[HN Gopher] Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer fro...
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Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs
Author : loa_observer
Score : 99 points
Date : 2023-02-20 15:21 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of
| Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer
| from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most
| legacy apps should continue to work as-is.
|
| On Windows Server platforms, where IE11 is still inexplicably the
| default experience even in the most recent 2022 editions, you can
| still enjoy its full functionality, until you explicitly install
| 'Edge for Business'. Which you should.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| 75% of PCs I had the pleasure today to ,,patch" didn't have IE
| Mode at all in edge, but still removed IE. Fun times.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| IE mode has been around for ages, either push it through MDM
| or GPO.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| Windows home edition, we don't control those PCs, the
| clients buy them themselves.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > most legacy apps should continue to work
|
| *most*
|
| I recently had an issue with MS deleting IE and a corporate
| legacy app not working.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Compound interest over tech debt can snowball to quite
| impressive sizes.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Which you should
|
| ... have done a long time ago.
| j45 wrote:
| For those who experienced IE being forced on computers, simply
| entertaining the idea of it being forced off computers without
| choice is not just click-baity but also a special coming full
| circle moment.
|
| Besides, every step towards an OS being something a user
| doesn't own or control, either for their own good, or users who
| can't help themselves, is another step towards lasting demand
| for usable Linux. '
|
| It's nice that Ubuntu is starting to feel like MacOSX when it
| started to become usable for the many and not just the few.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| If people have genuine use cases (or even simply have a
| preferred remembered experience experience for how something
| complicated works like an elderly person) I see no reason why
| they "should" upgrade, and why instead we shouldn't at least
| try to provide those users a mediocre amount of support.
|
| For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and
| Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| On my grandmother's computer I did the "install this site as
| an app" function for the sites she uses and they open up in
| frameless windows. The only browser controls available to her
| are back and refresh. Highly recommend.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Does this work with back button high jacking that is so
| common?
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| A genuine use case for IE11 on Windows Server platforms,
| which is what I was talking about, would mostly be 'masochism
| and a penchant for malware'.
|
| If your average grandparent runs Windows Server, learning a
| new browser every now and then would be the least of their
| problems, IMHO.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Aren't we getting close to where somebody reading this
| forum has quite tech savvy grandparents yet? When will this
| "someone's grandparent" trope just retire too?
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| No. IE needs to be renamed "ActiveX Web App Engine" and no
| longer be associated with the concept of an Internet browser.
|
| Grandma can get an old iPad for Hotmail and Facebook, which
| is far safer, far less needing of support and what most
| people are using for those types of things anyway.
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| > IE needs to be renamed "ActiveX Web App Engine"
|
| Which is effectively what Edge does. It redirects all IE11
| COM endpoints to WebView2, which is Chrome-based and should
| Work Just Fine for the foreseeable future.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| For the elderly, this is why:
|
| https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-
| list/vendor_id-26/p...
|
| I'd much rather Grandma have to learn to do something
| slightly differently than to hear about how Grandma had her
| bank account information stolen by some JavaScript malware.
|
| For those with genuine use cases (I.e. ancient software that
| doesn't even work with the compatibility shims) I agree that
| there should be some way to run IE11 and older (and with only
| themselves to blame if they get pwned by ignoring the risks).
| mulmen wrote:
| > I'd much rather Grandma have to learn to do something
| slightly differently
|
| This attitude is responsible for more harm than any other
| single idea in software development.
|
| Do not break your users.
|
| You think you have a choice here but what really happens is
| Grandma stays on old software forever because the beatings
| have taught her to never update anything. And the really
| sad part is that she's right.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Grandma just buys the iPad because it just works and
| stays up to date without risk of malware while Windows is
| left a rotting mess of garbage because they are too
| afraid to change anything.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and
| Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking
|
| I don't know what value of "grandma" is subject to being
| averaged, but this feels needlessly hyperbolic.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Assuming Grandma is passably familiar with IE11 already for
| Facebook and Hotmail, I doubt the switch to edge is
| "monumental".
|
| The most important items are all pretty close to their old
| positions. Odds are she is going to Yahoo to search for
| Hotmail or Facebook anyway.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| Edge is shipped with Server 2022, assuming because Windows
| Admin Centre doesn't support the only browser that 2019 came
| with out of the box
| nimbius wrote:
| >and replace them with compatibility shims
|
| christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out
| and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user,
| but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such
| that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with
| ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls
| your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving
| antitrust litigation but somehow you manage to make it out by
| smirking through interviews and the grace of a nation thats
| just awakening to the dawn of the internet.
|
| then fast forward 20 years later, your dumpster-fire web
| browser with all its lock-in and exploits still exists in the
| OS but the average user sees it as nothing more than a
| glorified blue icon to immediately download what has become
| your direct competitors far more competent and meaningful
| execution of browser software.
|
| So you sunset the horrorshow that was IE in favour of _your
| competitors_ browser engine to power your new browser but the
| haggard burro of a thing you call an OS is so inextricably
| encumbered by your blues-traveler era nineties myopia you now
| need a team of H1B 's to start writing shims and the burger
| from lunch feels like its starting to come back up...
|
| ...now eight years later whatever frankenstein browser you
| convinced yourself was a good idea to build is _still_ nowhere
| near as popular as your competitors, and thats after you added
| built-in gaslighting to your search engine to dissuade anyone
| from even searching for your competitors browser. you even came
| up with your own prefix to force links in your daytime
| infomercial of an OS to open directly in your new pet browser
| but people _still_ dont want to use it. heck, you routinely
| reset their default browser and the only thing its managed to
| do is galvanize what by all indicators is a nearly white-hot
| detest for your pet chrome that has 45 seconds of unavoidable
| fullscreen lecture on first load, built in ads and tours, and a
| weird buy now pay later feature.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user,
| but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS_
|
| Well, it's kind of explicable: It was at about that time
| Microsoft rolled out HTML Help, so they needed an HTML
| rendering engine on every PC to be able to read the
| documentation.
|
| Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is
| what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they
| were just 15 years ahead of the curve.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This is one of the reasons a lot of people see the
| Microsoft anti-trust suit as a mistake (in that it wasn't
| based on any sound legal theory, and history has shown that
| every MS competitor just did what MS did and didn't get
| smacked for it; essentially, the government stepped on the
| neck of one private company in an asymmetrical way because
| the administration at the time didn't like their face.)
| dccoolgai wrote:
| 100 pct. They blew their powder on this, gave tech
| antitrust a bad name and let stuff 1000x worse go
| unchallenged for decades and now we are where we are.
| testTED wrote:
| Was it because they wanted cooperation on surveillance
| and other law enforcement projects from the winner-who-
| had-taken-all?
| zahllos wrote:
| > Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine
| is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way
| they were just 15 years ahead of the curve.
|
| As others have said parts of explorer were using mshtml for
| the user interface. However it wasn't just Microsoft. Third
| party vendors used mshtml as a component to render their
| UI! You can find samples around still, e.g .
| https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/6845/Implementing-
| snap-...
|
| Most memorably, Norton Antivirus 2003 (I think) was one
| such application. The entire UI was in fact written in HTML
| with lots of callbacks into c++ code.
|
| So in many ways... Electron isn't all that new of an idea
| :)
| [deleted]
| dilippkumar wrote:
| > ...you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims...
|
| This was uncalled for. You could've just said engineers.
|
| For those of us in an unending battle with a broken
| immigration system every day of our lives for over a decade,
| this really rubs the wrong way.
| [deleted]
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Hmm, I didn't feel like they were insulting the H1Bs
| themselves, just insulting the fact that Microsoft hires a
| ridiculous amount of them so they can treat the workers
| like crap and force them to do unpleasant grunt work like
| this
| 93po wrote:
| Agree with other poster - I think he's criticizing the tech
| industry's abuse of workers who are immigrants, and their
| motivation to do so that's based on greed and profits and
| the power imbalance.
| renewiltord wrote:
| He's probably a Midwestern engineer, if you know what I
| mean.
|
| Or someone not from a coastal state (or Texas).
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Some HN comments are down right elitist bordering on
| xenofobic, assuming that only westerners must be
| responsible for writing the "good" consumer facing software
| everyone loves, and that the "boring" corporate software
| everyone hates or sees no use for must be written by
| unskilled immigrants from third world countries.
| albatross13 wrote:
| [flagged]
| mandeepj wrote:
| Hilarious! That's one way to describe history of three
| decades of that company.
| j45 wrote:
| Hubris? No such thing at that time. They had to find a way to
| get things done, which were breaking all the time. Imagine
| node breaking something every release but a web browser.
| There was little choice then, compared to too many options
| today. Firefox was able to be a bit more of a stable presence
| than the rest in that time.
|
| Devs had to manage every incompatibility between every tag
| implementation in every browser, especially ways to
| gracefully downgrade for older and older versions of IE
| especially in early B2B SaaS. Ironically, these skills have
| turned out to be incredibly valuable now for other
| applications for optimizing user experiences even if they're
| anonymous.
|
| It was that way for a long time that made browser makers
| learn the hard way why compatibility was a good thing and
| would not be less competitive.
|
| Looking forward to safari is everything on iOS going away
| soon.
|
| Thankfully such opinions of the past have to live with the
| fact that modern javascript apps in many ways, with AJAX
| calls were invented by Microsoft, no less for the online
| version of Microsoft Outlook.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this
| out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the
| user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS
| such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met
| with ruination?
|
| Elsewhere on HN: Everyone should be forced to install Chrome
| because I can't be bothered testing against Safari and
| Firefox.
| justeleblanc wrote:
| Try to uninstall Safari from Mac OS or iOS, or Chrome from
| Android. Tell me how that works out for you.
| [deleted]
| testTED wrote:
| Google* Android
| Gigachad wrote:
| Android always has a browser you can't remove. It's just
| not always chrome.
| testTED wrote:
| The OS needs a browser engine for its WebView, which many
| apps etc rely on.
|
| On non Google Android releases these can pretty easily be
| swapped.
|
| Possibly on Google Android as well.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| People are talking about no browser. Not swapping them
| testTED wrote:
| Yes, I understand.
|
| I'm explaining that you need a WebView for basic
| functionality of many apps.
| Gigachad wrote:
| The out of the box experience with Android is that you
| can not replace the OS browser.
|
| The fact that you can recompile AOSP to have a different
| browser is not particularly noteworthy, you could do that
| for any mandatory component.
| testTED wrote:
| Nobody is talking about recompiling AOSP.
|
| It's a popup dialog.
| PreInternet01 wrote:
| > can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out
|
| Yup. And I can also imagine all the reasons why you dislike
| (to various extents, from _mild_ to _extreme hate_ ) that.
| Yet, at the time, _everyone_ was trying to do the exact same
| thing: capture the desktop. The mechanisms were different,
| but the end-objective all the same.
|
| There is an alternate universe where we're all running
| JavaStations. I kinda like this version...
| pantulis wrote:
| And yet the desktop was somewhat captured not by IE+ActiveX
| controls but by Ajax technologies, another invention of IE.
| (And Flash, to another extent) Oh what days were those...
|
| Today we are all basically running JavascriptStations.
| quanticle wrote:
| but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such
| that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met
| with ruination?
|
| Was Internet Explorer ever _actually_ a core and critical
| part of Windows? Sure, Microsoft _claimed_ that it was. But
| of course, they would have done that, given that the
| alternative was to admit that the Justice Department 's
| argument was correct, and that Internet Explorer was being
| bundled in an anti-competitive manner to deprive Netscape of
| sales.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You could enter an http address into File Explore in place
| of the C:\ nonsense, and it would replace the folder view
| contents with the website. See, embedded at the core. /s
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's been a long time. I'm trying to remember if they'd
| rewired things so the Help function actually ran atop the
| IE rendering agent, or if I'm thinking of MacOSX and
| Safari.
| kevingadd wrote:
| The CHM viewer used for many help files is a webview,
| yeah.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| The webview control based on the internet explorer engine
| was rather important. Internet Explorer the application
| less so.
| andrepd wrote:
| What an amazing read.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Describing the "nudges" as gaslighting is very funny indeed
| dylan604 wrote:
| >the average user sees it as nothing more than a glorified
| blue icon to immediately download what has become your direct
| competitors far more competent and meaningful execution of
| browser software.
|
| One of the marketing style slagging quote, "Internet
| Explorer. The most used browser to download another browser."
| I remember the first time a buddy said that to me, and it has
| aged oh so well.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| That was a _great_ read.
|
| > daytime infomercial of an OS
|
| I'm not sure how you managed to write this post but I'm
| totally on board with the linguistic energy of it
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This is a very strange comment.
|
| Personally... I absolutely understand exactly how they ended
| up in this situation. There are actually several good reasons
| to embed the browser into the OS, the top two easily
| understood ones are...
|
| ---
|
| 1. They've put a lot of work into the browser, and they've
| shared many components of it with other tooling. EX: Internet
| _EXPLORER_ and _EXPLORER_ the file system browser don 't
| share their name by mistake. They're so similar I can load
| the same COM addin in both.
|
| 2. From a pure usability perspective, it makes a boat load of
| sense to prevent a user from accidentally uninstalling the
| last browser on the machine. When dealing with edge cases and
| possible support calls, making sure that the user has at
| least one application that can download files from the web is
| pretty damn reasonable. Safari is also not removable... for
| similar reasons.
|
| ---
|
| Further - I think it's actually a fairly good credit to MSFT
| that they're bothering with shims at all, and are maintaining
| a good chunk of compatibility for applications that were
| written literally decades ago.
|
| Both Google and Apples's approach to this would literally be:
| "We're so sorry, that's no longer supported and you're
| f*#$ed. Go upgrade, get your vendors to upgrade, or eat
| shit."
|
| MSFT isn't writing shims because they still need them...
| they're writing shims because they have enterprise customers
| who want them, and they actually give a fuck about that.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Google and Apples's
|
| ... and Linux (well, Ubuntu specifically). I'm staring down
| the need to upgrade from Ubuntu LTS 20.04 to Ubuntu LTS
| 22.04 because some software I maintain now relies on GLIBC
| v2.32, which is an absolute bear to back-port. The party
| line is "So just upgrade," but there's no guarantee my
| hardware is compatible with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the
| vendor doesn't support that config and I'm not really
| interested in dealing with all the joys of figuring out
| every fiddly-widget little config on a laptop to make it
| work myself.
|
| Microsoft is nearly unique in caring that much about
| backwards compatibility. It's the value-add they bring to
| the market these days relative to the competition.
| amenod wrote:
| > ...but there's no guarantee my hardware is compatible
| with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the vendor doesn't support
| that config...
|
| So it's your _vendor_ who doesn 't care about backwards
| compatibility - Linux does. Whatever hardware you have,
| once it was supported, it will stay this way until it is
| _really_ ancient, and even then you will have special
| builds that will support it. That 's the beauty of open
| source (or even source available) licenses. No corporate
| interests that would render your solution obsolete. [0]
|
| [0] assuming your hardware doesn't need some binary blobs
| (khm nvidia khm) to work
| shadowgovt wrote:
| (a) Of course it needs binary blobs. This is the real
| world where medium- to high-performance machines need
| binary blobs. The GNU dream never materialized.
|
| (b) If Ubuntu (and I'm going to say "the Linux ecosystem
| in general") cared about backwards compatibility in the
| same sense Windows does, a minor-version bump to glibc
| wouldn't introduce API breakages that mean I can't build
| a codebase that's doing nothing new and special on my
| machine right now purely because a 31-subver bumped to a
| 32. They aren't doing anything new in the code; their JNI
| dependency just bumped up and so they bumped up the whole
| codebase's requirements.
|
| That's fine, but it's not The Windows Way. The Linux Way
| doesn't think about compatibility issues like that in
| anything like the same way. It's a source-code-and-patch-
| it-yourself world. The approaches are completely alien to
| each other.
| caf wrote:
| glibc goes to great lengths to ensure binary backwards-
| compatibility. If a binary interface has to change it
| uses symbol versioning to keep around the old interface -
| for example if you have a program compiled against
| glibc2.2 on x86-64 that calls timer_create(), it will
| call through the function __timer_create_old() that
| provides the old interface when run on a system with a
| newer libc.
|
| The reverse scenario that seems to be what you have -
| where you compile against a newer library version then
| run it on an older one - is forwards-compatibility which
| is a different kettle of fish. Even on Windows it's not
| like you can compile against the latest DirectX and run
| it on an older Windows?
| i386 wrote:
| A weird comment that deserves more upvotes.
| brk wrote:
| The era in which Microsoft forced IE into the OS was purely
| about anti-competitiveness and their own fear of being
| caught off guard on this whole internet fad.
|
| The only reason we need IE shims at all is because MS
| botched their overall internet strategy. Had they made a
| truly competitive browser and supported common standards,
| and the user's ability to choose their browser, none of
| this would be needed.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Notepad.exe is forced into the OS. Is that anti-
| competitive too? If it's okay to have an app be a
| frontend for an OS provided text edit control why not the
| same with a webview control?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _making sure that the user has at least one application
| that can download files from the web is pretty damn
| reasonable._
|
| And, indeed, you can't remove Windows Update. Nor (in more
| recent versions) the Add or Remove Features component in
| Control Panel-- er, sorry, the Settings app. So long as you
| can still re-install Internet Explorer without a web
| browser (which I think you have always been able to, ever
| since the days IE came in a box), there's no reason to stop
| you removing it.
|
| Microsoft did have legitimate reasons to integrate the
| browser engine in Windows 95, what with the whole Active
| Desktop, HTML Application, the-web-is-the-future schtick
| they were going for. But _that_ isn 't one of them.
| Lapsa wrote:
| that's one thing I genuinely admire Microsoft for - the
| effort they put into maintenance
| brk wrote:
| I somewhat agree, but even that is only for capitalistic
| reasons.
|
| If they didn't have the massive backwards compatibility,
| corporate users would essentially be free to choose a new
| OS platform every few years. By maintaining deep legacy
| software support, they make it easy for their customers
| to stay addicted to Windows.
|
| MS is not doing this for your benefit, or out of some
| kind of dedication, it's pure capitalism.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > even that is only for capitalistic reasons
|
| That's a good thing. People wanting to pay for your stuff
| is a good sign that it's valuable to them, and thus worth
| doing.
| baronswindle wrote:
| Sure, but I think this is an example of markets working
| well. Customers don't want to have to adapt to a new
| platform every year and are willing to pay for that
| service. Microsoft recognizes that desire and provides
| backward compatibility. Microsoft charges a price above
| what it costs to provide the service but below what their
| customers are willing to pay. Both parties win. Seems
| like a good thing.
| brk wrote:
| Rarely have I seen "both parties win" used in describing
| dealing with Microsoft.
|
| There is tons of documented history of their anti-
| competitive behavior and deceptive practices. It is not
| very often that a CEO of a company in a market that is
| "working well" is called to testify in front of Congress.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You seem to have changed the topic. As the previous
| poster was saying, them doing this particular thing for
| money is not bad. It's good. The fact that you're for
| some reason pulling in unrelated things that Microsoft
| has done presumably means you agree, but it's a mystery
| as to why you don't want to say so.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS
|
| It was actually a great feature (memory may be failing at
| this point), and it seemed like the filesystem viewer _was_
| IE presenting a filesystem view. If you typed an http or
| https URL, the window would turn into an HTML renderer
| window. This made it possible to build their mail and
| newsgroup reader apps as filesystem views. Mail was nothing
| but a folder full of email message files. News was,
| surprise, a folder full of newsgroups. Those viewers were
| responsible with synchronizing the folder with remote
| services.
|
| I would love if Gnome would allow pluggable views in Files:
| a mail reader for maildir folders, a music player for
| folders full of audio files, and so on.
| cld8483 wrote:
| > _I would love if Gnome would allow pluggable views in
| Files_
|
| This is essentially what Gvfs is for except basically
| nobody uses it, at least in the ways you describe,
| because forcing non-FS things into the shape of a FS
| usually doesn't work very well. So instead Gvfs gets used
| for relatively simple things that naturally map onto the
| FS concept well, like mounting archive files, browsing
| FTP, etc.
| Clubber wrote:
| _christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this
| out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the
| user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire
| OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be
| met with ruination?_
|
| >This is a very strange comment.
|
| In around 2001 when MS was being tried for antitrust, they
| claimed that IE couldn't be decoupled from the OS because
| it would break the os. I believe that is what the OP is
| alluding to. I believe an unassociated professor managed to
| decouple it later.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Co
| r....
| asdff wrote:
| Microsoft only cares about legacy support if it means the
| vast majority of customers. I will give you an example: go
| to a top tier research institution for biology, and sort
| your cells with the fluorescence-activated cell sorter
| (FACS). You might have to now burn that data onto a cd rom,
| because the software running the six figure instrument was
| written in 2002 for windows XP, and for reasons only known
| to microsoft, this software is no longer able to run on
| modern windows. So now IT has to airgap the desktop sitting
| by the machine, and the only way they let you get data off
| according to policy is through CD rom, not usb because that
| breaches the gap. The vendor for the instrument has no
| incentive to update that software either; they'd rather you
| dish out another half million dollars for a new sorter.
|
| There are hundreds of instruments like this in any given
| research institute, all because Microsoft decided
| unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is
| clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern
| hardware that receives security updates.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > and for reasons only known to microsoft, this software
| is no longer able to run on modern windows.
|
| The reason is most likely... because the driver relies on
| APIs that were insecure and removed in the XP-Vista
| transition!
|
| > The vendor for the instrument has no incentive to
| update that software either; they'd rather you dish out
| another half million dollars for a new sorter. > There
| are hundreds of instruments like this in any given
| research institute, all because Microsoft decided
| unilaterally that software that ran fine 20 years ago is
| clearly useless and doesn't need to run anymore on modern
| hardware that receives security updates.
|
| So it's Microsoft's fault that the vendor won't update
| it's software?
|
| Didn't this "elite institution" get a support contract
| for the machine?
|
| Would they expect the driver and software to still work
| if it had been written for a PowerMac G5, running Mac OS
| X Panther?
|
| Would a binary compiled 20 years ago even have a remote
| chance of running on Linux?
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Sounds like the writer of the software is equally at
| fault, and the sysadmin could have been more creative.
|
| I see no reason why the data collection can't be managed
| by a highly portable console app running inside a VM or
| dos emulator or the legacy PC can't be kept behind a
| firewall that only lets data out.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Would you expect a 20-year-old MacOS to run on a modern
| MacBook? Why not?
|
| Would you expect a 20-year-old Linux to install just fine
| on a modern PC? I remind you that this was the era of
| RHEL 3! I had trouble getting RHEL 6 running in a
| _virtual machine_ just recently.
|
| Meanwhile XP will run on most modern PCs, it's just not
| _supported_. That means no security patches.
|
| The mistake here is not Microsoft's.
|
| The mistake is your organisation's for buying a half-
| million-dollar device with no support plan from the
| vendor for its control OS.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| As a device builder creating those machines (well,
| industrial CNCs, but similar idea) I don't have many
| options when trying to build something with a useful life
| of 20+ years. I just received an order for another
| machine in a lineup that started with some using
| Heidenhain controls from the early 90s, we ripped out
| those controllers and replaced them with models running a
| custom black box RTOS based on Motorola DSP 56002 chips
| on ISA cards that were on Windows 98 and Windows XP
| motherboards, then that company got aquihired and they
| stopped making those cards, there was a brief foray into
| PowerPC and now we're installing Arm processors running
| surprisingly modern Linux 4.9 with preempt_rt. We're
| talking to these motion controllers using VB6 running on
| a bunch of Windows 7 PCs with a few compatibility hacks
| enabled, and I'm installing new fanless PCs with Windows
| 10 LTSC 21H2, which claims support until 2032-01-13. If
| it's not running those relatively public, well-documented
| systems, it's likely a PLC or robot containing a
| proprietary ASIC running some WindRiver RTOS, and
| completely subject to the whims and survivability of that
| product line.
|
| I love my customer's maintenance department, they're
| unusually thorough and attentive to preventative
| maintenance, greasing and oiling and replacing wear
| items, root-causing failures and keeping the machines in
| good working order for decades. But when you keep fixing
| each individual small part that breaks, eventually the
| market moves on and you have to throw all the replaceable
| parts away and start over. The process requirements
| haven't changed, the weldments and castings aren't
| broken, it's just that you can't replace a failed servo
| drive or Core 2 motherboard or ISA card because the
| supply chain gave up on them 10 years ago. There's no
| great advantage of Windows 10 LTSC and a 64-bit Arm
| controller over Windows 98 with 56002 ISA cards except
| that I can buy the former today and I can't buy the
| latter because no one makes them anymore.
|
| There is no control OS or hardware supply chain that
| lasts as long as military, industrial, or scientific
| equipment can be made to last. Fanuc and others try with
| massive vertical integration and a "never deprecate
| anything" mantra, but they don't run their own
| semiconductor fabs to guarantee production of chips for
| stuff that doesn't keep up with the rat race.
|
| Yes, I'll keep supporting my company's gear for as long
| as possible, but sometimes the answer is that I need to
| throw away 4 working servomotors, drives, a controller,
| and a PC, and invest 600 engineering hours into making
| this machine do the exact same thing it did last week,
| because that 5th drive blew the IGBT and took out the
| controller and no one can get a replacement. Customers
| don't like to issue $100k invoices when a $1k
| subcomponent dies...because that $1k quote was from 2008,
| and it's now literally priceless.
| whizzter wrote:
| Any reason communication with these kinds of machines
| hasn't been built on top of something like CAN or
| Ethernet?
| asdff wrote:
| I would expect a bash script I wrote 20 years ago to run
| on a new linux machine I buy today, yes. I'm not asking
| for windows XP to be installed, I am asking for these
| modern machines to let me run the code the machine I was
| sold 15 years ago let me run. This whole march to reduce
| compatibility is kind of stupid imo. Let me buy a mac
| that can run 32 bit software still!
| whizzter wrote:
| Windows does run most stuff that you throw at it still
| unless the software made some boneheaded assumptions that
| violated basic API rules.
|
| Software using a lib I wrote in 1998 doesn't work anymore
| but it's because I took a bad shortcut that made DOS-era
| assumptions, fixing/recompiling it would be the right
| course of action but I haven't had the time (also not
| sure where all the sources are).
|
| On a contrary note, my first USB-Wacom pads STILL work
| after 20 years, it's not just software but a vendor that
| cared about it's software long enough to make 64bit
| drivers that still works.
|
| As you said, the vendor isn't interested in upgrading the
| software and there is where the blame is, MS tries to
| keep backwards compatibility but some things has had to
| go for performance and/or security reasons over the years
| and those usually broke rules (or were tied to HW, Linux
| has dropped 386 and 486 after all).
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I've recently seen code from 1998 running on a 64-bit
| Windows Server 2016 cloud-hosted virtual machine just
| fine.
| sentientslug wrote:
| Respectfully you have no idea what you're talking about.
| These half-million dollar devices (often more expensive
| than that) were the ONLY option at the time to perform
| certain kinds of experiments. Not exactly a choice.
| dahdum wrote:
| So the vendor refuses to sell a support plan and requires
| you to purchase a brand new machine? That does sound
| monopolistic and abusive but I don't see how Microsoft is
| to blame.
| sentientslug wrote:
| Basically, yes this is how it goes. And I agree that it's
| not Microsoft's fault.
| vouwfietsman wrote:
| Respectfully you have no idea how complex an OS is and
| how completely nonsensical it is to expect 100% backwards
| compatibility for 2 decades later. There is a reason
| software gets sunsetted: most of it is irrelevant 20
| years later and holding on to it makes everything much
| more complex than it already is. Especially for a
| consumer OS like windows, where you can expect the vast
| majority of people to upgrade.
|
| If this is some multi-million dollar device then maybe
| keeping it up to date with windows should have been part
| of the deal...
|
| Did you know windows is basically known for excellent
| backwards compatibility?
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-
| letter-ii...
| sentientslug wrote:
| I'm not sure what part of my comment you're responding to
| because I wasn't referring to anything related to
| backwards compatibility. I was responding to the other
| commenter asserting that biotech companies have somehow
| made an incorrect judgement call by purchasing certain
| types of instrument. In reality these vendors assume
| you're going to keep the system air-gapped forever, some
| don't even (officially) support joining their control PCs
| to a domain. Anecdotally I've found that in a lot of
| cases unless you're dealing with strange custom drivers
| usually the vendor-provided PCs can be replaced with new
| computers running the same control software (sometimes in
| compatibility mode if needed) and still operate the
| instrument.
| mrdatawolf wrote:
| Your vendor didn't provide you with free updates to match
| changes in the larger OS ecosystem. Then you get mad at
| the larger OS for not supporting the niche software of
| your vendor. BTW neither the vendor nor the OS maker is
| the problem. You are. Your entitlement that the world
| should grind to a halt to wait for you is.
| asdff wrote:
| Is having a unix philosophy on software entitled? Then I
| guess I am then.
| lozenge wrote:
| The only way to continue supporting all those things is
| to never change anything. Even if all the APIs are still
| around, are they going to be bug-compatible?
| pwdisswordfishc wrote:
| Does this include MSHTML (Trident), or just the iexplore.exe
| binary?
| [deleted]
| collaborative wrote:
| Will BrowserComponent in .NET still work? Asking for a friend
| skilled wrote:
| Wired doing some clickbait meme here, but I heard about the news
| last week.
|
| My question is, who the hell uses IE still...? And don't give me
| that one in a million guy stuck with it because he's running
| Windows 2k Server.
| Yaa101 wrote:
| A lot of business intranet software still runs on IE,
| especially in the far east.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Working in the B2B world, I can tell you that unfortunately
| many buyers are still running on archaic systems. Many projects
| still require support for these old browsers. In the B2C
| sector, there are so many users that the few who don't upgrade
| are just a tiny afterthought. In the B2B sector, where a single
| company not upgrading can mean that more than half of your
| customers can't use your website, it's a whole other issue.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| You shouldn't be using Internet Explorer at this point but
| Microsoft shouldn't be breaking your workflow either.
| techwiz137 wrote:
| The problem is, that certain old software like Volvo's VIDA
| needs IE. And while Edge's IE Tab works it's much much slower
| in loading.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| That sounds like a problem for Geely, not Microsoft.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Microsoft makes it their problem by rug pulling IE
| judge2020 wrote:
| No, they made it their problem by promising both users
| and vendors they'd do the dirty work of keeping it
| compatible. As shown here[0], removing the OS "bloat"
| that keeps old apps compatible on newer Windows 11
| versions vastly decreases resource usage and improves
| software responsiveness.
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654649
| Gigachad wrote:
| A 10 year rug pull. It wasn't exactly shocking news.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| I have zero sympathy for those who, by designing an application
| solely for use with Internet Explorer, put their heads into the
| lion's mouth, expecting to get their face licked. (Same applies
| to Safari.)
| keyle wrote:
| Now that's the dystopian headline I want a print of on my wall.
| So Long!
| tarotuser wrote:
| Wired should know better.
|
| Microsoft is not removing IE from 'personal computers'. MD is
| removing from machines running _Windows_.
|
| None of my Linux machines are affected, and damn straight are
| personal machines.
|
| Edit: for those of you who downvoted, I'm tired of having
| personal computers meaning only MS windows. There's those of us
| who are Mac users and Linux users both. By making "PC" as windows
| only is removing the rest of us.
| silverwasthere wrote:
| Pc means wintel my good dude. Actual personal computers are not
| seen as "a computer" to lusers. They are workstations. Or
| devices. But PC (like it was printed on oh so many software
| boxes) means windows+intel(or unremarkably compatible).
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| "The only way to destroy this evil is from within" - our
| operative setting off on this undercover mission 15 years ago
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| They'd better leave it alone on my obsolete Windows 7 laptop.
| Until recently, and quite possibly even now, there are cheap
| band-X IP cameras that can only be configured with an ActiveX
| plugin.
| bobjordan wrote:
| This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business
| banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland
| China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night
| ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to
| force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an
| entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of
| course I'm pissed the bank hadn't upgraded but it's infuriating
| that Microsoft breaks my processes without my permission.
| paulmd wrote:
| Korea went deeply down the "custom security" rabbithole too,
| and many banks there still rely on activeX controls and custom
| encryption algorithms and other insane bullshit that actively
| impairs security. It seems to be a regional thing (or at least
| a developing-country thing).
|
| https://palant.info/2023/01/02/south-koreas-online-security-...
| HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34231364
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2016/11/30/south-...
|
| This is not unheard-of in the enterprise world in the US
| either. To name-and-shame, Allscripts Enterprise EHR system
| still uses active-x controls and is still actively deployed in
| hospital systems.
|
| The typical deployment will be a sandboxed VDI installation
| that isn't allowed to directly talk to anything except its EHR
| server and has to be connected via citrix or similar. It is
| still insane, of course, but the medical world is another one
| that moves slow. Probably some stuff in the financial sector
| too, they like that shit too.
| marktangotango wrote:
| I spent two years modernizing one of these IE only apps
| (moved to chrome/firefox). Sometimes the offending activex
| control is simply a xml component (literally parsing, xsl,
| xpath, etc stuff) of a newer version than what was built in
| at one time. Firefox and Chrome don't handle xml nearly as
| seamlessly as old IE did. But other times these apps require
| IE11, but it's actually executing the page in IE6 or 7
| compatibility mode. That was the case with mine, Microsoft
| DHTML Behaviors, the horror, the horror....
| bunbun69 wrote:
| Microsoft retains the right to break your process without your
| permission.
| amelius wrote:
| Block Microsoft, and use a virtual machine that you copy before
| every session.
| rbanffy wrote:
| On VirtualBox it's easy to set the disks as immutable. The
| machine will come up, write to the disk and, when you reboot,
| it'll be back into the original state.
|
| More than once I updated the VM only to realize I forgot to
| make the disk mutable.
| yourusername wrote:
| This change has been announced long ago. IT should have
| identified this issue and taken the steps to enable IE mode on
| Edge for this specific site a year ago.
| Gigachad wrote:
| MS announced you shouldn't be using IE several years ago.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what
| the hell?
|
| Well, I don't think they can refuse to upgrade any longer if it
| doesn't work, right?
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| That's really on your bank for insisting on using technology
| which has been sunset for many many years though.
|
| I would contact them and tell them you're considering
| switching. If they're anything like the banks in North America
| they'll be freaking out trying to give you deals to stay. They
| did this for me when I told them that I would switch over
| trying to force SMS-based 2fa on me.
|
| I'm really not sure about the economic situation in China right
| now but since they hiked the interest rates banks have been
| extremely competitive in terms of signup offers here in the
| past few months. Might be worth considering!
| Gigachad wrote:
| Yeah, MS have a 10 year window to migrate. If you found
| yourself at the end of 10 years still not migrated, then
| you'll only do it when it breaks.
| splitstud wrote:
| The warnings started how long ago? The compatability mode is
| available and works.
| quercusa wrote:
| We went through this 20 years ago when it was IE6.
| bazmattaz wrote:
| _shudder_
|
| Brings me back to the days of having to support IE6 for a
| client website when everyone has moved on from IE6. That shit
| was a dog to support
| massysett wrote:
| I'm at a US government agency and the system that processes our
| time and attendance still does not work with Chrome or Firefox
| - I think it's some kind of security certificate issue? So they
| tell us to use Edge to fill our our time and attendance. I
| click some link from our internal home page and it loads up the
| page in "Internet Explorer Mode," complete with the blue "e" in
| the address bar.
| drdaeman wrote:
| It's bullshit "security" for banking, it could be that it
| depends on something that isn't emulated by Edge, like
| toolbars or some other form of deep browser extensions, not
| "just" ActiveX.
|
| For all it's worth it could be something as insane as a
| kernel driver that assumes a certain IE build and hooks into
| it for "security". Never heard of such things in areas
| outside of gaming, but won't be remotely surprised. Banking
| industry is way more backwards than gaming, after all.
| disruptiveink wrote:
| And now they'll finally fix it, as they have no other choice.
| You can thank MS for that.
| ashwagary wrote:
| Perhaps a virtual machine running windows with the compatible
| version of IE just for this purpose would be a good option.
| Take snapshots after it's setup correctly so any sneaky update
| shenanigans MS pulls can be reverted.
| plaguepilled wrote:
| I sympathise with your frustration, but the blame is absolutely
| with your bank. I mean, finances are like THE thing to be
| security minded about - the fact they're still using IE is just
| unacceptable from any lens.
| robocat wrote:
| Sometimes the blame is regulations: too many hoops for banks
| to update their software easily and without adding stupid
| regulatory liabilities. Regulations added to protect the
| user, but perversely hinder the user.
| unxdfa wrote:
| Good. I hope that infernal turd is buried. It has been the number
| one cost centre for our front end stuff for the last decade and a
| half.
| athorax wrote:
| Take edge with it, please and thank you
| Someone1234 wrote:
| How will new users install Firefox or Chromeium without any
| browser at all? Someone going to train them in WinGet?
| skc wrote:
| What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.
| athorax wrote:
| Glad it is working out for you! I already have a browser of
| choice and would prefer my OS not make those decisions for
| me.
| Zetice wrote:
| It's a browser, not a religion, try and keep some
| perspective here.
| athorax wrote:
| I'd also prefer my OS not choose a religion for me either
| :)
| Zetice wrote:
| Good thing it does neither!
| lockhouse wrote:
| A web browser is expected and included in every modern
| desktop and mobile OS I can think of. What is different
| about Safari on Apple OSes, Chrome on Android and
| Chromebooks, or Firefox on Linux distros?
|
| At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a different
| browser and set it as the default.
| aprilnya wrote:
| The difference is that Microsoft doesn't just give you
| Edge as the default, they actively try to get you to
| switch to Edge if you're using something else, with
| random notifications, pop-ups in Settings, making it
| harder to switch to other browsers, making browser links
| opened by the OS (i.e. search bar, help) open in Edge,
| etc...
| bakugo wrote:
| > At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a
| different browser and set it as the default.
|
| No, it's not. On 11 at least, any link that is part of
| the OS (or at least modern parts of it) will still
| forcibly open Edge, including anything you search in the
| start menu. It's not possible to change this without
| third party software.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > and set it as the default.
|
| For a while...
| aprilnya wrote:
| Edge is a great browser, ( _much_ better than Chrome), but
| Microsoft keeps trying to force it onto people, so they start
| hating it, and rightfully so. If Microsoft wasn't trying to
| force it onto people, it would probably be more popular
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Edge was absolutely great. I even recommended it at some
| point.
|
| Then they started packing more features into it than a
| shareware application in the 2000s. They even went so far as
| to bundle code that replaces the checkout form in web shops
| (breaking some of them, of course). Their disgusting methods
| to force people to use Edge also turned me off. Something
| good doesn't need its user base to be forced to use it.
|
| It's a real tragedy. Edgium had some great features and Super
| Duper Secure mode is the obvious next step in defence in
| depth for browsers. I just can't trust it anymore.
| justinclift wrote:
| They keep on trying to force it on people.
|
| The harder they try, the more " _NO. FUCK OFF_ " I get. :/
| pantulis wrote:
| I think Edge is a better Chrome than Chrome. At least it can
| show vertical tabs and groups in a way much more easy to
| understand.
| tech234a wrote:
| It's a good idea to move away from IE, but it's fairly easy to
| get around the block. When the Edge prompt comes up, roll over
| the Edge icon on the taskbar and use the X to close the prompt.
| Then, click on the IE icon to unminimize the IE window.
|
| Other options include, but are not limited to:
|
| * disabling the IE add-on that triggers the prompt (IEToEdgeBHO):
| you can disable it via group policy [0] or registry [1] and IE
| will function as normal, or
|
| * running Internet Explorer without add-ons: iexplore.exe
| -extoff, or
|
| * opening Internet Options, go to Programs tab, click "Manage
| add-ons", then clicking "Learn more about toolbars and
| extensions"
|
| I've also seen other ways of launching IE using VBA or other
| legacy features. Some of these methods also work on Windows 11.
|
| [0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-
| explorer/ie11-dep..., CLSID:
| {1FD49718-1D00-4B19-AF5F-070AF6D5D54C}
|
| [1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/23/internet-explorer-users-
| wi... (the key type is String)
| Maursault wrote:
| In 1998, Microsoft asserts that their browser was an inherent
| component of the operating system and could not be extracted. In
| 2020, Microsoft miraculously defies the impossible! What can't
| Microsoft do?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Windows Explorer was based on IE. It's quite obvious how tight
| the integration was.
|
| And it was a good idea, to be honest. They've done plenty of
| anticompetitive shit, but the IE integration into Windows has
| only ever improved Windows.
| tester756 wrote:
| Well, 22 years of refactor make things possible ;)
| justinclift wrote:
| Or they were just lying, which they seem to do a lot of.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Uhhh, how about the fact that it's taken 20+ years and the
| development of an entirely new browser to finally begin the
| extraction of IE from the OS?
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Going forward, Microsoft Edge WebView2 will probably be
| inherent component of Windows, so they will just replace one
| browser for another.
|
| For the time being, I assume EdgeHTML is still present, since I
| assume this is used for the compatibility mode in Edge (and for
| legacy WebViews).
| h4ch1 wrote:
| I recently switched to Edge and have been mildly surprised, after
| turning off all telemetry, having sleeping tabs built-in, which
| actually work much better than Chrome's and Firefox's (also
| considering 3rd party extensions), and my browser RAM usage
| dropping to a "measly" 800MB with 100 tabs open and a non-
| noticeable delay when I switch to a sleeping tab, seems a much
| better alternative than using Chrome. Plus sidebar tabs are a
| huge plus.
| taspeotis wrote:
| Also discussed on Reddit
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ShittySysadmin/comments/114s0h0/hel...
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Netscape finally wins?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| 20 years too late :')
|
| But the problem is the old webview crap based on IE is _still_
| embedded in the system everywhere. Only yesterday I got a popup
| from something with the "image missing" icon that clearly
| originates in IE.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Are they even removing it from Windows 7 and other unsupported
| operating systems?
| teroszsegv wrote:
| Nope. In fact I'm still using IE11 on a very old (circa 2003)
| P4 box with only 2gb ram and win7, mind you I only use it on a
| very specific websites including HN, pinboard, teddit,
| invidious, nitter, wikiless and a few others, I've added these
| filter lists https://filterlists.com/tpl.html plus
| Spywareblaster.
| pantulis wrote:
| Are running on that venerable box for any particular reason?
| awill wrote:
| Without reading the article, they're obviously doing this to
| force Edge on people.
|
| Also, without reading the article, I wish they'd done this years
| ago. Long before Edge :).
| xbar wrote:
| If I could forcibly remove Internet Explorer from Your PC, I
| would have already done so. You're welcome.
| forinti wrote:
| Oracle Forms still works in Edge in IE11 compatibility mode. This
| surprised me, but I can't decide if pleasantly or not.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Nothing about Oracle is pleasant so for me it would be an easy
| decision :)
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Weirdest thing is, they are not "removing" it. It opens normally
| for a fraction of second and then something closes it and opens
| Edge instead.
| Dwedit wrote:
| If "mshtml.dll" is still there, and you can still instantiate
| instances of it, then MSIE is still there.
| adzm wrote:
| Thankfully; there are entire (completely-local) applications
| designed around MSHTML.
| meltyness wrote:
| Invoke-WebRequest still depends on some of the internals too
| probably, but who knows?
| jchw wrote:
| That was finally fixed, apparently in PowerShell 6.0, and now
| -UseBasicParsing is just a noop. Kinda crazy that it ever did
| this by default, especially considering PowerShell used to
| alias curl to Invoke-Webrequest, which could lead to surprise
| JavaScript execution. Definitely one of the worst gotchas in
| Windows PowerShell.
| Idiot_in_Vain wrote:
| Micro$oft seems to think that my PC is their PC and they can do
| whatever they like with it, without even asking.
| jurimasa wrote:
| It is. And they are.
| andai wrote:
| If you can't open it, you don't own it.
|
| (Optional: "It owns you" ;)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's complicated.
|
| They'd really prefer not to be in that position, but they
| learned the (extremely) hard way in the early days of the
| Internet that when you have the largest OS install-base (And MS
| still has like 29%), you have some obligation to the global
| community to police it. Because Lord knows individual users
| don't pull upgrades in fast enough voluntarily, and an exploit
| shared by 29% of computers can be easily weaponized online.
|
| The Internet would be much, much worse if not for the steady
| drumbeat of OS vendors forcing users to patch vulnerabilities
| via upgrade pursuasion.
|
| (At least until someone finishes development on that
| vulnerability-free OS. What did they call it? NonexOStant?)
| bakugo wrote:
| > They'd really prefer not to be in that position
|
| What makes you say this? If I was MS I'd be perfectly happy
| to effectively own most computers on earth and be able to do
| anything I want with them.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| They'd really prefer not to be in the position of force-
| pushing updates because it's a huge pain in the ass to
| build and maintain the infrastructure to allow it and it
| generates mostly ill-will and negative press for them
| (because every user sees the updates, but only a handful of
| users get their online sites slaughtered by a low-orbit ion
| cannon made out of compromised Windows nodes).
|
| It is, however, pretty much the price of doing business
| when the business is "Being a dominant operating system
| vendor." The other ones breathing that rarified air are
| Android and iOS, and they're about as strict as Windows
| regarding updates (with the exception of long-tail Android
| open source builds that are maintained by whatever vendor
| cobbled something together, which the core project only has
| indirect influence over in terms of minimizing ability to
| exploit it as a common-codebase threat vector).
| revskill wrote:
| Of course you're the product.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| And forcibly adding edge, edge shortcuts, prompts to use edge,
| and warnings against using Firefox
| djxfade wrote:
| Good
| voytec wrote:
| > Microsoft has fully moved on to its Edge browser. (While nearly
| everyone else has moved on to Google Chrome.)
|
| Not a major difference - Edge is based on Chromium.
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