[HN Gopher] Microsoft Edge is leaking the sites you visit to Bing
___________________________________________________________________
Microsoft Edge is leaking the sites you visit to Bing
Author : sphars
Score : 360 points
Date : 2023-04-25 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| cubefox wrote:
| For people who didn't read the article: Apparently this is a bug.
| freehorse wrote:
| That is not what the article says, no.
|
| It says that microsoft answered that it is "investigating the
| issue" which is a pretty much standard response, but it does
| not confirm that microsoft did not implement this. But seeing
| that [they even have a master filter for which urls to send to
| the bingapis and which not](https://www.bingapis.com/api/v7/fol
| lowweb/getdomainfilter?ap...) it seems definitely a feature.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| I _finally_ got an invite to join Arc today.
|
| A lot of the excitement was dulled by the fact that a well
| designed, well engineered app needs money to pay those designers
| & engineers, and just like this instance, you can never really
| know whats being leaked or sold, unless it's a large open source
| project.
|
| Yes, I know the old adage that if you're not paying for a product
| you are the product, and as I try and simplify my life and focus
| on having just a few really high-quality items in any category of
| life, getting screwed so often because of the need for companies
| to have as much information as possible updated as often as
| possible is really making it harder and harder to be the
| technology and internet enthusiast I once was.
| yabatopia wrote:
| I had to look up Arc, there are different arcs.
|
| You probably mean this one, a new kind of browser:
| https://thebrowser.company/
| Grimm665 wrote:
| Wow what is this and why does it have that vaguely petrichor-
| like scent of vaporware?
| still_grokking wrote:
| Especially as all it offers is a tab tree and split content
| windows. Something that you can have since ages in Vivaldi
| natively or with just two add-ons in Firefox.
|
| Also it's of course not a new browser. It's just the next
| Chrome GUI.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| The "Peek" feature they showed in a tweet seems cool, is
| there an extension for that in Firefox? Where you can get
| a tab-within-a-tab to view an article or etc without
| opening a tab yet. I would definitely install an
| extension to be able to right-click "Preview Link" or
| "Preview Tab" or etc. I did a quick search for "Preview
| Link" and "Peek" and nothing really showed up. There was
| one "simple link preview" but I tried installing it and
| it just seems super buggy so I uninstalled.
| rattray wrote:
| I think they maybe just haven't updated that website much
| since before they launched the browser, whose website is
| here: https://arc.net/
|
| I've been using it for a while and it's solid.
| ubercore wrote:
| It's actually pretty great, I really like it.
| Grimm665 wrote:
| Despite my snark, I am genuinely curious after seeing a
| bit of what it actually looks like in their design
| meeting video. What are the unique features and what do
| you like about it?
| asmor wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like Edge is made by 20+ different teams with no
| shared strategic goals that all work to make the business side of
| their slice of the browser look good, with no regard for long
| term health of the entire browser.
|
| Is Microsoft still doing stack ranking?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Everything you type in your URL bar in Chrome and Firefox is sent
| to Google.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| There's also the "safe browsing" scam in which every URL is
| looked up in a list from google to check that it hasn't been
| deemed "unsafe".
| bagacrap wrote:
| That uses a hashed URL
| cubefox wrote:
| That's just a local list if I remember correctly.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| At least in Firefox you can disable that (or redirect where its
| sent) by disabling search suggestions in the search field.
|
| There is also a section in the Privacy and security section for
| the firefox suggest feature specifically. [1]
|
| I could be wrong but I thought those were also piped to the
| default search provider. I havent fired up wireshark to test
| though either.
|
| [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-suggestions-
| fire...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| You can turn it off in Chrome too......
| fsckboy wrote:
| does search suggestions always go to google, or to your
| selected search provider?
| croutonwagon wrote:
| I believe it uses your selected provider. I looked in
| about:config and saw no URLs when searching for things like
| "search", "Suggestions" etc.
|
| really the only way to be sure is to fire up wireshark. But
| I am on a work computer with a TON of crap running that is
| quite chatty. So i didnt look to verify.
|
| But even on my browser I see this:
| https://imgur.com/a/odiHIzy
|
| That said, my search provider is Kagi and I also dont see
| my search quota increment even with search suggestions
| enabled....
| alimov wrote:
| I was under the impression that Firefox uses your selected
| search provider for this feature.
| talal7860 wrote:
| What if we don't use google as our default search engine, is it
| still shared?
| colmvp wrote:
| No, it's only shared with the provider you choose (e.g. if
| your default search engine is DDG, then the search terms are
| shared with DDG, etc.)
| xxs wrote:
| Firefox - not really. One of the very first changes done to
| firefox on installation - the URL bar is that: a URL and the
| search one is enabled by ctrl+k (instead of ctrl+L), and the
| default search engine has long be changed not to be google.
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| Is this true if you aren't using Google as your search engine?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| No. Atleast not on Firefox. I think? idk lol
| rzzzt wrote:
| The hashed form of the URL might still reach Google as part
| of the Safe Browsing initiative, although a copy of the
| List of Naughty Websites is kept locally as well, so if you
| visit a known deceptive site, it need not ping their
| servers.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| By default yes.
|
| My search suggestions are disabled and I exclusively use
| keyword searching like g, y, ddg, da, ...
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| And in case anyone doesn't know why, it's so autocomplete
| works.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [dead]
| retSava wrote:
| ...which is pretty funny, since I'd assume that if I begin
| typing an url, I'd assume it would primarily search and use
| my local browsing history. But no, it gives more weight to
| sending me to a google search, presumably so google has the
| chance to show some ads to me. User-hostile design, not happy
| with it.
| accoil wrote:
| If you're using Firefox the keyword for controlling that is
| 'frecency'. Adjusting the values there in about:config will
| let you boost history and bookmarks.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The address bar is a search box. All of my Google queries
| go through it. So of course I want it to autocomplete
| Google search results, not just my local history.
| Fortunately it does both and gets the balance pretty right.
| It's 100% user-friendly design for me, satisfied customer
| over here.
| freehorse wrote:
| I mean most people I know google "gmail" instead of
| typing "gmail.com" but I cannot see how this is an
| argument for being considered primarily a search box and
| not autocompleting "gmail.com", if anything kind of the
| opposite and all this is ridiculous.
| bwat48 wrote:
| This is why I use firefox, you can just un-check 'show
| search suggestions ahead of browser history in addressbar
| results'
| bagacrap wrote:
| History matches are regularly at the top of suggestions for
| me.
| duringmath wrote:
| That's a different issue from what is described here.
| tpmx wrote:
| Yeah, but do they index those URLs and include them in search
| results?
|
| (My experience over 20+ years: no, they don't.)
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Does it relate you (as a person) to that data though? I
| believed that was anonymous.
| topherPedersen wrote:
| That's probably smart. Seeing where people go on the web would
| probably be helpful if you're running a search engine. Maybe we
| should give Microsoft a break on this one. Going up against
| Google is a daunting task. Microsoft should use every advantage
| they can get.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Can a browser just be a fucking browser? Every stupid fucking
| feature they cram in is yet another security issue waiting to
| explode in our face. Just make a damn browser and let us figure
| out how to "follow creators".
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| racl101 wrote:
| Do Brave or Firefox do this?
| hulitu wrote:
| Firefox no.
| kokanee wrote:
| Brave does an enormous about of non-browser "stuff." Video
| calls, offline playlists, customizable news feeds, crypto
| wallet... they are trying to build a "super app" rather than
| a browser. The idea is that you can trust them because they
| aren't FAANG, but the problem is that if they actually were
| to succeed then they would be FAANG.
|
| I haven't used Firefox in ages but AFAIK it has very little
| bloatware. The problem, from the perspective of a web dev, is
| that it has quite a few rendering quirks/bugs. These days
| chromium sets the standard for the "correct" way to render
| things.
| alanwreath wrote:
| Brave may do all that you touched on - but it also
| aggressively blocks tracking. And the added stuff is not
| pushed in your face - blocking tracking is though.
| Dah00n wrote:
| But didn't it add stuff itself instead and got caught
| snooping twice?
| circuit10 wrote:
| I use Firefox and do some web development on it sometimes
| and I don't really notice many/any bugs either with 3rd
| party sites or ones I'm making, apart from things that are
| unsupported on purpose like the file access API
|
| Though I have noticed some issues in Teams but that's about
| it
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Firefox has some foundational bugs, one of which was not
| being able to keep my bitwarden session in the extension in
| Private Windows.
| kencausey wrote:
| Have you checked the settings for the extension in
| about:addons to ensure that the extension is enabled for
| private mode? Find the extension in the list, click on it
| or click the dots and click 'manage', on the details tab
| ensure that 'Run in Private Windows' is enabled.
|
| I apologize if you are already well aware of this and
| that the problem is that is more complex than that.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| No need to apologize! Yeah it is actually quite different
| from what you have mentioned.
|
| Actually I did some Googling around, and found that it
| was fixed recently - after 4+ years lol.
| https://www.ghacks.net/2022/02/28/bitwarden-firefox-
| private-...
| isanjay112 wrote:
| Firefox does not if you opt out of telemetry
| s1k3s wrote:
| Casually enabled by default by the way.
| skrowl wrote:
| In case anyone was wondering how, it's pretty straight
| forward:
|
| Hamburger Menu > Settings
|
| Privacy & Security tab on the left
|
| Scroll down to the Firefox Data Collection and Use section
| (2nd section from bottom)
|
| Uncheck all of the boxes in this section
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| FYI: You might be shadowbanned. A lot of your recent
| comments are marked as dead, without seeming low quality
| enough to get flags (including this one, which I just
| vouched for).
|
| What's weird is that some of your comments aren't dead,
| and typically shadowbanned users have all of their
| comments auto-marked as dead. It's possible those got
| vouches though.
| eastbound wrote:
| Firefox nags about getting a Mozilla account, uploading
| your history to Mozilla servers tagged with your email.
| Very private. Mozilla's only step towards privacy is that
| it opens tabs all the time telling you how much Big Browser
| care about your privacy.
|
| And don't get me started on Firefox nagging people to use
| Mozilla VPN, and their push towards DNS over HTTPS, as in
| "Trust me dude, I want your logins, your passwords, your
| DNS and your VPN, and pinky swear I'm just a charity with
| benevolent intentions, Google just gives us money for...
| stuff."
| dotancohen wrote:
| As a Firefox user I have no idea what you are talking
| about.
| drdeca wrote:
| I am a Firefox user, and I think it better than the
| alternatives I'm familiar with, and I think I at least
| partially know what they are talking about?
|
| I think the "opens tabs all the time telling you how much
| Big Browser care about your privacy" is primarily
| referring to the tabs that are sometimes opened when you
| restart the browser for the first time since a new update
| has been installed, telling you the sort of stuff that is
| in the new update, or sometimes talking about other
| projects they have.
|
| Or like, "hey, try _colors_ " or whatever.
|
| I disagree with their insinuation that the push of their
| VPN etc. is for a nefarious purpose due to their
| receiving some funding from Google.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I just never look a the tabs it opens after an update.
| Unfortunately that's the exception the ad blockers can't
| catch, but at least it's just one click every 30 days or
| so.
| beebmam wrote:
| Yes, use lynx
| fafqg wrote:
| A browser costs a shitton of money to make. Even if you are
| just forking you need a lot of manpower. So no, you will never
| get a completely free browser that doesn't suck (slow, late to
| get security updates, can't render things right...)
| uni_rule wrote:
| Modern Edge isn't a ground-up browser, it's just a fork of
| Chromium with Microsoft bullshit instead of Google bullshit.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I think you are supporting his point.
| z3t4 wrote:
| I think we should have 3 security levels in the browser: Level
| 1) Static content, no scripting allowed 2) Scripting allowed
| (like the current state but more restricted) Level 3) App like
| where you can allow the app to access certain resources. The
| TSL shield/lock could have a number in it 1-3 where 1 is the
| highest level of security. And you have to manually click it to
| go to level 2 or level 3. Sites would have to use the noscript
| tag to beg users to enable scripting abilities. Most websites
| that are not app-like should consider rendering their content
| statically. Browsers would start out with level 2 as default,
| but like what has happened with web sites without https/TSL/SSL
| they would be "shamed" by the lock/shield icon. Unless the site
| has a security-level 1 header, then the site should load with
| highest security.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| There's nothing less to expect from these fucking commercial
| browsers from giant companies. For the last 5 years+, I've been
| steadily noticing how they start small and "innocent", and once
| they reach a userbase, they will keep coming with shit baked in
| hard that will leak you to the world, invade you on your face,
| become a spy in your digital life, or just completely entangle
| you and make you a product of their open market.
| kornhole wrote:
| Do not invest too much in any browser. This will make it easy
| to hop when they go to shit. Avoid using anything sticky such
| as password saving, bookmarks, and synchronization. Instead
| use other tools you control for that. We have so many
| browsers to choose from. I can adopt a new browser within
| minutes because of my setup. The same principle should be
| applied to any proprietary software or platform.
| MR4D wrote:
| Dumb question, but why don't people[1] use Chromium instead of
| Chrome (or Edge)? Does it still send data to Google?
|
| [1] - I'm presuming HN people, not moms & dads.
| [deleted]
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| [dead]
| flkiwi wrote:
| Edge's vertical tabs are game changing, exceptionally useful
| and well-executed. No combination of browser extensions comes
| close (for me).
|
| That's literally the only reason I use Edge. I want someone
| to release an "Edgium" like vscodium or, alternately,
| implement Edge's vertical tabs in Chromium.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This looks basically like Tree Style Tab for Firefox only
| without the nesting of related tabs.
| withinboredom wrote:
| When you add "groups" (e.g., folders) it is magical.
| flkiwi wrote:
| TST is great, but it's nothing like Edge vertical tabs,
| which contain exactly the right amount of functionality
| for zero friction use. I have tried to get the same
| effect in Firefox, Vivaldi, pretty much anything that
| isn't Edge, but I keep coming back to Edge because it is
| so central to how I use the browser at a basic
| interaction level and, simultaneously, so simple to use
| that I can put up with (and deactivate) the other
| annoyances.
| Foomf wrote:
| I recently started using vivalid, which also has vertical
| tabs baked in. I tried some firefox browser extensions but
| I find them to be really sluggish and feel tacked-on.
| ashwagary wrote:
| I'm shocked people still ask these questions or act surprised
| 10 years after the Snowden leaks.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| Seriously, EDGE has tons of useless stuff, so much you have to
| scroll the "..." menu in order to get the the freaking
| settings, and now a popup is asking me to enable some VPN or
| something? I didn't ask for a VPN, nor some coupons, nor
| Microsoft rewards, nor games, it's bloat...
| flkiwi wrote:
| Nor that horrific "Discover" button that looks like a dollar
| store logo (which is probably not an accident).
| vrc wrote:
| You won't pay enough for it to make sense to support. That's
| the harsh reality. Every single 'altruistic' browser has ended
| up on the dole of adtech because consumers will not pay even
| $0.01/pageview and publishers believe they're worth $0.10-$1.00
| per PV. I worked with an amazing founding team at Google and
| launched this [0] across many sites across the internet. People
| able to pay enough to fund the open web don't, and people
| willing to pay realize that it gets pricey, fast.
|
| [0] https://blog.google/technology/ads/helping-publishers-
| recove...
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Give me a Spotify for reading. I don't want to subscribe to
| Economist, New Yorker, Atlantic, Walrus, NYT, etc. Sometimes
| I want to read from one, sometimes another and all together
| to expensive to subscribe to all.
| jrockway wrote:
| The main thing to come out of that was ad blocker blocker
| blockers, which seem to work quite well.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I don't understand what internet users not willing to pay for
| published content has to do with creating a browser that's
| just a browser.
|
| Like Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla did for a long time.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| How much do the ads pay? I thought $0.001 per page view would
| be considered amazing?
| pdntspa wrote:
| It's not altruistic, its stripping the browser down to its
| most basic essence. It is the core functionality. Why do we
| humans have such a hard time acknowledging an abstract thing
| without dirtying it with our stupid ambitions?
|
| Nothing good is viable with the current tech "economy", where
| software is an endless death-march of feature-bloat to
| justify the unlimited (also known as cancerous) growth
| required by venture capital or public markets.
|
| But I bet a couple guys could pull off an Opera 2.0 and make
| a nice living for themselves. You only need a couple thousand
| paying users at a very modest subscription fee to cover a
| couple of developers' salaries
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| These same tech players have complected the specs for the
| web/html/http so that _only they_ can build browsers. There
| is no need for this, but here we are. And the whole Web
| Industrial Complex went right along with them because
| complexity is a nice revenue stream. Simplicity doesn 't
| provide the rent seeking footholds that they predatory
| companies all exploit.
| nr2x wrote:
| Give us a break, nobody has done more to ruin journalism that
| Google manipulating ad auctions (bernake), rewarding click
| bait (doubleclick), and forcing small papers serving local
| markets to compete for search placement with massive
| companies like the NYT.
|
| Google helping with "Adblock" is a farce considering research
| has shown a key reason people use as blockers is to protect
| their privacy...from Google.
| PokestarFan wrote:
| Imma be honest I don't care about privacy as much as I care
| about having to actively go out of my way to close an ad.
| bonney_io wrote:
| (Mac user here) This is _exactly_ why I use and love Safari.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Isn't Safari the worst of the lot? It send everything to
| Apple and makes it near impossible to turn that off.
| nomel wrote:
| > It send everything to Apple
|
| Reference?
| latexr wrote:
| Again this claim without proof. That's a pretty damning
| accusation, so you should provide a source or a way for us
| to verify it independently.
|
| If it is "near impossible to turn that off" it means _it is
| possible_. How?
| withinboredom wrote:
| Deleted because it was protected by an NDA.
| latexr wrote:
| Could you expand on that? Considering how Apple positions
| itself in terms of privacy, that's a huge claim.
|
| You don't have to name names if that's a problem, but there
| should at least be something credible we can look into.
| skrowl wrote:
| [dead]
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Source? Is this Google Safe Browsing related or auto-
| completing search queries?
|
| Pretty explosive allegation imo.
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| What was the allegation?
| [deleted]
| stefncb wrote:
| I assume GP regretted sharing it, so maybe you shouldn't?
| kokanee wrote:
| Mac user and web dev here - I appreciate a lot of things
| about the philosophy behind Safari, but I've lost untold
| hours to debugging and working around inane Safari bugs. It
| is truly the modern equivalent of IE for front end devs.
|
| It also makes my blood boil that Safari both hides the full
| path of the URL you're currently visiting and doesn't
| implement the standard practice of giving you a preview of
| the full URL you're about to visit when you hover over a
| link. These are horrible choices for usability and security,
| especially at a time when phishing is so productive.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Safari both hides the full path of the URL you're
| currently visiting and doesn't implement the standard
| practice of giving you a preview of the full URL you're
| about to visit when you hover over a link
|
| Safari has both of these. Safari > Settings > Advanced >
| Show full website address, and View > Show status bar.
|
| Moreover, I don't think either of them help out with
| phishing. The intention behind not showing the full website
| address is specifically to stop phishing, since it puts the
| emphasis on the domain name. (Is there a phishing situation
| where someone could spoof the domain name? Maybe, but I
| imagine in that case, they could spoof the rest of the URL
| as well). As for the status bar, I don't think anyone would
| look at it even if it was enabled by default.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| How is having more information about the path you're
| clicking on misleading?
| ketralnis wrote:
| I suspect the victims of phishing that they're referring
| to aren't running in non-default "Advanced" states
| marcellus23 wrote:
| The intention behind not showing the full website address
| is specifically to stop phishing, since it puts the
| emphasis on the domain name instead of misleading paths.
| As for the status bar, I don't think anyone would look at
| it even if it was enabled by default.
| waboremo wrote:
| Intention is irrelevant when the end result can wind up
| misleading. See google removing the "m" subdomain once
| upon a time. Also this move to hide the full url comes at
| the reliance of instead looking for a green shield or
| some type of lock icon in the URL bar to ensure you're on
| https as safari hides this too.
|
| In regards to the https problem specifically, while
| safari will say you are browsing an insecure page if
| using http, they do it in a horrible way - by adding text
| to the beginning of the url bar. Certainly if you were
| trying to reduce url confusion, you would add a separate
| symbol and label! I can click insecure icon on chrome and
| other browsers to read more about how, but I cannot do so
| on safari -- so much for trying to reduce confusion.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Also this move to hide the full url comes at the
| reliance of instead looking for a green shield or some
| type of lock icon
|
| The move to hide the full URL is to make _the URL_
| readable for the average user. People on this site might
| know how to parse URL components in their head, but the
| average user does not inherently understand the DNS
| hierarchy nor do many completely understand URI
| delimiters. https://secure.bankofameric
| a.com.0-0.pw/login/securelogin.aspx
|
| might look okay to a lot of people
| 0-0.pw
|
| would be a little better indicator that it isn't their
| bank.
|
| The padlock is mostly useless in today's world. It was
| useful in a time when ecommerce was young and otherwise
| legitimate sites were collecting information via http.
| There was an attempt to make it more useful with extended
| validation certs, but that solution didn't really end up
| being effective. Phishers could still register EV certs
| that spoofed other names, and adoption was too low to
| change user behavior.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| To be fair, Safari would truncate that to
| `secure.bankofamerica.com.0-0.pw`, so not necessarily
| much better . But also not any worse than showing the
| full URL.
| kube-system wrote:
| Fair enough. I'm remembering back to the original
| proposal from the Chrome team who were going to truncate
| all subdomains for this reason. But I think they
| backtracked some on that.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Also this move to hide the full url comes at the
| reliance of instead looking for a green shield or some
| type of lock icon in the URL bar to ensure you're on
| https as safari hides this too.
|
| What's the problem with this?
|
| > Certainly if you were trying to reduce url confusion,
| you would add a separate symbol and label!
|
| Why? I'm not following what's wrong with Safari's
| approach. You're stating your conclusions but not your
| reasoning.
|
| > I can click insecure icon on chrome and other browsers
| to read more about how, but I cannot do so on safari
|
| Read more about what?
| FredPret wrote:
| But why does your parent commenter - a Mac user and web
| dev - not know this? It should be default or super easy
| and obvious
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Even assuming these features would help stop phishing
| (which I don't agree with), you can't make every single
| feature super easy and obvious. In addition, you can't
| infer anything about a design from a single user's
| experience with it.
|
| And frankly, the Settings window and the View menu are
| not obscure places to put these options. Those are the
| first places you should look if you're in a Mac app and
| want to configure the UI.
| FredPret wrote:
| Agreed, which is why this should be the default.
|
| If Safari was a 1:1 clone of Chrome but without
| (probably) sending my stuff to Google, I'd be all over
| it. Millions of other Mac users too. Instead I'm using
| Chrome on Mac just to get many websites to even work.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Agreed, which is why this should be the default.
|
| Uh, which part of my comment do you agree with? Clearly
| you disagree with something, because that's the opposite
| conclusion I came to.
| freehorse wrote:
| Why do we need yet another one clone of chrome? The
| majority of noticeable browsers nowadays are chrome
| clones. If you do not want to use chrome due to sending
| data to google, you can use chromium, brave, vivaldi,
| opera...
| pprotas wrote:
| Maybe he doesn't use Safari because he dislikes it so
| much? Would explain why he doesn't know about these
| options.
| [deleted]
| doubled112 wrote:
| Never assume anybody knows anything.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I love safari for my phone, but I prefer brave for my browser
| just because I still think chromium is the best browser, and
| brave has excellent security features. Plus its how I found
| this website, when you type "news" in the search bar it
| automatically re-directs you here.
| bombcar wrote:
| Brave also has discount Tor which is nice at times.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Done. You need a protocol where it's impossible to not be a
| browser.
|
| https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
| Pick your browser, I like Lagrange.
|
| https://gemini.circumlunar.space/software/
|
| Now we just need content.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Can an operating system just be an operating system and not
| force ads into its user interface? Microsoft has already
| answered this as a NO, so I guess we already know the answer to
| your question from Microsoft's perspective.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Linux (NixOS) working fine without ads here :)
| mwsfc wrote:
| I'm saying this with extreme snark, but wait until smart
| homes become more commonplace and you won't be able to walk
| past your thermostat without Amazon pitching you new filters
| every six weeks over the smart speakers. Yes, there's many
| if's there, but the point is mostly profit motive usually
| trumps good taste.
|
| Re: Windows, if we're not paying for it anymore are we still
| the customer? Even if that's a yes, it represents a cost for
| msft, so they seem to be looking to extract any amount of
| value out of it that they can. I doubt I'll use it past
| Win10, the downsides just keep piling up.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Windows is not free. It may come pre-installed on a ready
| made build, but they purchased a license, and you must
| purchase a license for a custom PC.
| wvenable wrote:
| Browsers could just be browsers if people paid for them. But
| they don't. If you're not paying for the product, you are the
| product.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Show me a browser I can pay for that isn't full of bloatware
| crap and I'll pay for it. I've spent $15 this week alone on
| software, some of it I just donated money because it was
| useful once. I am the wrong commenter here to be telling
| "you're not paying", because I literally pay for all/most of
| the services and software I use, though I do understand I'm
| an outlier to some degree.
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| Safari? I don't know what counts as 'this bloatware crap'
| but if you haven't looked into it perhaps it could meet
| your definition.
| nottorp wrote:
| Unfortunately Safari cannot run uBlock Origin.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| [dead]
| ok_dad wrote:
| Actually, I just started using Safari at home recently,
| and I love it. Most Apple stuff, while locked down to
| some extent, seems to give me the freedom to actually be
| productive and do the tasks I need to do pretty easily.
| Sure, you have to adopt the "Apple Way" and use their
| software in somewhat the way that they designed it to be
| used, but for the most part it's really flexible and able
| to be used to achieve all of my goals in a simple way,
| without much fuss. Windows is laughable today and Linux
| is open and free but also has a minimal level of "fuss"
| you need to do in order to keep it working and get new
| software working. With MacOS I find I have to do almost
| zero maintenance and most of my time is productive. I'm
| going to switch my work PC to Mac as well as soon as this
| pile of silicon I'm using dies.
| bombcar wrote:
| Safari in "I'm a journalist and gonna die" mode
| (lockdown?) is surprisingly usable and very hardened
| against tracking.
| password4321 wrote:
| https://www.patreon.com/posts/ladybird-truly-68649206
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| https://browser.kagi.com
| imbnwa wrote:
| Promising
| Nullabillity wrote:
| People do pay for Windows, which Edge is a part of. How's
| that going for you?
| toast0 wrote:
| Microsoft hasn't been serious about charging users for
| Windows in a while. Free upgrades to Windows 10, free
| access to ISOs or tools to generate ISOs, and the penalty
| for an unlicensed install is no desktop background and a
| small watermark if you can't manage to trick windows into
| thinking it's licensed.
|
| Yes, OEMs pay for Windows; probably businesses pay for
| Windows. It's pretty clear they've gone to an ad-supported
| model whether they're honest about it or not. And of
| course, paying for the product doesn't mean they won't
| suplement invoice revenue with advertising revenue.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > no desktop background
|
| Last time I checked you could still just set the
| wallpaper via the context menu. It only locks the
| appearance settings.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Even paid products do this kind of stuff these days.
|
| At the end of the day, only legal requirements are going to
| curtail this type of behavior.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I had to pay for Windows in order to get
| Edge.
| [deleted]
| Spivak wrote:
| I wish this phrase would die. You're the product either way.
| Company is either going to take advantage of the revenue
| stream or not regardless of whether you also pay for it.
|
| "You're always the product and willingness and ability to pay
| for a nonessential service makes your disposable income an
| even juicer target to advertisers."
| flangola7 wrote:
| But I did pay. Edge is a Windows browser and Windows is very
| not free.
| jefftk wrote:
| Edge is cross platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| The plethora of FOSS browsers bundled in various Linux
| distros beg to differ.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| People pay for Windows, MacOS iOS and Android based devices.
| Presumably they're also paying for the software that runs
| those devices, ie the OS. And does anyone think that a web
| browser is not a core part of an OS today? Certainly MS
| doesn't.
|
| So yeah, MS is being paid for their browser. But a trillion
| dollar valuation is simply not enough.
| aembleton wrote:
| > Presumably they're also paying for the software that runs
| those devices
|
| Not on Android. AOSP is free, but if you want to ship the
| play store then you have to also include the other Google
| apps. It is the Google data harvesting and advertising that
| pays for Android.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Companies are perfectly happy to sell you down the river to
| make a quick buck, too. Proprietary software cannot be
| trusted, because for-profit institutions cannot be trusted.
| They aren't in the business of serving you, they're in the
| business of chasing ever increasing profits.
|
| Maybe those goals align at some point, but corporations'
| alignment drift makes AI look downright peachy.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| In the beginning, they did cost money. Netscape offered a
| free version for home viewers (but charged companies -
| NetWare came with a user license). Microsoft sold a $29 "Plus
| Pack" for Windows that included Internet Explorer. That
| changed when Bill Gates decided to "steal Netscape's oxygen"
| and become the evil overlord that most people remember him
| as.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > and become the evil overlord that most people remember
| him as.
|
| He wasn't the nicest guy much earlier than that.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
| olliej wrote:
| is this any different from chrome "leaking" the sites you visit
| to Google?
| rchaud wrote:
| Presumably this sends it to bingapis.com instead of
| googleapis.com
| slowhadoken wrote:
| Impossible. I don't use Edge.
| aaws11 wrote:
| It's probably a good idea to disable Edge's follow creator
| feature until this privacy issue is fixed.
| withinrafael wrote:
| One note: I've noticed turning off this feature does not
| immediately turn off the feature. A browser restart (all
| instances) is required to take full effect (and stop sending
| traffic to that endpoint). Also keep an eye on the toggle--
| Microsoft Edge does not guarantee settings persist across
| updates.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >Microsoft Edge does not guarantee settings persist across
| updates. //
|
| This sort of behaviour, which Firefox had indulged in in the
| past, is abhorrent. It needs punishment of the company and
| the controlling staff; they can not be trusted at all.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Also keep an eye on "bugs" in Edge's source code which might
| ignore the setting in some cases ...
| mxuribe wrote:
| It's probably a good idea to disable Edge...That is, stop using
| Edge (or Chorme), and start using an alternative browser...like
| Firefox. /s
|
| More seriously, I wish there was a web browser built in a sort
| of cameleon fashion:
|
| * layer 1 - the lowest layer would be some weird rotating
| engine that would use different browser engines to send
| disinformation to all websites, web apps. For example, at one
| moment websites see that i'm on FF, but the next moment on a
| version of (fake) "Chrome", etc. But, functionality, the user
| is unaware of what engine is actually driving the typical
| underlying browser processes.
|
| * layer 2 - the middle layer would hold my personal/private
| data, like saved passwords, cookies that i desire, etc. This
| layer is in total control of the user and their data. Whatever
| configs and preferences are set by the user are saved in this
| layer, and it persists across browser upgrades, browser
| synching platforms (like Firefox Accounts), etc.
|
| * layer 3 - is what the user sees as browser UI (the original
| term was "browser chrome" of coiurse), and interacts with the
| UX features...The user can use 1 of a few UI themes: 1 that
| "looks" like Firefox, another that looks like Chrome, another
| looks like Brave, Edge, etc. On top of these "browser skins",
| there could also be the typical browser-brand-specific themes
| that each native browser has available.
|
| I should state that i know nothing about how browsers are
| developed...And I acknowledge from my armchair that the above
| would make developing a new browser crazy complex...but, wow,
| such flexibility i think would be pretty neat!
| N0RMAN wrote:
| What's next? Bing Maps is ,,leaking" data to Microsoft?
| esafak wrote:
| It depends on what you mean. If you mean "to be disseminated
| throughout the whole damn company" then hell no. What kind of
| privacy is that? I don't care that Edge and Bing belong to the
| same company. Microsoft is a huge company.
| s1k3s wrote:
| Kind reminder that while a few people might be concerned and act
| upon this, the vast majority simply don't care and will opt into
| anything the program asks them to.
| helmholtz wrote:
| Maybe this is a good moment to rant, but I just don't get what
| the fuck it is that Chrome does that people just _will not_ get
| off the Chromium ride. They will happily bend over a table for
| Google/MS, all in order to not have to use Firefox. I've used
| Firefox for a decade and a half now, and I've never understood
| it. It has never failed me, and I've never needed anything else.
|
| Email? Works. News websites? They work. Banking sites? Yep.
| Google Maps in 3D? Works. Which special, golden webshit is it
| that breaks on Firefox? And what do people mean Firefox is slow?
| I've tried Chrome, and boy either we live in differen universes,
| or there isn't, in fact, any difference in speed.
| Shorel wrote:
| Firefox, for me, was very slow between 2019 and 2021. I used
| Firefox exclusively from 2016 to 2020, until I had to stop,
| because it just became unusable.
|
| Now in 2023 Firefox is fast again, but so is Edge. As soon as
| Edge was usable, I ditched Chrome, and will only consider
| Firefox again if they add native vertical tabs.
|
| My point is, browsers are continuously updated, so any claim
| about a characteristic must be specified in some timeframe.
| freehorse wrote:
| Yeah totally agree. Ok tbh firefox was slow and heavy a few
| years ago, but that has not been the case anytime recently.
|
| Honestly, imo for a decade or so now (since the times of the
| old opera), most browsers are more or less the same utility-
| wise, with only minor differences between them. Most of them
| nowadays are chrome clones anyway. And if there is a feature in
| one and not the other, there will certainly be some extension
| that adds it. So I do not see why not at least go for the best
| privacy option.
| bombela wrote:
| There was a few too many years when Google Chrome was much
| faster. Used less CPU, battery life was noticably better on
| laptops etc.
|
| I find this no longer the case, and I am now back on Firefox :)
| pyr0hu wrote:
| Not until a few years ago, Firefox on macOS just kept spinning
| the fans because it used that much CPU, for no reason. I
| stopped using FF since then, haven't bothered to install it
| again, might do it in the near future.
| someNameIG wrote:
| I tried using Firefox last year, I did for a few months. But
| it's the slowest out of all the major browsers on macOS. So
| I'm back to using Safari with Chrome/Edge for the few sites
| that don't work in it.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Until Microsoft completes its investigation and presumably
| patches this problem, we'd highly recommend turning off the
| "follow creators" feature in Microsoft Edge.
|
| Or, you know, just don't use Edge???
| manojlds wrote:
| Edge sends data to Bing. What's the leak here.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I wasn't searching Bing. _That_ is the leak.
| hollasch wrote:
| And if Bing is the engine to provide keystroke-by-keystroke
| word completion, that's not a _leak_ -- it 's an API the
| browser uses.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Fair enough.
| vb-8448 wrote:
| for what i understand, it sends all urls you visit event if
| you click on a link inside a page ...
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Which search engines were you using?
| hollasch wrote:
| Chrome uses APIs from google.com, Edge/IE use APIs from bing.com.
| This amazing discovery was in headlines in 2010.
|
| A more interesting blast from the past is the practice of
| capturing the search phrase in your browser sent to a competing
| search engine, and then noting the next visited page in your
| browser. This essentially captured the user's preferred link from
| your competitor's SERP (Search Engine Results Page), which led to
| legal challenges about search copying.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I didn't realize that people used edge for anything other than
| talking to bing chat.
| freehorse wrote:
| Me neither lol. It is weird that this is even considered news.
| e-master wrote:
| Loved using edge, was happy to have a good alternative to Chrome.
| Then they added this Bing button and some weird Toolbar to the
| side, and I never used it since. Went back to using Chrome.
| Would've used Firefox, but it doesn't seem to have a built in
| translator which I often need, and I'm not keen at all on
| installing some no name extension.
| maroonmoon wrote:
| Firefox translations
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/firefox-trans...
| hansoolo wrote:
| Well it has: https://www.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/features/translate/
| dzink wrote:
| Google relies on duration of stay data from chrome and google
| analytics to rank search results. Without knowing how much time
| people spend on a page, you don't know if the said page is
| someone's wishlist, or a wishlist tool, or the wishlist brand,
| etc. That's why they were rewarding verbose content, that's why
| SEO optimizers were shoving as much text as possible and that's
| why GPT made it even easier to rank pages higher on search
| engines. Bing will collect every data point it can get its hands
| on legally. Anyone with ambitions to build a better search engine
| outside of LLM and even with LLM will be only as good as their
| data.
| xnx wrote:
| > Google relies on duration of stay data from chrome and google
| analytics to rank search results
|
| Has Google said this? They might infer duration from time
| between clicks on different search results, but I've never seen
| evidence they are using data from Chrome and Google Analytics.
| explorer83 wrote:
| On one hand I find it hard to believe they do not use it.
| It's not like it's buried in the analytics dashboard. It's a
| pretty prominent metric. However, I have gotten websites
| organically ranked that I never implemented an Analytics tag
| on.
| inkywatcher wrote:
| Respectfully, I disagree. Google and Bing both deliberately
| pollute their own search results based on advertising and SEO.
| This is a user-hostile practice that they can get away with
| because of inertia and oligopoly. At some point, they will
| become so user-hostile that an alternative will become
| appealing.
|
| For example, a search engine that made a good-faith effort to
| filter out SEO-optimized junk like listicles and slideshow
| "articles" would be extremely interesting to me. Bonus points
| for allowing me to permanently blacklist entire domains from
| search results.
| GuyFromNorway wrote:
| This reminds me of a case I saw a couple of years, working for a
| company that delivered a document software. We had documents
| accessible through the web, open, but with a obfuscated URL, as a
| good amount of other companies in similar spaces. One morning we
| found a good amount of documents indexed in Bing, as well as
| invoices from some of Norways largest credit card companies,
| e-invoice suppliers etc.
|
| We never got to the bottom of how it happened, but our theory was
| that Edge would send browsing history back to MS; and MS/Bing
| would index based on this. So this seems to be a practice that
| has been going on for a long time
|
| Some old articles about it: https://www-nrk-
| no.translate.goog/norge/fodselsnummer-fra-br... https://www-nrk-
| no.translate.goog/norge/felleskjopet-beklage...
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| I hate to break the news but Chrome does that too. I used
| similarweb to check my website that only I visited pretty much
| and it showed "other viewed websites" that only I visited. I
| tried some other small websites and saw websites such as
| "pornhub" in other visited websites. I didn't have any extensions
| or anything. I've reached out to similarweb and was conveniently
| ignored.
|
| Just assume that all sites you visit is a publicly available
| data.
| antoniojtorres wrote:
| Would you happen to remember if you had any extensions or
| anything of that sort enabled on that chrome instance?
| Shorel wrote:
| I think this is the only way we can have a good search engine.
|
| It is potentially an invasion of privacy, but also is excellent
| to get good search results.
|
| Not everything is black and white. Search results have been
| abysmally bad for a decade now. Anything that can help fix them
| is welcome.
| jsnell wrote:
| This doesn't seem particularly shocking. What I'm surprised by is
| that Edge wouldn't have been reporting the full browsing history
| already (with the settings you get when just clicking through
| every dialogue box at first startup), and only started doing so
| with this feature. At least the privacy policy [0] suggests the
| former:
|
| > Depending on your settings, this browsing history is sent to
| Microsoft, which helps us find and fix problems and improve our
| products and services for all users.
|
| So is the news that they're doing this even when the "Help
| improve Microsoft products by sending optional diagnostic data
| about how you use the browser, websites you visit, and crash
| reports" option is off? That'd be unfortunate. Or is the news
| that it's sent to a Bing domain rather than a Microsoft domain?
| That is just stupid reporting.
|
| [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-
| edge-b...
| withinrafael wrote:
| Yes, the news is, as written, when the creator feature is on
| (and it is by default), all websites are reported to the Bing
| API endpoint. The other options you referred to aren't
| mentioned because their configured state is not relevant.
|
| Specfically, the following request is sent:
| GET /api/v7/followweb/isfollowable?appId=F1E45C4A7B95B48AC3F411
| C6214F6B861D0C276B&mediaUrl=https://www.domain.com/&edgechannel
| =stable HTTP/1.1
|
| The endpoint then responds with a bit of JSON:
| { ..., "status": "UnFollowable" }
| jsnell wrote:
| The configuration state of the option that allows Edge to
| send browsing history to Microsoft is pretty damn relevant
| when talking about a feature that involves Edge sending
| browsing history to Microsoft.
|
| If the option is being ignored, it's the kind of thing
| that'll result in fines in multiple countries. If the option
| is being respected, it's not even a story. I assume you're
| the person quoted in the story and know the details, so
| thanks for clarifying. Sounds like it's the former then.
| withinrafael wrote:
| Yep that's me, and fair point!
| pndy wrote:
| > What I'm surprised by is that Edge wouldn't have been
| reporting the full browsing history already
|
| IIRC one of Sysinternals tools allows to pull list of accessed
| files, folders and sites regardless of the browser. In such
| case Edge wouldn't need to report history because OS does that
| already.
| TekMol wrote:
| It's a mistery to me why Microsoft does not do the simple and
| obvious thing to siphon of a gazillion users from Google:
|
| Just offer a simple clean interface to Bing + ChatGPT.
|
| Without all the visual clutter and dark patterns.
|
| Why do they keep the foot on the break by adding all that
| nonsense to their search engine?
|
| Google is bringing in $160 Billion a year with their clean search
| result pages.
|
| Why does Microsoft think they need to play clumsy tricks and add
| stuff on top of the search results to make a buck?
|
| I see more users coming to my sites via DuckDuckGo - which
| searches via Bing - than via Bing itself. And that while Bing is
| the default search engine on the majority of new desktops and
| laptops out there. And the default search engine on many new
| tablets. Plus they have ChatGPT integration. It's just ming
| boggling how Microsoft wastes all that power with a bad UI.
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| If your website's target audience is tech related then it's not
| surprising that DuckDuckGo is the origin regardless of bing
| being installed as the default search engine on windows
| machines/edge.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Have you seen the start menu?
| TekMol wrote:
| Of Windows? No. I don't have Windows. What does it do?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Spams you with ads and cross sells you bing content
| grouchomarx wrote:
| comments like these strengthen my resolve to go down with
| the win10 ship then return to macOS when apple's chip
| line has matured
| bonney_io wrote:
| > Google is bringing in $160 Billion a year with their clean
| search result pages.
|
| No, Google brings in $X billion a year with all the ads and
| garbage they stuff _in between_ those clean search results.
|
| The same is true for Microsoft. There's no money to be made to
| run the service (let alone justify an American company's lust
| for growth and profit) without stuffing it full of ads to
| hopefully sell you something.
| TekMol wrote:
| Yes, results+ads is what makes the search result pages.
|
| But visit this site:
|
| https://www.google.com
|
| And then visit this site:
|
| https://www.bing.com
|
| And now tell me with a straight face that you don't see a
| difference.
|
| Bing ads a _ton_ of stuff to the "results+ads" concept that
| works so well for Google.
| rchaud wrote:
| The difference is entirely understandable if you look at a
| MSN.com page from the early 2000s: it's a search bar with
| links web stories around it. Bing was created primarily
| keep that old audience from defecting to Google.
|
| What worked for Google in a crowded search market in the
| year 2000 is not necessarily going to work for Microsoft
| Bing in 2023.
|
| In any case, if Google's clean design was such a
| differentiator, they wouldn't need to pay Apple $15bn to
| make it the default search engine on Safari.
| robomc wrote:
| What's funny about bing is that it shows me what appears to
| be, from UI cues, a carousel of some sort but none of the
| controls do anything. (It went away after a refresh)
|
| Also crazy that they wont let me use their new AI without
| downloading Edge. I'm not going to change my browser just
| to try a search feature. Do you want to get me using your
| service or not? Presumably my using Edge + Bing is only a
| minor improvement in conversion versus me using Chrome +
| Bing, relative to me not using Bing at all.
| zuminator wrote:
| If you're talking about what I think you are, I was just
| noticing the same bug earlier today. It seems to be fixed
| now, at least on my browser. In any event the carousel
| control arrows are supposed to be on the vertical edges
| of the frame. If they disappear, you can click, hold, and
| do a slight drag motion on the image, and the carousel
| controls will reappear.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| They look pretty similar to me except that Bing has a giant
| photo of penguins. Maybe you have a different experience?
|
| e: Oh woah if I zoom out to 90% then I see what you are
| talking about.
| MR4D wrote:
| On Bing:
|
| Hamburger menu > Customize my homepage > uncheck the 3
| boxes
|
| Same clutter as google.
|
| Yes, you can complain about the default, but Bing makes
| this pretty darn easy.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Without tracking you (no saved cookies at browser
| restart)?
| com2kid wrote:
| One has cute penguins in the background, both show a pop up
| dialog trying to get me to do something.
|
| The layout of the results page for two sample search are
| almost identical.
|
| Actually for "what is a barnacle" I think Bing wins for
| clarity of results.
|
| When searching for "what dog food is the best", both Bing
| and Google give me an entire page full of ads before any
| actual results pop up.
|
| On desktop, Google's "sponsored" marker is more obvious
| than Bing's, but no wheres near as obvious as it used to be
| when Google's motto was don't be evil.
|
| Mobile search result ads are aggressively bad with Google,
| frequently I have to scroll down past a page and a half of
| ads before I get to actual results.
|
| All in all, users are losing out.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Turns out there are different classes of people with different
| preferences. There will ALWAYS be some customers unhappy with
| their decision, and they will typically be the loudest. The
| fact that you see more users hitting your site from DuckDuckGo
| than Bing is a pretty good indicator that this audience is not
| typical, since Bing usage is generally much higher than DDG.
| freehorse wrote:
| Because they want to advertise they add FeATurES. There is no
| concern for utility and simplicity because this is not gonna
| bring users anyway, and it is nothing to really advertise.
|
| All this modern corporate bullshit is just unbearable.
| nottorp wrote:
| > with their clean search result pages.
|
| What clean result pages? You posting from 15 years ago?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| When has Microsoft ever designed a user decent interface?
| wvenable wrote:
| They design great stuff... and then cram it full of b*** sh**
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well there's this thing called Windows, I hear it's kind of
| popular.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Microsoft Office too I heard.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| That's like saying ads are popular because they're
| everywhere.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well I don't see how that's wrong. They are a popular way
| for businesses to promote their goods and services. A
| city may be a popular tourist destination, just not for
| those that live in it. Same principle.
| Aperocky wrote:
| popular isn't necessarily decent.
|
| The decent part was inherited from 20 years ago. The new UI
| changes have generally been detrimental.
|
| It got to a point where I'm contemplating (but too lazy) to
| switch my gaming PC to Linux
| TekMol wrote:
| Windows 95 was the best desktop at that time.
| dotancohen wrote:
| My Microsoft-branded Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard is fantastic.
| I have no idea if they designed it or build it, though. And
| even the tilted mouse that it came with is really good. Their
| previous ergonomic keyboard 4000-something, was also
| fantastic.
|
| They are not conventional keyboards, they have slightly-
| updated interfaces including larger meta keys, a split hand
| layout, tenting and reverse tilting, integrated palm rest,
| and some other niceties. Yes, Microsoft is capable of
| shipping a decent user interface. Just not in software. ))
| JohnFen wrote:
| > via DuckDuckGo - which searches via Bing
|
| But not solely with Bing. DDG aggregates from many different
| sources, including what their own spider finds.
| TekMol wrote:
| That's the story, but I doubt it.
|
| Show me a query for which DDG has different results than
| Bing.
| xnx wrote:
| Exactly. This "fact" gets repeated so often, but it's
| probably only technically true. e.g. DDG = Bing + crawl of
| top 500 sites that DDG does once a month
| JohnFen wrote:
| I was just taking DDG's word for it, but it wouldn't take
| that much to convince me that they were lying. Especially
| since they disappeared the page that listed all of their
| sources.
| cubefox wrote:
| Microsoft makes an absurd amount of revenue already from Office
| and Azure. I say it's good that their software interfaces are
| more awkward than Google's, otherwise they would soon dominate
| everything.
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| the new bing search isn't that bad, at least on the iphone
| summerlight wrote:
| I don't think this is something with malicious intentions. Those
| folks worked on this feature probably didn't want deal with all
| the mess on cross-organization stuff whenever they need to
| support new sites/networks. They probably told the Edge team
| something like "This is a super high priority project from the
| SVP, just give me the ownership of this piece of code". Instead
| of implementing a proper client side domain filtering. Which is a
| _worse_ problem ingrained in the org structure IMHO. Looks like
| they have no security /privacy process for this level of feature
| launches?
| steve1977 wrote:
| ,,Leaking" makes this sound unintentional
| tlb wrote:
| One surprising thing is that MS can be receiving an API call per
| web page from all Edge users, without noticing that they have a
| vast increase in traffic. It must be many times more requests
| than Bing itself. That must have required some serious devops
| firefighting.
| Aleklart wrote:
| Not a big deal. I have nothing to hide from Microsoft. I mean how
| them knowing chrome download page can hurt my privacy, right?
| ecef9-8c0f-4374 wrote:
| <% mild_shock_meme.png %>
|
| As if the trend was not clearly visible by windows 10 and carved
| in stone by windows 11.
| cuuupid wrote:
| I switched from Chrome to Edge 4ish years ago. It was honestly
| faster, didn't rev up my laptop fan, and over time they added
| things like the automatic privacy tooling that I enjoyed.
|
| Now they're messing up where it matters. The endless promotion of
| Bing, making it hard to completely remove it from the browser,
| adding a huge fucking B button. All while ignoring glaring bugs
| that were making it impossible to use certain sites with Edge
| while working fine in its sister browsers. Now I'm swapping back
| to Chrome because this is purely intolerable.
|
| Sometimes software doesn't need iteration or more features.
| Sometimes it just needs to work!
| joebiden2 wrote:
| Genuinely interested, why do you think Edge was faster than
| Chrome? What technical reason would be behind that?
|
| I cannot imagine Microsoft improved Chrome's speed by a
| noticeable degree without Google noticing and applying the same
| improvements.
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| Microsoft has made some Windows-based optimizations to things
| like memory management. But, as far as I know, they've been
| upstreaming those optimizations back to the Chromium
| codebase. There are some things that aren't upstreamed like
| Startup Boost and Game Mode (or whatever they're called)
| where Edge runs as a minimal background process on login to
| reduce startup lag when first opening Edge or reduces
| resource usage when Windows detects that you're playing a
| game, respectively.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Edge has been passable, Edge gained users, someone at MS
| suggested they should exploit those users more -- 'they're
| enjoying it, we can make it shit and exploit them for money
| instead, go us' is how I imagine that thought went.
|
| If MS stay true to form then give it a year and Edge will be a
| fetid turd, but they'll add some lock-in from the OS; maybe
| Office online breaks in all the other browsers. The World will
| be worse, some middle-manager will get a promotion,
| shareholders will get a few more cents, so it goes...
| esafak wrote:
| At least Edge is consumer software; your boss can't shove it
| down your throat.
| schemescape wrote:
| Don't forget that "news" keeps getting added back to your
| customized "new tab" page. That was there last straw for me on
| desktop. I switched to Firefox. It's slower but still fast
| enough for my purposes.
|
| On mobile, they broke the address bar somehow, so now I'm using
| Firefox everywhere, even though I never really planned to do
| so...
|
| It's a shame. It was a great browser for a while.
|
| Edit to add: Firefox has the best "reader mode" of any browser
| I've tried. I'm actually really happy about that.
| nr2x wrote:
| So it's just Chrome all the way down.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Follow creator feature? This must be the weakest reason I've seen
| in consumer tech and the bar is very low. Remember this is what
| the "...to improve your experience" refers to, from the privacy
| policy.
|
| Iirc Edge "telemetry" is also used for the WebView2 runtime which
| affects Tauri (an Electron alternative) as well, so for the
| people who think that installing Firefox fixes the problem,
| that's not true. The Tauri devs were rightfully pissed and
| harassed Microsoft, but last I checked MS didn't care. So it
| wouldn't surprise me if this new "feature" is also part of
| WebView2, just because of the code share.
| Xeamek wrote:
| "This must be the weakest reason I've seen in consumer tech and
| the bar is very low."
|
| Wym? It's decent feature (if you are the target for it).
| Ability to track your subscriptions from all of the different
| websites in one unified place (in this case your browser) is
| not a terrible product
| 98codes wrote:
| 24 ads and other trackers from The Verge attempted to load on
| that page alone; usually much more if those are allowed to
| succeed.
|
| That said, I disabled that creator follow nonsense the moment it
| landed. Not because of the URL tracking, but because it is
| stupid.
| UberFly wrote:
| Amen brother. Also, windows, especially server, used to ship
| with everything enabled by default but MS learned it was a
| security nightmare. I wish a basic browser would ship with this
| stuff opt-in or add-in only. Keeping up with this kind of bloat
| is exhausting.
| nottorp wrote:
| uBlock origin says it blocked 16. Firefox may have blocked more
| before uBlock got to run?
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "24 ads and other trackers from The Verge attempted to load on
| that page alone; usually much more if those are allowed to
| succeed."
|
| None attempted to load with the browser I am using. I was able
| to read the text of the article and follow any links on the
| page no problem.
|
| One could hope that "web developers" will stop accepting money
| in return for putting this garbage into pages. IMHO this is
| unlikely to happen.
|
| Alternatively, for recreational web use, one can stop using the
| browsers that auto-load the garbage by default. I did this and
| has worked better and better for over 20 years.
|
| The popular browsers supplied by so-called "tech" companies
| have many "features" but they do not allow users to disable
| auto-loading.
| asmor wrote:
| This is such a weird gotcha. It's like telling a communist that
| they should just stop using money. We're all subject to forces
| beyond our control. The journalists writing these articles do
| not control what executives and business people at Vox Media
| do.
| karakot wrote:
| Well yes, but they also could write another article -
| theverge leaks whatever you're doing on their site to all
| interested parties.
| dschuetz wrote:
| / _gasp /_ nooooo way, really?! who would have thunk!!!
| AdrenalinMd wrote:
| I'm also wondering if they send data to the Russian Yandex search
| engine as they have an agreement to have this search engine by
| default in some countries ?
| kevwil wrote:
| LOL I'm sooooo surprised. /s
| zpzapper wrote:
| This is literally the reason google chrome exists
| wsdookadr wrote:
| Irrelevant
| stalfosknight wrote:
| Is anyone truly surprised by this?
| agilob wrote:
| More surprised that theverge is using word "leaking", when it
| should be "sending" or "reporting". Leaking, make it look like
| an accidental behaviour.
| jug wrote:
| But their point is that it looks like accidental behavior?
| That is, it's doing this in way more instances than the
| intent is with this new feature that is enabled by default?
| agilob wrote:
| Do you believe in such accidents? What the explanation for
| that would be? Something like: "Oh no, we had this enabled
| by accident, and by accident had configured a high-
| availability API endpoint to collect such calls on a
| massive scale. This all got compiled, configured and
| deployed by accident without our clear intentions to do so.
| We are sorry."
| Xeamek wrote:
| No, we had a feature enabled intentionally and it
| intentionally scans tons of popular websites, the only
| accidntal part that it scans more websites then intended.
| There is no reason to pretend there is some bigger
| conspiracy.
|
| If microsoft really wanted to scan ALL urls that badly,
| they can... always just do exactly that? But when they
| actually implement fairly decent feature that has a bug
| in it... it's probably a bug yes. They really have no
| reason to be sneaky about it
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| They are in love with Apple.
| withinrafael wrote:
| I think it's correct, but understand your view too.
|
| The feature they're referring to is configured remotely [1]
| with a set of domain filters that demonstrate the intent was
| to only capture a subset of sites. I think this is where I'm
| now supposed to refer to Hanlon's razor--Never attribute to
| malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
|
| [1] https://www.bingapis.com/api/v7/followweb/getdomainfilter
| ?ap...
| [deleted]
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