this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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I completely understand where this is coming from, but I'm just a little confused about what the solution would be. For the average consumer and certainly the target users for Windows, shipping with a browser is the expected norm, and none are expected to open a terminal, much less run tools like winget. I guess you could have a setup dialog of major browsers to choose from?
I can think of some options
Level 1: Allow uninstall of edge. They can have the engine still for store/background processes, but no user icon. You can use edge to install other browsers then remove it.
Level 2: same as level one, but it comes "uninstalled". OOBE asks you to choose a browser.
Level 3: They rip out the deep integration they knew damn well they shouldn't have done because their asses were handed to them in the IE days.
Click 'browse web' Microsoft gives a list of popular and mixed browsers that the user can select. Microsoft then installs selected browser. At least this is the only tangible way I can see.
Anyone else remember this badboy?
For the uninitiated, BrowserChoice.eu was a popup and associated website that Microsoft was forced to create by the EU courts becasue of their monopoly in 2010.
Also, an opinion: Edge was a great browser even before they switched to Chromium. I wish they'd kept at it so there was a better variety of rendering engines out there.
Yes, I'm really confused about this article - isn't what you describe still in effect? Why on earth not? (I haven't used Windows in ages so I personally have never seen that.)
Microsoft and the European Commission agreed to an initial period of five years. That ended in 2014, and the measure was not extended mainly for two reasons:
With competition in the browser market seemingly healthy, and the browser ballot not doing much to affect it, it was seen as pointless to keep requiring Microsoft to display it.
Thank you for that information.
One might also say, with the dire current state of browser competition, it won't make much of a difference.
I'm just privately hopping that Firefox won't lose its last few percent market share and go the way of the dodo. 🤞🥹
One solution could be during PC initial setup, a list of all browsers above a certain user count is given and the person chooses which to install and use as default with the ability to change at a later date.