Technology

It's like the mid 90s all over again. Let's see if anything happens this time.

I guess it could be said that Edge has an unfair...edge?

I’m not defending Microsoft… but if we’re going to go after a tech company for leveraging their other assets to give themselves an unfair advantage can we also go after Google?

In the first releases of Edge, Microsoft tried to build a new web browser from scratch to compete with Google Chrome. By google kept changing YouTube’s code so that videos would playback janky on Edge. Microsoft eventually gave up trying to fix for YouTubes ongoing changes and now Edge is based on Chromium (the same open source web browser maintained by Google, that chrome os built on). Google leveraged YouTube to prevent completion from Edge.

And now Google is blocking ad blocking extensions so that users are forced to see more google ads in their browser.

Microsoft’s has leveraged their unfair advantage to get a little over 5% market share.

Google’s leveraged their unfair advantage to get 66% of the market.

Both companies need a hard smack down, but I want to see Google taken down too.

Please submit a second copy of that letter, but replace Windows with Android, PC with Mobile, Microsoft with Google, and Edge with Chrome.

As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice.

What's the actual alternative they want here? That users look up download URLs on other devices and download their browser of choice via command line using ~~cURL~~ Invoke-WebRequest? That ISPs provide browser installers on USB sticks?

Also, it's not like MS is cornering the market on browser share here. Even with this "unfair advantage" they've only scraped together a 5% slice of browser usage.

Not to forget than when using bing, if you look for words like Firefox or Chrome, you get a large banner saying to use Edge instead. Super shady stuff

MS is literally back to square one its about damn time.

They're even worse now and aggressively pressure you to use edge if it's not the default.

why go after microsoft.

Go after fucking google.

Chromium is the plague, not Edge.

You could say the same about Android and iOS. They are preloaded with a web browser not many people change. In fact I've noticed that many users (mostly older) using Android don't even know what browser they are using, since they just type shit into Google widget on their home screen.

Ooo what about safari on mac? Isn't it the same thing but just not as hated?

I agree with going after the Edge Lords and making things more fair...but I'm guessing Chrome is the most used we browser by a long shot even on windows so the “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge's unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows." part feels like users are comfortable stepping over Edge's corpse to download chrome anyway.

A letter seen by Reuters, sent by Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Wavebox, and supported by a group of web developers, also supports Opera’s move to take the EC to court over its decision to exclude Microsoft Edge from being subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

OK...

Shouldn't they be fighting Chrome, more than anything? Surely there's a legal avenue for that, though I guess there's a risk of getting deprioritized by Google and basically disappearing.

...and we all know what that advantage can do! (Covertly looks in IE's direction)

Yup. Teams ignores default browser and opens URLs in Edge. I have to right click copy and open in Firefox. I refuse to be forced to use Edge

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?

Windows is absolutely abusing their position as the dominant OS to push their other products. The number of "no don't do that" messages and pop ups when trying to install chrome on a windows computer is clearly anti-competitive, and the only reason microsoft has been getting away with it is because Edge/etc hasn't achieved enough market share.

As it's based on chromium, I'd call what it has a handicap and just keep on using Firefox.

running "winget install firefox" in an elevated powershell gets you a better browser without ever opening edge. but then you still cannot uninstall it and all the other shit about it still stays active.