
| can get away with" model of society?" [0].
|
| Like light_hue_1 says in response, "Because the cost of fraud
| is far too low and it's now factored into business plans." That
| seems to be exactly what is happening here too. It's honestly
| disheartening.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36492496
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > the cost of fraud is far too low
|
| If we want to live in a society that's not supported by tech
| that's weaponized against its users, we need to find better
| ways to fight back than smugly switching to Linux.
|
| Walking away while they prey on our friends is insufficient.
| Whatever it is, it has to be costly. Bonus points if it's
| legal.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| It can, although having just received it this morning, it
| definitely changes first and asks you to roll it back
| afterwards, rather than being opt-in. It's still obnoxious.
| tylerag wrote:
| Shitty behavior isn't excusable just because there's a setting
| to disable it.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| It's not. The title is about the _default_ behavior. Being able
| to manually change it in an ad-hoc manner, not in the _default
| os settings_ , confirms the title is correct.
| meesles wrote:
| Chrome got to do it with Gmail/etc. when they were ramping up,
| so I don't see the issue with Edge doing it.
|
| Edge has another funny behavior where if you go to a Chrome
| extension page, it says you can install the extension. However,
| Chrome puts a web-page warning over the install button to block
| it and try to get you to install Chrome again.
|
| It's clear companies value being your default browser.
| Sakos wrote:
| Windows already has a default browser setting. I don't see how
| Microsoft making Outlook _by default_ ignore that is okay.
| trollied wrote:
| I never stated it was ok. It's not :)
| jeltz wrote:
| That is very annoying. On s related note I personally hate how
| I need to enter the settings of every app on my phone to tell
| them not to use the embedded browser? Why would I ever want to
| use something which is not my default browser? The only
| scenario I csn see is offering to open in private browsing but
| still in my browser or something like tor. Just some web view
| makes no sense.
|
| And this is similar. There is no non-malicious use case for
| this setting that I can see.
| creshal wrote:
| On Android at least, browsers can also provide the "embedded"
| overlay, and Fennec, Vivaldi, etc. all do, so it's not really
| necessary to mess with app settings, changing the system
| default browser is enough.
|
| On iOS, it's mandatory, because Apple says so.
| toddmorey wrote:
| Absolutely a conference room decision to try to push more
| people to their browser. Apple see their OSes as a way to sell
| hardware. Microsoft very clearly sees their OS as a way to sell
| ads. I was hopeful for a sec as aspects of Windows got better
| and better, but the amount of junk that's appeared lately
| really feels user hostile. I don't want to "stay up to date
| with news and interests" in the dang start menu. No one ever
| has.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > this experience isn't right for you
|
| What kind of post-Orwellian shitfuckery is this? It really
| grinds my gears when a prompt puts words in your mouth (e.g.
| "Yes, please" or "No thanks, maybe later") but this reaches a
| new level by trying to reframe something as simple as wilfully
| ignoring a stated preference. It sounds like a modern car ad in
| that it's all about catering to you the "main character"
| writing your own story and presenting themselves as the
| facilitators of your perfect customised destiny.
|
| But they're just trying to change your browser and hope you
| have enough to worry about that you won't notice and their
| metric will tick up.
| mfwit wrote:
| The only reason I realized this was a thing is because a
| coworker blew past the initial popup about the behavior and
| couldnt figure out what the hell was going on.
|
| Users don't pay attention to this stuff. And then when you have
| to go back and switch it to the correct behavior of using the
| default browser, they've buried the option in Outlook (Options
| > Advanced > Link Handling).
| executesorder66 wrote:
| I'm loving the new Microsoft.
| timbit42 wrote:
| What's new about them? They have always been crap.
| AraceliHarker wrote:
| Windows 11 can multitask and is used on a widescreen display and
| has the ability to align windows, so why not just put Outlook
| next to Edge instead of using Edge's sidebar to display email?
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Apple also does this. Extremely infuriating.
| dzogchen wrote:
| Richard Stallman playing the world's tiniest violin.
| oneplane wrote:
| > "No more disruptive switching"
|
| How about you don't decide that for everyone, Microsoft?
|
| <rant>
|
| This is the same BS that pushes 'conditional acces' based on what
| browser you happen to be using, or their idea of SSO where your
| console login also dictates all other logins... and it happens
| that you must use Edge. Turns out people don't give a shit if
| they have to pick an account more than once. That used to be a
| big point of friction on LanMan networks and when there was no
| Kerberos, but the same principles simply do not transfer to the
| web.
|
| Just like Teams and all their other packaged nonsense (Intune):
| they are creating a fake ecosystem where usage isn't based on
| requirements or best tool for the job, but on 'what else happens
| to come with the package', making the UX worse for everyone.
| Entry-level admins and middlemen don't actually need (or want) to
| know how any of it works, delegate responsibility and defects to
| the vendor (Microsoft) and then essentially stall all local wants
| and needs because they cannot actually fulfil anything
| themselves.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Shows that antitrust law isn't real. The government wasted
| millions on chasing Microsoft over IE, and Microsoft isn't even
| scared to use the OS to force users to use Edge. They've been as
| far down the path as US regulation goes, and came out of it
| fearless.
| pigbearpig wrote:
| My first thought was "Isn't this so clearly the same behavior
| that got them an anti-trust violation 25 years ago"
| nipperkinfeet wrote:
| Microsoft's black patterns are starting to irritate me. This most
| recent incidence had an effect on several of our 365 users. Even
| with GPO, this still overrides the browser's default settings.
| Microsoft buried the option to set the browser to its default in
| the settings of Outlook. For every user, we must change it
| manually. We'll be searching for alternatives to Microsoft Office
| in the future.
| zvmaz wrote:
| > Microsoft Office in the future
|
| There are not many alternatives, are there?
| pcurve wrote:
| "Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft
| Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that."
|
| Wow.
| XorNot wrote:
| Isn't this all an anti-trust thing at this point? Of the type
| which Microsoft got done for in 2000s?
| shmerl wrote:
| _> Microsoft is always striving to improve and streamline our
| product experiences_
|
| Lol. Euphemism for "we want to take away all choice from the
| user".
| szundi wrote:
| So frustrating
| aezart wrote:
| I don't understand how Microsoft _benefits_ from getting everyone
| to use their web browser? Is it all to spy on people 's browsing
| habits?
| quacked wrote:
| Ad revenue from increased user count, spying on browsing
| habits, scraping user-input data, and promotion-hunting by
| product managers who want to advertise how their new feature
| led to X million more clicks per day.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I assume every website I look at on Chrome is sent to Google, I
| don't see Microsoft not doing the same. But the thing Google
| has and Microsoft wants is to be in full control of web
| standards.
| wvenable wrote:
| You can't think of Microsoft, or any company, as a monolith or
| personify them. The question is not how Microsoft benefits from
| this but rather which executive benefits from this. Given that
| I believe Windows team is now grouped together with the Bing
| (and Edge) team, I think the reasons for these sorts of changes
| are obvious.
| lucb1e wrote:
| If you think it's so obvious, why don't you provide the
| answer? I don't think GP would have posted the question if it
| were obvious to them.
|
| Whether you talk about Microsoft-the-firm or Microsoft-the-
| shareholders when asking about "what's in it for them":
| that's the same thing because it's a for-profit business, so
| that's an irrelevant thing to post as well.
| [deleted]
| wvenable wrote:
| I think you wildly misread my comment; let me clarify it by
| pumping it through ChatGPT:
|
| Microsoft is a complex organization with different teams
| and executives, each having its own set of targets and
| incentives. An executive might be incentivized to grow
| their department or product, even if this does not have an
| immediate or direct impact on the company's bottom line.
|
| In the case of promoting the Edge browser, it's possible
| that executives within the Windows, Bing, and Edge teams
| have targets related to user adoption or integration, which
| they aim to achieve. These targets could be part of their
| performance metrics, affecting their personal compensation
| or career growth.
|
| While these goals may align with the long-term corporate
| objectives of increasing profits, they might not be
| obviously tied to the broader company profits in the short-
| term. This distinction is important because it helps us
| understand that decisions like promoting Edge can be driven
| by the objectives of particular individuals or teams,
| which, although a part of the overall corporate strategy,
| might have more nuanced motivations.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I think the point (which I agree with) is this doesn't
| benefit Microsoft at all. It benefits a VP by them being
| able to show some metric move from Q to Q, and get a fat
| bonus. They couldn't care less about the long term effect
| on Microsoft's PR / reputation (they'll likely skitter off
| after collecting a few of those bonuses either rest&vest
| with some D&I initiative, or move off to the next victim to
| suck from).
| yrro wrote:
| The more people use Edge the more value there will be in
| Microsoft creating (and encouraging others to create) web sites
| that only work in Edge.
|
| Just like what happened before Firefox saved us from the
| Internet Explorer 6 monoculture.
| vxNsr wrote:
| While obnoxious, they're not doing anything truly nefarious under
| the hood: they're just prepending every link with "edge://" to
| open edge. This functionality was available to basically every
| single app since apps have become a thing, it might be
| interesting if other apps decided to force open chrome in
| response...
| timbit42 wrote:
| What would happen if you edited the binary from "edge://" to
| "http://"?
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| Since probably a year back I can't get links in emails to open
| correctly from Outlook with any browser without copying the link
| manually. So for me it does not matter.
|
| I think apps should work in the general way an OS is designed.
| This change may lead to the same mobile app horrors where every
| app is also a browser that breaks common user flows.
| hnbad wrote:
| The title is a bit editorialized. Microsoft is doing the
| equivalent of embedding a "Web View" in Outlook. Instead of
| having some stale custom build of MSIE, they're using Edge
| because it's already installed and they're in control of the API
| and its compatibility. They're also offering a setting to disable
| this behavior.
|
| The links don't "open in Edge". That would suggest they launch
| the Edge app (instead of the default browser) and open the link
| in that. Instead the links open in a pane in Outlook that embeds
| Edge (presumably with the same settings and session context as
| the actual app). This also only affects the desktop Outlook app,
| not the far more modern and less clunky web version. I genuinely
| wonder how many HN users commenting on this story actually use
| desktop Outlook app or know someone who does and doesn't also use
| Edge (or their IT department's mandated out-of-date copy of
| Firefox ESR).
|
| Now, bear in mind I'm saying this from a position that is in
| favor of splitting up Microsoft (and Google and maybe Apple). The
| feature is certainly useful if viewed in isolation, but it is in
| effect anti-competitive behavior because even if they wanted,
| they couldn't provide generic integration of your browser of
| choice the same way and the new behavior is opt-out rather than
| opt-in. It's bad, but let's not pretend it's worse and more
| deceitful than it truly is, just because you already don't like
| Microsoft (and presumably don't use their products).
|
| This is probably a genuine usability improvement. It's also anti-
| competitive. Both of these things can be true at the same time.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I was looking at Distrowatch with my son.. lamenting at all the
| different distros, the distros I've never heard of, and the
| frequency of changes in the top 10 with distros I'm not familiar
| with. Free software devs are obviously free to do as they wish,
| but Apple vs Microsoft vs Google vs 100+ Linux distros wasn't
| going to lead to the outcome some of us were hoping for.
|
| We're looking at building a monster Davinci Resolve workstation
| and we might use Linux. He certainly wants to.
|
| But between our mobile devices (all iOS etc) and laptops -- we'd
| have a very mixed and heterogenous environment. I'm tired of
| maintaining all the different incompatibilities. I'm inclined to
| go all Apple, just to keep things clean.
|
| But the Distrowatch situation showed me how much Linux missed its
| "year of the desktop" window, so many years ago, and how having
| optimal hardware experiences across form-factors doesn't include
| Linux as a default, or obvious, or user-friendly option.. the way
| it does for servers and cloud ops.
| 0xedd wrote:
| The issue is that [non-tech] people don't go around changing
| OSes. So long as PCs come with a default of user-hostile-OS-1
| or user-hostile-OS-2, the question of "Linux year of the
| desktop, when?" is invalid.
|
| That said, be responsible where you put your money. My wife no
| longer uses iOS. I no longer use iOS or Android. Raspberry is a
| media server for TV.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| From "why we are doing this change" section:
|
| > To provide a unique experience -- at Microsoft, we strive to
| create the best customer experience across our products.
|
| ... they straight up admit using windows dominance to push other
| products.
| nkotov wrote:
| I'd be happy to give Edge a chance but honestly Windows has so
| many anti-user patterns that it's intentionally forcing me to not
| use Edge because of how mad it's making me.
| waselighis wrote:
| Exactly my attitude. Not just for Edge, I use Microsoft
| products and services as little as possible. Even if they might
| be technically superior, I will go with the solution that isn't
| being shoved down my throat.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Each passing day I get happier with my switch to Linux as my
| daily driver after Win 7 EOL.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| this is why nobody likes you Microsoft.
| Simulacra wrote:
| It took us half a day to roll back our systems to get rid of the
| new Outlook. It's a web based email client through an Edge
| browser window and it's awful. I do not want to use an Edge
| browser window to access email, I don't want to even have to see
| the edge browser at all.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Google does something like this with the GMail app on iPhone--
| you click links and instead of just opening Safari, it pops up a
| "which browser to use" selector modal, which is really just an
| advertisement for you to install Chrome.
| yaky wrote:
| Google Chat on Windows as well. Even if it is "installed as an
| app", it does not act like one, and always opens links in
| Chrome. I understand that the "app" in this case is a Chrome
| wrapper, but it at least should respect system defaults.
| shawnz wrote:
| PWAs in Edge have the same issue -- links clicked inside the
| PWA always open in Edge. This is especially annoying because
| certain apps in the Windows store (like Snapchat) are really
| just Edge PWAs.
|
| FirefoxPWA gets it right and opens in the default browser
| (but it is a bit janky for other reasons).
| 93po wrote:
| I also can't copy links from buttons without it opening a
| preview which causes one time links to break.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I hate that menu so much. It even shows chrome and google
| search app in the menu when they aren't installed. They do the
| same thing with maps links (open in maps or safari) if you
| don't have maps installed.
| darrenf wrote:
| This is a changeable setting (though obviously it sucks that
| you have to make a _choice_ to use your default browser).
|
| Hamburger > Settings > Default Apps (in "General" at the
| bottom)
| pimlottc wrote:
| Every time I have changed to open in Safari by default, Gmail
| magically forgets this a week or two later.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| It's such an obvious dark pattern; I'm really surprised Apple
| accepts this from Google, but I expect there's some mutually
| assured destruction horse-trading that goes on behind the
| scenes with players this large.
| worksonmine wrote:
| Since it's still safari under the hood running on their OS
| they probably get the data they want anyway. Apple uses the
| same and worse dark patterns themselves, they used to
| filter out non Apple devices from bluetooth discovery.
| ntonozzi wrote:
| Even with this setting enabled (for Safari), it still asks me
| every week or two where I want to open the link and tries to
| get me to download Chrome. I doubt they do this if you have
| Chrome enabled.
| yakubin wrote:
| Same with Google Maps. It's really annoying.
| iso1631 wrote:
| One of the reasons I use apple maps, despite apple making it
| worse over the years
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| I disabled Chrome on my Samsung device and links from Google
| Maps always open in my Brave browser which is the default
| I've set
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Ditto for Google Maps. The choices, in order, are:
|
| - Chrome
|
| - Google (?)
|
| - Safari
|
| - Default browser app
|
| I don't know what "google" is, but I don't even have chrome
| installed. If I click it, it sends me to the app store.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I don't know what "google" is
|
| It's a bare-minimum version of chromium that comes with
| Android. It's not chrome either.
| afiori wrote:
| This is what I want personally.
|
| I use different browsers for different things: let me fucking
| chose which browser to use.
|
| I am currently wondering how easy it would be to build a "shim
| browser" that you can set as default but does not actually open
| the page, it only list the urls apps tried to open and lets you
| copy them to whichever browser you prefer.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I think a key difference here is that the prompt is not
| asking you to choose between the browsers you've already
| installed, it's asking you if you want to launch chrome or
| safari, and if you don't have chrome it's an install button
| to the App Store. It's essentially just an ad, presented like
| a selection UI.
|
| Properly implemented such prompts would be great though.
| Someone else in the thread mentioned how location search
| results on mobile Safari always launch Apple Maps - it would
| be great to have the option to choose from whatever I have
| installed.
| dbbk wrote:
| You're an extremely niche use case... most people do not use
| multiple browsers.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Seems like a dark pattern. Should have a "Choose this
| everytime" option, and you and I are both happy
| scrollaway wrote:
| It does.
| afiori wrote:
| Not really, because sometime default settings are weird and
| I would also want a "Forget all associations".
|
| My point is broader than browsers: if an app wants to
| redirect me to another app I want a modal where I can
| select an alternative app and cancel the "redirect".
| tredre3 wrote:
| I'm okay being prompted when I have more than one app of
| the same type.
|
| I'm not okay being prompted to install an additional app
| when I already have one that can handle the link. This is
| advertisement spam and it's disingenuous to claim Google
| does that to give you choice.
| afiori wrote:
| I agree with this
| nickspacek wrote:
| I'm currently experimenting with "link eye" from FDroid on
| Android. There's also
| [finicky](https://github.com/johnste/finicky) for MacOS.
| afiori wrote:
| Do you know if there is something similar for windows?
| texuf wrote:
| Then it doesn't open safari! It opens a safari web view inside
| the chrome app, which has a whole different set of local
| settings and cookies, and you have to re log into everything.
| nicce wrote:
| Well, at least the latest webview API is perfect sandbox at
| least on the paper. And no code injection. But I have doubts
| that Google uses it....
| chillbill wrote:
| > Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft
| Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that.
| activiation wrote:
| Can we roll back to the internet of 20 years ago? (Except with
| GPT4)
| userbinator wrote:
| _Microsoft is always striving to improve and streamline our
| product experiences--offering a new way to use the classic
| Microsoft Outlook app on Windows and the Microsoft Edge web
| browser._
|
| _to help you stay engaged in conversations as you browse the
| web._
|
| I wonder if the people who write this sort of BS-filled prose
| really believe in what they're writing. To be completely honest,
| the style almost sounds like LLM output.
| chillbill wrote:
| It's the other way around: LLM output sounds like (and is) BS
| people wrote earlier.
| mike31fr wrote:
| No, they don't believe in it, I know from experience. They know
| it's BS. They know it's bad. But it's not appropriate to say
| out loud things like "We made this change because we want more
| money and don't really care about freedom or privacy, so that's
| how it's going to be whether you like it or not", so they are
| trying to find nice sentences. But they know, trust me.
| freeAgent wrote:
| It must be a soul crushing job to spend all one's time
| justifying anti-user features with corporate doublespeak.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| For some people. For some of us it comes more naturally
| (Making BS statements to justify some hostile policy)
| pndy wrote:
| Some 10-15 years ago I would consider that some people have to
| write in such way but they really don't believe in all that
| bullcrap. But nowadays? There's lots of people who got their
| brains eaten by this corporate newspeak, and they spill it even
| into FOSS.
| reliablereason wrote:
| It is likely written by some copywriter. That person believes
| in nothing, they are simply performing a task that has been
| assigned to them.
| klardotsh wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
| his salary depends on his not understanding it."...
| detritus wrote:
| > That person believes in nothing
|
| Ouch!
| blq10 wrote:
| They usually believe some of it, because they're spin doctors
| not idiots.
|
| Edge is pretty OK, good even compared to Firefox's speed issues
| and Chrome being Chrome.
| globular-toast wrote:
| They believe what they're writing will please the people that
| pay them.
| shever73 wrote:
| I asked ChatGPT to write the announcement, and it was very
| close to this kind of language:
| https://chat.openai.com/share/67c7c09f-e01d-494b-aac3-0104b9...
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| Its the sort of bare-faced lying that is genuinely offensive to
| me and just swooshes over the head of most which just makes me
| all the more irate.
| heap_perms wrote:
| I was thinking something similar. I cringe when I read stuff
| like this. At this point it's satire.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Ironically, Outlook has been opening mailto links in the Windows
| mail app for me, which I've never once used. So if they want
| override defaults somewhere, this is the only one I would allow.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Dear Microsoft,
|
| Nobody wants Edge. Not now. Not ever.
|
| Here's a graphic showing for the many uses for Edge.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/bq0LK8X.png
| dcomp wrote:
| I'm getting office365 nagging me to change the pdf viewer on
| android after each download in chrome about 15 minutes after the
| download. Can't find the setting to stop it.
| dcow wrote:
| Devil's advocate: Microsoft, an ethically unclean company, is
| justified in using this tactic to compete with Google, because
| (a) Google did it to acquire Chrome users in the first place, and
| (b) breaking the browser hegemony at a user mindshare level (not
| rendering engine level) is worth some UX pain.
|
| _Note on (a): some will argue a difference between Google
| advertising Chrome on Google's property (something they could do
| when bootstrapping Chrome) and advertising Chrome on other
| people's property (something they could not do). But here,
| Windows and Edge are Microsoft's property, like it or not._
| crazygringo wrote:
| When did Google open browser links by default in Chrome instead
| of the system default?
|
| This isn't about advertising, it's about not following system
| defaults.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > When did Google open browser links by default in Chrome
| instead of the system default?
|
| On my iphone the GMail app seems to frequently "forget" that
| Safari exists and I'm prompted to install Chrome when I tap a
| link.
|
| https://i.redd.it/tg2yj98o5ao51.jpg (Obtenir means
| Get/Install).
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yikes. But also how unusual. I just checked in Gmail on my
| iPhone and not only does it have a third option of Safari,
| it has a fourth option of "Default browser app".
|
| It seems (?) to be a bug but it makes me wonder how
| widespread the bug is, how often it's triggered. But that
| is very not cool. Thanks for the screenshot.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| This is interesting, but also a pattern
|
| Side A is fighting side B, and therefore has to take these
| measures that harm bystander C. Nope, their fight, their
| problem, don't mess with my computer. I can happily say MS is
| wrong and Google is wrong
| acomjean wrote:
| Its getting worse everywhere:
|
| some things I've noticed: Mobil Safari seems to be using the
| search bar to hijack my google search (Particularly for locations
| which open in apple maps)
|
| Although I'm mostly linux these days I went to install an
| alternative browser on a windows machine (using edge to
| download). I mentioned this in another post, but edge seems to
| watch for "chrome" or "firefox" downloads and politely reminds
| you that 'Edge is a great browser with added "trust of
| microsoft"' (A company who happen to be watching when you
| download a web browser).
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/2/22813733/microsoft-window...
|
| Linux seems like an OS that is way more respectful.
| II2II wrote:
| I don't think it is Linux per se that is better as open source
| software. It seems to support a much more competitive market,
| which is something that busines seem to shun in their never
| ending lust for growth. And there are good checks and balances
| for open source. Just consider what happens when a project
| becomes too arrogant: if a new independent project isn't
| spawned, one based upon their existing code base will.
| gtirloni wrote:
| If Red Hat or Canonical were in the business of making their
| own web browsers, I have no doubt we would see similar
| behavior in RHEL or Ubuntu LTS.
| Animats wrote:
| Canonical already did that, when they dropped Flatpak
| support to force people to go through their "Snap Store".
| simion314 wrote:
| >Canonical already did that, when they dropped Flatpak
| support to force people to go through their "Snap Store".
|
| You mean not installing it by default? This does make
| sense for me personally I never had good experience with
| flatpacks or snapped desktop apps. Snap CLI tools worked
| great for me on server.
| Animats wrote:
| Then your install instructions start with "first install
| Flatpak". This is unacceptable for an end user program.
|
| If you use the "Snap Store", you're imprisoned in a
| walled garden and subject to arbitrary decisions by
| Canonical, Inc.[1] They also take a cut if you charge for
| an app.
|
| [1] https://ubuntu.com/legal/developer-terms-and-
| conditions
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| After "Your potential, our passion", Microsoft's new tagline
| is: "Your privacy, our business".
| Angostura wrote:
| That's a configurable suggestion in Safari. Go to Settings >
| Safari and turn off 'Safari suggestions'
| 13of40 wrote:
| A non-dark-pattern for that would be a button on the first
| suggestion that lets you disable the suggestion permanently.
| TX81Z wrote:
| I think people have started using "dark pattern" to mean
| any UX decisions they disagree with.
|
| There is a hugely substantive difference between this
| feature being on by default and say, making a "reject
| tracking" button in 2 point grey font. Dark patterns are
| primarily things that if presented equally would result in
| a different decision which often go directly against the
| users self interest.
|
| I don't see that here.
| [deleted]
| 13of40 wrote:
| Turning something on by default and then making the user
| drill down three menu layers to turn it off is equivalent
| to that scam where you're walking through Rome and
| someone hands you a flower, then demands five euros for
| it. If you're involved in writing software like that,
| then congratulations, you're a con artist.
| deely3 wrote:
| Some feature that appears from nowhere, enabled by
| default, changes you workflow to draw you attention to
| ecosystem owner. Feature that you have to do a search to
| disable it.
|
| Not a dark pattern.
|
| But when this happens 6 times in a row..
| lostmsu wrote:
| The dark pattern is redirecting Google search to Apple
| maps.
| TX81Z wrote:
| Ok, I can agree there, I thought they meant the search
| bar suggestions which is maybe annoying but not
| misleading or controlling.
| jahewson wrote:
| Maybe you don't remember when Google started inserting
| its own maps at the top of location searches in place of
| the top-result: MapQuest. Probably a good 15 years ago.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| How is this even remotely relevant? Company 1 does self-
| centered things, so Company 2 cannot receive criticism
| for doing self-centered things?
| Spivak wrote:
| How do I get this to happen? I turned them all on typed
| in an address, hit return, hit the button on Google and
| it opened in Google Maps. I'm on the latest version of
| iOS.
| acomjean wrote:
| It's the "safari suggestion" feature. As you type it does
| a sort of auto complete. For me it was a restuarant name,
| that "safari suggested" and put at the top of the browser
| window above the google results. I think the trick is
| happens before the return is clicked. I was on the go and
| trying to work fast. I turned it off as a user suggested.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [dead]
| acomjean wrote:
| Thanks, I'll give it a try.
|
| I wish they would label that section of the results (would
| have given a hint to what it was). The google search results
| are labeled and appear below those unlabeled suggestions.
|
| It feels a little sneaky to me (like having to go to settings
| to turn off the a"subscribe to apple music" in the music
| app..)
| SebastianKra wrote:
| Apple are experts are experts at creating these patterns that
| fall _just_ at the edge of being classified as anti-consumer,
| to the point where you frequently find heated discussions about
| whether they are.
|
| Battery throtteling on the iPhone 6s; The sandboxing /
| sideloading discussion; The no-iCloud experience; The way that
| regular bluetooth headsets work fine, but AirPods work even
| better; How unauthorized Apps on MacOS must be opened with a
| right-click.
|
| Safari suggestions are also a great example: So far, I like
| them in iOS 17, since they can also provide direct links to
| useful sites such as Wikipedia. But don't doubt for a second,
| that taking traffic away from Google was the primary goal here.
|
| Microsoft isn't so smart. Most users, including non-technical,
| can see through their attempts.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Google seems just as bad tbh. The only browser I have
| installed on my phone is Safari but when I click links in
| YouTube it always asks which browser I want to open the link
| in. Safari or Chrome.
|
| No I don't want to install your shit browser on my phone
| Google. Kindly frick off.
| Tagbert wrote:
| And the Gmail app on iOS and iPad will never open in
| default browser window. It always opens in a capture
| browser window that defaults to chrome.
| Eduard wrote:
| > Google seems just _as bad_ tbh.
|
| It is a difference for Google to advertise their browser on
| their properties (eg Youtube) versus Apple hijacking the
| search bar of some other browser, and in general not
| allowing third parties to provide full browsers in the
| Apple App Store (and not just a shim which mandatorily has
| to use Safari behind the curtains)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And Google also hijacks its own search bar when all I
| want is "10 blue links".
| soraminazuki wrote:
| > versus Apple hijacking the search bar of some other
| browser
|
| A difference that's moot because it never happened.
| kernal wrote:
| I don't want Apple's shitty AppStore on my iPhone. I'd like
| to replace it, but I can't because Apple doesn't think I
| should be able to install apps that aren't approved by
| Apple. They can go fuck off as well.
| flagrant_taco wrote:
| Many of the Apple-related concerns fall squarely within the
| definitions of anti-trust laws. The problem isn't that Apple
| toes the line so much as no one cares to enforce the line.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| [flagged]
| madars wrote:
| Don't forget making SMS in unreadable neon green (to the
| point that it violates Apple's own accessibility guidelines
| https://archive.is/4nSWV)
|
| "iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an]
| obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones"
| -- an actual quote from the SVP of Software Engineering in
| charge of iOS, revealed in Epic Games v Apple court discovery
|
| https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36.
| ..
|
| Of course, if you really cared about green bubbles, you'd
| switch to Android because there you can adjust outgoing
| message color to your heart's liking :-)
| dopa42365 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jackson1442 wrote:
| a much stronger argument than color imo is apple's refusal
| to implement RCS, which would make the experience of
| communicating with android users.
|
| generally I try to avoid SMS since the photo quality is
| bad, there's no delivery guarantee, and it doesn't work
| over wifi.
| skygazer wrote:
| For those not familiar, on an iPhone the green background
| only occurs on the messages the iPhone user has previously
| sent, and not those they have received from others. Also,
| whilst they're typing, they do not have a green background
| in the text box. However, that said, to my eyes, the green
| background does indeed make it slightly harder to read what
| you've previously sent compared to the blue backgrounds of
| iMessage, or the black on light gray of received messages.
| But it's slightly less of a problem to me because I
| generally remember what I've typed well enough to give my
| eyes an advantage.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| The color thing is an urban legend. Original iPhone chat
| bubbles were green pre-Apple having an alternative to SMS.
| The messages icon is green. For some reason Apple thought
| messages should be green.
| BudaDude wrote:
| It's not that its green thats the issue, is the shade of
| green they chose. It does not contrast well with white
| text and makes it hard to read.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| But the argument does become a lot weaker unless they
| changed the shade of green after introducing iMessage. If
| it stayed the same, then it's just the design they chose
| from the beginning.
|
| Also worth noting is that the color only applies to sent
| messages. When you receive a message, it's just gray in
| either case. It makes a certain amount of sense to let
| the user know which transport their outbound message went
| on since it will affect your expectations.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| They did change the shade of green, and the newer one is
| much less readable. See for yourself:
|
| Original: https://ronstauffer.com/blog/wp-
| content/uploads/taking-a-pic...
|
| Current: https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/ed
| am/applecare...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It may just be that I happen to have my reading glasses
| on right now, but both of those are easy to read.
|
| But let's run with that for a moment, and assume many
| people do in fact find that more difficult to read. I
| still have trouble calling that particularly hostile
| given that it's _sent_ messages, received ones are the
| same color no matter what.
|
| I'm more open to the green vs blue argument than the old-
| green vs new-green one. Apple definitely wants you to
| know you're using iMessage. It just happens to be useful
| for me as a customer, too -- I'm glad it's prominent when
| I send a text message instead of an iMessage. It aligns
| my expectations for what features will work in the
| conversation.
| [deleted]
| sterlind wrote:
| I caution against relying on your own senses when
| designing for accessibility. I can tell the red and green
| buttons apart just fine, but I'm not colorblind. And even
| if I were, there's multiple kinds of colorblindness - and
| of vision disabilities in general, from dyslexia to
| astigmatism.
|
| For small developers there's checker tools and
| simulators, but Apple is huge and has a responsibility to
| get this right.
| goosedragons wrote:
| They kinda did just not immediately. iMessage was
| introduced in iOS 5 pre-redesign. It used to be black
| text on a lighter green. With iOS 7 they moved to white
| text on searing green.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| From my memories of that UI design shift, nobody cared
| much about text messages in particular, because we
| generally hated _all_ of the flattened, vivid color and
| white text graphics. But it 's been a while, maybe I'm
| misremembering how annoyed people were. That was when we
| lost skeuomorphic design, as I recall, which some people
| were/are very attracted to.
| lhamil64 wrote:
| They actually did change it. It used to be much more
| readable. There's a comparison screenshot in this article
| https://css-tricks.com/apple-messages-color-contrast/
| [deleted]
| lttlrck wrote:
| SMS messages have always been green on iOS. Since before
| iMessage existed. I don't recall ever having trouble
| reading them.
| madars wrote:
| They deliberately reduced the contrast. Compare iOS 5
| when iMessage came out: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
| content/uploads/archive/09-27... and now: https://images.
| macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3468389/how_t... This
| underscores GP's point: Apple is expert at making anti-
| consumer decisions that fall just inside the Overton
| window.
| js2 wrote:
| What am I missing here? In iOS 5, it's black on blue vs
| black on green. Now it's white on blue vs white on green.
| Contrast between text and background looks the same to
| whether green or blue.
|
| In general, Apple has lowered contrast throughout the UI
| over the years. There's an accessibility setting for high
| contrast if you need it.
| AprilArcus wrote:
| Green has higher luminance than blue at equivalent
| saturation. The values for SMS and iMessage background
| colors are, respectively and in sRGB, #00CC46 and
| #0080FF, corresponding to relative luminance values of
| 0.436 and 0.227 according to the WCAG 2 formula.
|
| With white foreground text, this gives a contrast ratio
| of 2.15:1 for SMS and 3.79:1 for iMessage. WCAG 2.x AA
| level compliances requires a contrast ratio of at least
| 4.5:1 for normal text and at least 3:1 for large text.
|
| https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-
| minimum...
| js2 wrote:
| Thank you. FWIW, here is it under iOS 16 with
| Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Increase Contrast
| turned on.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/b61lmAf
|
| To my eyes, the green/blue doesn't make much difference
| in terms of legibility. I obviously find the reduced
| contrast throughout iOS annoying and keep increase
| contrast turned on.
| madars wrote:
| Thanks! If you have a calculations workflow already, what
| would the contrast ratios (even if approximate) be for
| old iOS? To a human eye it truly looks like SMS got way
| worse whereas iMessage stayed around the same.
| AprilArcus wrote:
| The pre-iOS 7 graphics have black text over a non-uniform
| background color as compared to white text over a uniform
| background color. This gives us ranges instead of a
| single value, but even in the worst case, black is a
| vastly more legible foreground color:
| | iOS 5-6 | iOS 7+ |
| ---------+-------------+--------+ SMS | 11.3 -
| 13.4 | 2.2 | iMessage | 11.8 - 14.1 | 3.8 |
| [deleted]
| cosmotron wrote:
| Contrast ratio for white on green is only 2.15:1 : https:
| //webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=FFFFFF&...
|
| Whereas for black on green it's 9.72:1 : https://webaim.o
| rg/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=000000&...
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that Apple has some of the best
| accessibility options out there. There's an "Increase
| Contrast" setting that increases the contrast for SMS
| messages.
|
| Yes, one could argue that the default should provide high
| contrast for everyone, but once this setting is enabled,
| it effectively becomes just that going forward for those
| that need it.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Apple products seem to require more and more tweaking of
| the right settings to be usable. I'm dreading the day I
| have to get a replacement MacBook and have to tweak all
| my settings again.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I also Have no trouble reading text messages from Android
| in IOS. not sure what people are talking about. I still
| think its wrong to distinguish between the two platforms
| as it points to anti-competitive behavior. Apple does
| other things that are way worse.
| _rs wrote:
| Not to mention it's only the messages you _send_ that are
| with a green background, messages you receive from either
| platform have a grey background
| politelemon wrote:
| > Apple are experts are experts at creating these patterns
| that fall just at the edge of being classified as anti-
| consumer, to the point where you frequently find heated
| discussions about whether they are.
|
| I argue that they are blatantly anti-consumer, but have
| created a brand identity association that causes people to
| pretend (and argue) they are not. Try using an ipad without
| handing over your credit card details. Even google is better
| in this area.
| mouzogu wrote:
| also denying full access to pencil api so that 3rd party
| pencils cannot compete with the official ones.
|
| and lack of user profiles on ipads so they cannot be easily
| shared among family.
| throwawaymobule wrote:
| What parts of the API? I've never used a first party one,
| but the generic $10 one I got on aliexpress worked fine on
| an ipad6.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > The way that regular bluetooth headsets work fine, but
| AirPods work even better
|
| What do you mean by this? I have an iPhone but don't have
| airpods, just "regular" BT headphones. Under windows, they're
| hit or miss (sometimes they don't reconnect), but they work
| pretty well under iOS and mac os. They work best under linux
| (!), especially since it's the only one to support LDAC
| (though I understand some non-sony android phones may support
| this now).
|
| So, if somehow apple came out with a way of making BT
| headphones work even better (what do they do better?), I
| don't see why you'd hold that against them. Should they not
| innovate just so that the competition doesn't get upset?
| [deleted]
| mholm wrote:
| In terms of unique OS-level integrations: Airpods are not
| paired with a device: they're paired with your Apple ID. If
| I pair the airpods with my iPad, I can seamlessly switch
| them to iphone, to Mac, to my Apple TV. They'll even auto-
| switch if it detects you've stopped using your current
| device.
|
| Airpods automatically try to pair with a nearby iphone when
| opened, if one of your own devices isn't around. All of
| this is through a pretty fancy UI, just for Airpods and
| Beats
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| But is there a way of making this work with regular
| bluetooth headphones? AFAIK whey you pair them, the HP
| will remember the device's physical address, so the
| random apple devices you may have would have to present
| the same address to the headphones. Hell, this doesn't
| work on its own, even between a Linux and Windows install
| on the same PC. You have to manually move some connection
| information between the two to get e.g. a mouse working
| in both.
|
| So if Apple figured a way of bypassing this limitation,
| it's really not clear to me why that should be considered
| "bad", even if it's clearly better than what the
| competition does. It's on the bluetooth standard to do
| better.
|
| Or is your point that apple should have standardized the
| protocol they use to make this happen?
| mholm wrote:
| I don't have any particular problem with this feature
| existing, it helps me as an apple user. Though I can
| imagine a standardized protocol would be what the OP of
| this thread wanted.
| philistine wrote:
| Very often when Apple decides to go in its own direction,
| you can criticize them for not improving standard ways of
| doing things instead. File transfers, contact sharing,
| etc.
|
| But with Bluetooth I believe Apple is right to forge its
| own path. The standard is convoluted, built on old
| methods, still cannot pair two buds in a sane manner, and
| can't provide enough bandwidth for Apple's uncompressed
| format.
|
| I expect Airpods to leave Bluetooth behind sooner rather
| than later.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| To connect regular bt headphones, you must go to Control
| Center > Hold on Bluetooth > Hold Bluetooth again > Select
| the headphones > wait > tap once to exit > tap twice to
| exit > swipe up from the bottom.
|
| AirPods are always accesible via the AirPlay-menu, which is
| prominently featured in many media apps.
|
| Again: still fine, but _just_ bad enough to partly
| influence my next buying decision.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| BT headphones are certainly less reliable at auto-
| switching, but that process you're going through isn't
| the norm for me. I just click on the output menu and
| select my Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones if I want to use
| them instead of my airpods. I don't have to pair them
| every time.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| But that's how bt heaphones work everywhere, right? I
| have to go and manually pair them.
|
| But once they're paired, they connect automatically to my
| iphone, and I can select them easily from a list when e.g
| making a phone call, though they're usually selected
| automatically when connected.
| acomjean wrote:
| I have this issue sometimes. If switching doesn't work
| automatically when my Bluetooth speaker is turned on it's
| not an quick option to select them.
|
| Apple has a "select audio out" menu thats on a lot of
| music and video apps. It shows "Apple airplay enabled"
| devices and makes switching easy. If it's just Bluetooth
| it's harder (you have to go into setting...)
| SebastianKra wrote:
| No, this is for connecting headphones that are already
| paired but disconnected. For my Sonys I had to do this
| every time I activated them, because I use them with
| multiple devices, and its not guaranteed that they
| connect to the right one.
|
| Some headphones support connecting two devices
| simultaneously, which is great... unless you have 3
| devices :)
|
| Anyways, if I was Apple, I would have added paired
| headphones to the speaker menu.
| derefr wrote:
| The W2 chip or whatever it's called, inside the AirPods,
| allows it to detect the closest "known" ( _not_ "paired")
| device when it's removed from its case, and if it's not
| the one that it was connected to when it last went to
| sleep, then the headphones will _avoid_ automatically
| connecting to the device they were previously connected
| to on last use, instead going into an implicit "trusted
| pairing" mode that allows the first known device to
| express an audio intent to become the BT auto-pair +
| auto-connect device.
|
| You can't do this with a regular Bluetooth audio device
| that doesn't have the W2 chip, because according to the
| Bluetooth spec, you can only be paired to one device at a
| time; there is no separate concept of "known" devices;
| devices that auto-connect stay auto-connected on
| sleep+wake; and devices that connect (therefore devices
| that auto-connect) must stop announcing themselves as
| available over BT discovery. (BT is essentially a
| protocol state machine -- a device can be either idle, in
| pairing mode, searching for its paired device to auto-
| reconnect, or connected, and none of these states can
| overlap.)
|
| These are all limitations of the audio device, not of the
| host OS. Limitations required for Bluetooth conformance!
| Apple can only work around these limitations by having
| the device and host both run a completely separate,
| second discovery protocol over completely separate
| hardware, that just forces the BT hardware into certain
| states as a result of its own negotiation. They can't
| magically make audio devices that _don't have_ a W2 chip
| do this out-of-BT-band negotiation.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Nope. Google's Pixel Buds have first party integration
| with a custom UI to connect them as soon as they're out
| of the box. So are Samsung's Galaxy Buds, and both of
| these use regular Bluetooth.
| dabinat wrote:
| I don't think this is a case of Apple crippling non-Apple
| headphones but more a case of Bluetooth being pretty
| limited.
|
| Either way, the user experience is still better than on
| Windows. Whenever I start up my PC it steals my
| headphones, even if I'm currently listening on another
| device (or worse, making a phone call). I've searched
| online and it seems there is no way to switch this off.
| The only solution seems to be to manually unpair or
| disable Bluetooth after using it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Battery throtteling on the iPhone 6s
|
| This is one of the ways I can tell what preconceived opinion
| someone has. The only problem with the battery throttling was
| PR. The engineering solution was correct and objectively
| better than not throttling. Should they have told users their
| battery was failing? Sure. But keeping the phone from
| crashing was better than letting it.
|
| > unauthorized Apps on MacOS must be opened with a right-
| click
|
| I've never had to do that.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > I've never had to do that.
|
| Using OKD (OpenShift Kubernetes Distribution) because I
| just dealt with this morning:
|
| https://github.com/okd-project/okd/releases - download the
| MacOS installer and unzip it.
|
| Then try to run it from the command line. Be told that it
| "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be
| verified". This is NOT the "is an app downloaded from the
| Internet, do you wish to run it?" dialog.
|
| Go to Finder, and double click it. Get the same message.
|
| You have to go to Finder, then right click the app,
| specifically hit Open (which will open a terminal that will
| immediately exit), and only now can you run this app in
| your original terminal.
| ars wrote:
| Apple stuff is always anti-consumer, it's not an edge thing
| at all.
|
| In the terminal it has a nice "search with Google" option and
| I can _not_ figure out how to get MacOS to stop opening
| Safari with that.
|
| Every time I use Apple products I get frustrated at how it
| blocks me from doing what _I_ want to do.
| basch wrote:
| Battery throttling doesn't fit the rest of these. Preventing
| a device reboot is pro consumer.
| flagrant_taco wrote:
| Shipping a device that will overheat and reboot when the
| device is a couple years old and fixing it by silently
| throttling the device isn't pro consumer either
|
| Those devices really should have been recalled or offered a
| generous trade-in value to account for the fundamental
| design flaw
| thebruce87m wrote:
| It has nothing to do with overheating. It is battery
| ageing. The internal resistance of a battery increases as
| it ages, leading to brownouts when peak current happens.
|
| The throttling feature still exists in iOS. All that's
| changed is that you will be made aware that it's
| happening and you can switch it off if you prefer a
| brownout when your battery is degraded.
|
| Other manufacturers are happy to let your handset reboot,
| it could lead to another sale for them. Some would call
| that planned obsolescence.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with overheating. It is battery
| ageing. The internal resistance of a battery increases as
| it ages, leading to brownouts when peak current happens
|
| _yawn_ Why my 8 years old Moto XT910 eat the battery
| like cookies _but did not reboot_? It 's battery wasnot
| only old, but swollen a bit, it's USB port was damaged so
| sometimes the charge didn't actually happened... but it
| still could survive a couple of hours with enabled radio
| and GPS, serving a navigation app with 3G updates? _And
| didn 't reboot_?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Why my 8 years old Moto XT910 eat the battery like
| cookies but did not reboot
|
| Probably because it's a simple, slow dual core Cortex A9
| with low enough power draw that it doesn't stress the
| battery enough to matter.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I'm not sure what answer you're looking for here - each
| system is different. Design, manufacturing, usage
| patterns will all play a part.
|
| When batterygate happened my wife's phone was throttled
| but mine wasn't. She didn't care and never got the
| battery replaced but she definitely would have upgraded
| sooner if it was rebooting.
|
| Are you saying that Apple use different battery
| technology to everyone else? Or what is your point?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Have you found a new battery technology where that is mid
| the case?
| flagrant_taco wrote:
| Device design is always constrained by the current
| technology. It isn't impossible to make a phone with
| current battery tech that doesn't overheat after a year
| or two of normal use
|
| Apple just pushed design to far and underestimated the
| cooling/heat dissipation required
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The phone didn't overheat. That's just the point. The
| options were either the phone slows down to keep the
| phone from shutting off when the battery got weak or the
| phone shuts off. What was the other alternative?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| You keep mentioning cooling / heat - this is the first
| I've ever heard of this in relation to batterygate, and
| in fact the first I've ever heard of any battery
| "overheating" (generating more heat?) as a result of a
| normal ageing process - where are you getting this from?
| babypuncher wrote:
| It's not a fundamental design flaw, this will happen with
| every device that ships with a modern rechargeable
| battery.
|
| Android does the exact same thing now, but I don't see
| people boycotting Google over it.
|
| The problem was that Apple didn't communicate this to the
| user. People didn't know _why_ their phone was slow.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| So that's every device with rechargeable batteries then.
| flagrant_taco wrote:
| Not really, most devices are designed with a commination
| of passive and active cooling as needed to operate under
| normal conditions.
|
| Apple just has a history of prioritizing design asthenic
| and they're willing to push the limits on thermal
| regulation.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Agreed, the problem was how poorly this was communicated to
| the user.
|
| I'd much rather have a slow phone than a phone that doesn't
| work at all (or worse, bursts into flames in my pocket)
| 015a wrote:
| Ah, found that "heated discussion" the OP mentioned.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| One nice thing HN has taught me is that I should be wary
| of anti-Apple claims like this. Inevitably someone comes
| along to add context or explain what's actually going on,
| and 9 times out of 10 it turns out that Apple's solution
| wasn't unreasonable at all.
|
| Which isn't to say that things like the 30% app store cut
| is entirely defensible, though you can certainly make
| some halfway plausible claims in that direction (based
| mostly on how retail works, especially at the time
| iPhones were invented). Or sideloading. There are
| legitimate gripes. But a lot of crap spewed regularly on
| HN turns out to be exactly that, crap.
| darkhelmet wrote:
| Heh. I can't blame them for doing this, but not telling
| people what's happening (and why) was the big mistake.
|
| People generally want their gadgets to be as lightweight
| as possible, cheap as possible, last as long as possible,
| and be reliable. There's tradeoffs in balancing those.
| eg: overbuilding the battery to make the device run
| longer in the face of degradation adds weight, size, and
| cost. Somebody has to make a call on where the balance
| should be.
|
| What nobody really talks about in the context of device
| longevity is wear levels in the onboard flash. A battery
| replacement or three doesn't extend that clock. It's
| pretty good but it doesn't last forever. This is more of
| an issue on devices with smaller amounts of flash storage
| with a lot more storage churn.
| buro9 wrote:
| WSL2 in Windows means you can just run a Debian underneath and
| launch a non-snap Firefox from there and have it appears in
| Windows.
|
| Now you get the benefit of Windows power management (and that
| beautiful laptop battery life) but a web browser Microsoft
| isn't going to mess with.
|
| This sounds hilarious were it not the way I actually work.
|
| PS: I'll also mention that VSCode from Windows to WSL2 + Debian
| is a mind-blowingly wonderful thing, I don't know how it works
| but it's near magical as a dev environment when you need a full
| Linux but like having battery life.
| OJFord wrote:
| How are you supposed to discover and use WSL?
|
| I got fed up with trying to run Fusion360 on Linux, no longer
| had a Mac, and reignited my long disused Windows installation
| recently. Updated and restarted. Looked around for WSL,
| nothing. Searched online, loads of blog spam of mixed
| helpfulness, no way of telling (for me, new to it) if they
| were v1 or v2, no basic information like they're talking
| about Ubuntu but is that a requirement? What changes if I
| want x? Looked in the app store, ..stuff yes, including 'Arch
| WSL' for example, but is this right? It seems to work, but
| really, I'm supposed to install something third-party?
|
| I assumed it was just something that was there built-in by
| default, but apparently not? Probably is if I first go start
| run regedit and set Computer Computer Windows HKLM Software
| Windows Windows Linux Software WSL enable to '2', right?
| Easy.
| noSyncCloud wrote:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
| [deleted]
| Our_Benefactors wrote:
| Open a terminal and type "wsl", it will tell you what to do
| from there. It's also easily available in the MS App Store
| without an account.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| I've found running a VM easier than WINE, FYI.
| LookingGlass?
| dekhn wrote:
| Literally the first page Google shows for [ install wsl on
| windows ] is the canonical documentation which is trivial
| to follow.
|
| Don't touch the registry.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Everything is easier on Windows 11. If you have 10 it's all
| harder and less built in, and some features don't work at
| all
| OJFord wrote:
| It is 10 yes. I glossed over a few steps as 'updated and
| restarted' - I actually spent an entire day trying to
| enable secure boot and (as required in order to) upgrade
| to 11 and then recovering from fearing I'd bricked it.
| (GPU doesn't support it, I now think (beforehand had no
| idea that even might be an issue). Motherboard then
| wouldn't revert to integrated graphics even with the card
| removed.)
|
| I really can't fathom how any technically-minded
| professional gets anything done with Windows - nevermind
| SEs - it just feels constantly in the way. And I'm not a
| die-hard Linux (nor Apple) fanatic, I grew up with
| Windows, it got me into 'computers'. It just seems like
| an uncontrollable (as in literally, operator not in
| control) mess compared even to macOS to me now.
|
| (I also really wanted to like it coming back to it - I
| thought with WSL surely that was going to take the Unixy
| strength of macOS and far supersede it as a when-I-
| can't-use-Linux device. But so far, egh, nevermind that I
| think the hardware's great, I think I'd pay the Apple tax
| just for the OS.)
|
| Maybe I'll try again to upgrade if the integrated
| graphics support it.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You blame Windows for all these issues around Secure
| Boot, then you need to be equally annoyed at Apple for
| how "not easy" it is to run Linux on a Mac with a T2
| security chip and disabling System Integrity
| Protection...
| papruapap wrote:
| What about playing media? Even when running natively, Firefox
| has the worst gpu acceleration support in my experience.
| nicce wrote:
| When was the last time you used it? GPU acceleration works
| perfectly for me in Mac or Linux.
| trelane wrote:
| Or you could run Linux on Linux hardware and get the full
| hardware support and sweet battery life without the Microsoft
| spyware.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > sweet battery life
|
| Linux has never been this, and likely never will be. On any
| hardware supported fully by both, Windows will always have
| better battery life. Back when I was a thinkpad user, i'd
| literally live in a vmware workstation linux VM on windows,
| and THIS had better battery life than linux natively on the
| same thinkpad.
| bombela wrote:
| I came to assume the battery only exists to act as an
| uninterruptible power supply as I travel to the next
| power outlet ;)
|
| It feels like over the past 10y Linux only went from 2h
| to 3h of battery life. While MacBook went from 3h to 13h.
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| This is what i experienced as well. 3h on light battery
| use. After having read every how-tos and used tlp, auto-
| cpufreq, powertop, ...
|
| I hate to say it, but, for me, it is the price to pay to
| not have to deal with Windows anymore. I'm on Ubuntu
| right now, but have tried with other distros in the past.
| YMMV.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| You're comparing an OS with a specific device. In the
| union case (Asahi Linux on MacBook), the battery life is
| much higher than 3h. Not yet 13, but soon should be
| close.
| bombela wrote:
| Let's hope it will be close. MacBook has twice the
| battery capacity as a run of the mill thinkpad. So 6h of
| battery would be the default I expect. More than that,
| and I will be impressed.
|
| Note that I have been using Linux for 20y. And I fully
| accept the short battery life in exchange of the tooling
| and freedom I get with Linux.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| I had a Lenovo p15 running fedora for a while and got 6
| to 8 hours battery life whilst working which was approx.
| the same as the original OEM windows install. So it might
| be a case by case situation.
| oneshtein wrote:
| > Linux has never been this, and likely never will be.
|
| Chromebook and Android works very well. They use Linux
| kernel.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Neither uses the GNU userspace, which is what people mean
| by "linux"
| oynqr wrote:
| So where does that leave Alpine?
| remix2000 wrote:
| s/GNU/Freedesktop/
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| It should be noted that Lenovo's power management
| software (pre Win10) played a big part in users' happy
| battery experiences.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I don't know what you mean by "supported", but the HP
| EliteBook 845 G8 (amd 5650u) I'm typing this on has
| noticeably better battery life under Linux than Windows.
| Ditto for its cousin with an 11th gen i7. They get around
| 5-6 hours on Linux, and around 4 on Windows. Windows also
| likes to spin those fans while sitting around doing
| nothing.
|
| Oh, HP recommends Windows 11 (tm) (r) (c). Both worked
| 100% from day 1 on Linux. But both laptops had issues
| during the first year under windows (no webcam on the
| amd, boken external screen output on the intel), so maybe
| they don't qualify as "supported by both".
| doubled112 wrote:
| Support is a funny term anymore. Who is supporting it?
|
| I have a pair of ASUS VivoBooks that BSOD on Windows
| every third or so boot with the NVMe they shipped with.
| That is the supported, manufacturer shipped OS.
|
| On any Linux distro I've installed they run without
| issues. They also pass any diagnostic I have tried.
|
| Battery life wise, some laptops I have get better battery
| life on a Windows install, and some get better battery
| life on a Linux install. Very hit and miss here.
| trelane wrote:
| > On any hardware supported fully by both
|
| This hardware does not exist, or at least it's
| exceedingly rare. something most folks miss is that the
| OS supports the hardware (though for Windows it's more
| the drivers than the OS, but I digress), but equally (and
| perhaps moreso) _the hardware supports the OS._
|
| Modern hardware is full of code (almost always
| proprietary), in ACPI, in EFI, in the EC, in all the
| devices. You cannot (without _significant_ engineering
| effort) make the hardware support both OSes equally.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I really don't get this battery life complaint.
|
| What kind of system are you running?
|
| On my thinkpad, arch install squeezes 9 hours after 7 years
| of use.
|
| On a dell XPS I'd get about 13 hours with the gpu disabled
| and display set to 1440p instead of 4k. Sure you might say
| "but I need my GPU and 4k 15'' display" to which I reply eh
| maybe but I don't.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| My ThinkPad running linux gets absolutely fantastic battery
| life with the exception that when I close it and put it in
| my backpack, I have about a 25% chance of discovering later
| that, while closed, it turned the screen on and and ran the
| fans at full speed to kill the battery because it was, I
| don't know... bored of being in a bag?
| oefnak wrote:
| Incredible. Can you post your configuration? On my XPS15
| that's about 4 or 5 years old, I can get max 2.5 hours with
| the GPU disabled and 1920x1080 resolution.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| What is the benefit of doing this over simply installing
| Firefox on Windows? After you download the Firefox installer,
| you're done with Windows "messing" with you.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| The Windows Firefox will be removed by an enterprise
| security suite forced upon you from your IT security. Or
| bogged down by antivirus. Luckily for us, 99,99% of those
| corporate security and IT drones have no idea what you can
| do with wsl.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| What security person in their right mind would remove
| firefox as a security threat? In my opinion you can make
| firefox drastically more secure with adblock and tracking
| blocker addons and better default settings. You'd have to
| be totally unconcerned with actual security to force
| everyone into edge. Or maybe there are some draconian
| incentives at big-corp's that I haven't seen yet.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| They wouldn't remove it "as a security threat" as such.
| They'd remove it because it's not part of the vetted
| applications list.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Wow, and I thought my agency IT was hostile...
| buro9 wrote:
| I leave few things on Windows as Microsoft have opinions,
| and then OSQuery gives IT admins opinions.
|
| I prefer as few outside opinions on what I run as possible,
| so I only leave Chrome and VSCode in Windows and everything
| else is in Linux.
|
| I had run Linux for years, but whilst I still have Linux on
| desktop machines I leave Windows on my laptop as it truly
| gives me 8-9h battery life and Linux only gives me a matter
| of a few hours tops.
| V1ndaar wrote:
| > Windows power management (and that beautiful laptop battery
| life)
|
| Is that sarcasm? I never had good battery life on a laptop
| running Windows. Linux has always been superior to me in that
| regard (maybe if nvidia optimus is at play?).
| plonk wrote:
| > maybe if nvidia optimus is at play?
|
| In this case Windows is the only sane choice (at least
| based on my experience from 2 years ago).
|
| After a lot of reading random docs, I got to a point where
| I could stop the GPU from eating the battery doing nothing,
| but I could only disable/enable it by logging out then in.
| It was either no GPU at all or a GPU drawing maximum power,
| no in-between.
|
| Maybe Nvidia's latest code releases will help with that?
| NGRhodes wrote:
| I've only had an Nvidia GPU laptop for 2 years so no
| experience of using older series of drivers, but Nvidia's
| 5xx series of drivers work great on my T460s running the
| latest Mint, drivers installed using the Ubuntu driver
| tool. Secure boot works out of the box, prime render
| offload works without a hitch (and no need to log in/out
| to switch GPUs), battery life is ballpark similar to
| Windows.
| plonk wrote:
| My experience was on a Dell XPS 15 from ~2018, up to
| Ubuntu 20.04. Maybe they got better just when I switched
| to macOS. :)
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > Mobil Safari seems to be using the search bar to hijack my
| google search
|
| Unless you are referring to the search field on google.com, it
| is not hijacking's your google searches. It is suggesting
| actions based on your input to the url bar.
| troupo wrote:
| > Mobil Safari seems to be using the search bar to hijack my
| google search (Particularly for locations which open in apple
| maps
|
| Anecdata, I know, but I've never experienced this across any
| iOS versions.
|
| Though given how shitty Apple's own software has become, I
| wouldn't be surprised if it's an integration gone awry.
| n_sd wrote:
| Just a side note. You might be meaning GNU/Linux instead of
| Linux.
| kervantas wrote:
| GNU/systemd/Liux/x86/electricity, to be specific.
| ballenf wrote:
| gmail app on iOS refuses to load a link from an email in
| Safari. It will monthly ask you to confirm if you want to load
| it in Chrome. If you stick with safari it will load the site in
| an internal safari webview, requiring a second tap on the
| bottom to launch in the real safari. Can break some magic link
| login emails.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| This is encouraged and is a step in the right direction of
| discouraging app developers from implementing their own web
| views which can intercept the traffic.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| > gmail app on iOS refuses to load a link from an email in
| Safari
|
| > If you stick with safari it will load the site in an
| internal safari webview, requiring a second tap on the bottom
| to launch in the real safari
|
| ???
|
| Many applications do this, including those from Apple itself.
| I don't see the refusal here.
| withinboredom wrote:
| It's so annoying to get a Github link to a private repo
| (aka, review comments) only to open into an internal
| webview that isn't authenticated.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > 'with added "trust of microsoft"'
|
| To be fair, you trust Microsoft to be your OS. Installing
| another browser means that there are now two parties that could
| be malicious or hacked (distribute a compromised update) rather
| than one.
|
| FWIW, I run Firefox on Debian Linux and an open source browser
| on Android as well (so no Safari hijacking going on either),
| but I can see valid logic in their statement ...even if they
| might not themselves have considered whether this is true
| before using it as marketing
| kwanbix wrote:
| I really don't like to use Edge, and I don't like imposed
| changes, however if you read the article, it says that it can
| be turned off, or am I missing something?
|
| "Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you
| can turn off this feature the first time it launches in
| Microsoft Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after
| that."
| post-it wrote:
| And it'll inevitably turn itself back on after a mandatory
| upgrade, just like all the other user-hostile things you can
| turn off.
| dizhn wrote:
| Like android playstore notifications. You can turn them off
| sure. But you'll keep getting the notification that reminds
| you to turn them on. You only have to say yes once. But it
| dutifully asks you again and again if you say no to
| something.
|
| These things have become so yawn to me these days.
| ljm wrote:
| As has been the case for the past 10 years or so, UX
| consistently plays second-fiddle to analytics.
| lozenge wrote:
| Sure, let's just all have to turn off a new setting every
| month.
| acomjean wrote:
| The fact that it does it at all is the issue. Someone wrote
| code that literally is watching for users trying to download
| another browser.
|
| You usually download a browser just once, so turning if off
| isn't the issue. I suspect some of less technically inclined
| might abide by it and not download the new broswer.
|
| It almost seems like trial run for stopping the download. I
| can imagine "clippy" popping up an saying "I see your trying
| to download a browser, I'm sorry, I can't allow that"
| withinboredom wrote:
| The code itself likely comes from Google, not Microsoft.
| You can open Chrome and go download Edge/FF, IIRC, it only
| shows if chrome is the default browser. At least it used to
| a couple of years ago.
|
| Gmail still nags me about not using Chrome.
|
| I don't see the issue here.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > or am I missing something?
|
| Yes, you're missing the fact that the user ALREADY set the
| default browser to something other than Edge, and Outhouse is
| now going to ignore your declared preference "for your
| convenience".
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Yeah I've complained on here about that as well. I'm not sure
| what they think they're doing but that made me want to stay as
| far away from Edge as possible. They really think they're going
| to win me over by creepily watching my downloads and popping
| stuff up the whole time I'm in the process of installing it?
| autoexec wrote:
| never mind putting people off edge, they risk getting sick of
| outlook! If my company had a product that was deeply embedded
| and collecting massive amounts of detailed information about
| the inner workings of so many companies across so many
| industries the last thing I'd do is risk scaring them off my
| product by making it more annoying. The insights MS must gain
| from the data they pull out of outlook (and office in
| general) is worth a hell of a lot more than an increase in
| edge users.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| No, they know you hate it. They know we all hate it. But
| there's enough retired dads and old grandma's out there to
| more than make up for us. People like us have been saying
| things like this for decades, if they still don't understand
| how we feel then it's willful ignorance. They know we hate it
| and they don't care because it makes them money and that's
| the only thing that matters in the world anymore. I'm all for
| businesses businessing, but god damn I guess all the low
| hanging fruit got picked and now they have to keep stepping
| on ever increasing numbers of faces to get ever higher for
| their shareholders and portfolios.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| no, no, no.. it is not "retired dads" strawmen.. control of
| the installation process is a feature for management and
| security. It is not "nice" to say it in public apparently..
| you the computer operator are not in control of the machine
| you are using. Your employer and their security people are
| in control of the machine that YOU are using.
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