[HN Gopher] Microsoft broke a Chrome feature to promote Edge
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Microsoft broke a Chrome feature to promote Edge
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 277 points
Date : 2023-05-02 14:12 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| thewebcount wrote:
| I'm no more a fan of this than I was of Google trying to shove
| Chrome in my face any time I used to visit any of their
| properties with a different browser. These 2 deserve each other.
| For now I just avoid both of their products.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Wow, this is much worse than I assumed:
|
| > _In fact, we were able to circumvent the issue just by changing
| the name of the Chrome app on a Windows desktop. It seems that
| Microsoft threw up the roadblock specifically for Chrome, the
| main competitor to its Edge browser._
|
| From the beginning of the article, I was led to believe Microsoft
| had changed an API around checking/setting the default browser to
| show Microsoft's dialog instead. Which doesn't seem great to
| change an API without warning, but maybe you can make an argument
| that it ensures a "neutral" choice rather than apps pushing the
| choice on users.
|
| But this shows it's _specifically against Chrome_. Regardless of
| whether it 's legal or not, it's unforgivably anti-competitive
| behavior. It's a truly shameful tactic.
| nr2x wrote:
| Given that Chrome is aggressively pursuing privacy sandbox,
| which is roundly rejected by everybody in the web privacy
| community, is aggressively user hostile, and designed solely as
| a means to leverage chrome's (current) dominance to support
| google ad business, it's fair to start treating chrome as
| malware.
| charcircuit wrote:
| How is it user hostile when it protects people's privacy
| while also meeting the needs of advertisers? It's a win win.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Because in reality, "meeting the needs of advertisers" is
| not a prerequisite to "protecting people's privacy." It's a
| false premise that Google constructed and which only exists
| because the dominant browser is created by an advertising
| company.
|
| A browser that truly protected people's privacy would
| definitionally not meet the needs of advertisers, because
| those needs are in direct opposition to people's need for
| privacy.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a
| browser. The web in general needs to look at the needs of
| all of the stakeholders and come together to find a
| solution that all parties can find agreeable. A browser
| should care about not just the users, but also the rest
| of the people in the ecosystem. If Chrome shipped an
| update that blocked all ads it would kill many sites and
| would cause a disaster to the health of the web
| ecosystem. Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem.
| Karellen wrote:
| Remember, the nickname "Browser" was invented after the
| fact, to describe the program that loads URLs and
| displays them to the user. The proper name of such a
| program is "User Agent". It is a program that acts as the
| agent, or the servant, of the user.
|
| My "browser" runs on my computer, by me, for me. It is
| not beholden to "all of the stakeholders", or "the rest
| of the people in the ecosystem". If my agent acting in a
| manner that User Agents were originally intended to, only
| fetching the URLs that I - the user - want it to fetch,
| "would cause a disaster to the health of the web
| ecosystem", then maybe the current web ecosystem is bad
| and deserves to meet with disaster.
|
| The web managed to explode in usefulness and popularity
| before surveillance capitalism became a thing, not
| because of it.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| > If Chrome shipped an update that blocked all ads it
| would kill many sites and would cause a disaster to the
| health of the web ecosystem.
|
| I think this would be the best thing that could possibly
| happen for the health of the web, tbh. Imagine Google
| search results if every blogspam page plastered with ads
| no longer had a financial incentive to exist.
|
| EDIT: It would kill some useful sites too, undoubtedly,
| but I think it would be worth the cost.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Protecting people's privacy is not the sole job of a
| browser.
|
| I will never use a browser that serves anyone's desires
| over mine. That's absurd.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > A browser should care about not just the users, but
| also the rest of the people in the ecosystem.
|
| Hard disagree. A browser is supposed to be my user agent.
| It is supposed to work for me. It should not be engaging
| in compromises to my wishes in order to benefit others.
|
| > Chrome should try and improve the ecosystem.
|
| I think that there is much disagreement about what
| "improving the ecosystem" would look like.
| nr2x wrote:
| It doesn't protect "privacy", it at best limits a subset of
| reidentification attacks, and only in a vacuum where other
| fingerprinting vectors don't exist.
|
| If it's so great it would be any easy opt-in for users. But
| it's not.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Because it doesn't really "protect privacy" and it
| legitimizes and institutionalizes advertiser tracking
| (albeit at a more controllable level).
| cptskippy wrote:
| Part of protecting my privacy is not sharing what I'm doing
| with advertisers.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It is definitely about meeting the needs of advertisers, by
| implementing new methods to violate user privacy. Every
| other browser has simply blocked advertisers from
| collecting this information, but Google is an ad company,
| and hence is anti-consumer at heart.
| gigel82 wrote:
| That's true, but Edge is literally the same codebase and
| architecture, rebranded and with slightly tweaked UI, plus
| additional MS tracking. So Edge should get the exact same
| treatment.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| What part of this description of privacy sandbox doesn't
| apply to what Microsoft has been doing with Windows? I think
| it's time to treat Windows 11 as malware as well.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| technically those two are not mutually exclusive
| nr2x wrote:
| Since people seemed to believing Google PR at face value here
| is the w3c position in rejecting the proposal:
|
| The intention of the Topics API is to enable high level
| interests of web users to be shared with third parties in a
| privacy-preserving way in order to enable targeted
| advertising, while also protecting users from unwanted
| tracking and profiling. The TAG's initial view is that this
| API does not achieve these goals as specified.
|
| The Topics API as proposed puts the browser in a position of
| sharing information about the user, derived from their
| browsing history, with any site that can call the API. This
| is done in such a way that the user has no fine-grained
| control over what is revealed, and in what context, or to
| which parties. It also seems likely that a user would
| struggle to understand what is even happening; data is
| gathered and sent behind the scenes, quite opaquely. This
| goes against the principle of enhancing the user's control,
| and we believe is not appropriate behaviour for any software
| purporting to be an agent of a web user.
|
| The responses to the proposal from Webkit and Mozilla
| highlight the tradeoffs between serving a diverse global
| population, and adequately protecting the identities of
| individuals in a given population. Shortcomings on neither
| side of these tradeoffs are acceptable for web platform
| technologies.
|
| It's also clear from the positions shared by Mozilla and
| Webkit that there is a lack of multi-stakeholder support. We
| remain concerned about fragmentation of the user experience
| if the Topics API is implemented in a limited number of
| browsers, and sites that wish to use it prevent access to
| users of browsers without it (a different scenario from the
| user having disabled it in settings).
|
| We are particularly concerned by the opportunities for sites
| to use additional data gathered over time by the Topics API
| in conjunction with other data gathered about a site visitor,
| either via other APIs, via out of band means, and/or via
| existing tracking technologies in place at the same time,
| such as fingerprinting.
|
| We appreciate the in-depth privacy analyses of the API that
| have been done so far by Google and by Mozilla. If work on
| this API is to proceed, it would benefit from further
| analysis by one or more independant (non-browser engine or
| adtech) parties.
|
| Further, if the API were both effective and privacy-
| preserving, it could nonetheless be used to customise content
| in a discriminatory manner, using stereotypes, inferences or
| assumptions based on the topics revealed (eg. a topic could
| be used - accurately or not - to infer a protected
| characteristic, which is thereby used in selecting an advert
| to show). Relatedly, there is no binary assessment that can
| be made over whether a topic is "sensitive" or not. This can
| vary depending on context, the circumstances of the person it
| relates to, as well as change over time for the same person.
|
| Giving the web user access to browser settings to configure
| which topics can be observed and sent, and from/to which
| parties, would be a necessary addition to an API such as
| this, and go some way towards restoring agency of the user,
| but is by no means sufficient. People can become vulnerable
| in ways they do not expect, and without notice. People cannot
| be expected to have a full understanding of every possible
| topic in the taxonomy as it relates to their personal
| circumstances, nor of the immediate or knock-on effects of
| sharing this data with sites and advertisers, and nor can
| they be expected to continually revise their browser settings
| as their personal or global circumstances change.
|
| A portion of topics returned by the API are proposed to be
| randomised, in part to enable plausible deniability of the
| results. The usefulness of this mitigation may be limited in
| practice; an individual who wants to explain away an
| inappropriate ad served on a shared computer cannot be
| expected to understand the low level workings of a specific
| browser API in a contentious, dangerous or embarrassing
| situation (assuming a general cultural awareness of the idea
| of targeted ads being served based on your online activities
| or even being "listened to" by your devices, which does not
| exist everywhere, but is certainly pervasive in some
| places/communities).
|
| While we appreciate the efforts that have gone into this
| proposal aiming to iteratively improve the privacy-preserving
| possibilities of targeted advertising, ultimately it falls
| short. In summary, the proposed API appears to maintain the
| status quo of inappropriate surveillence on the web, and we
| do not want to see it proceed further.
|
| https://github.com/w3ctag/design-
| reviews/issues/726#issuecom...
| evandale wrote:
| Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? I
| assume it's because Google is using it to collect your
| information but blocking everyone else from collecting it?
| simplotek wrote:
| > Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile?
|
| From the horse's mouth, "privacy sandbox" is explicitly
| designed "to build thriving digital businesses."
|
| https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/
|
| At face value they claim it's designed to eliminate
| tracking techniques like fingerprinting, it's actually a
| system explicitly designed to collect the users' private
| information. From the horse's mouth.
|
| _" To provide this free resource without relying on
| intrusive tracking, publishers and developers need privacy-
| preserving alternatives for their key business needs,
| including serving relevant content and ads."_
| nr2x wrote:
| That's literally written by a PR team, see the quote I
| pasted from the w3c decision.
| edoceo wrote:
| So, it's tracking just not _intrusive_ tracking?
| simplotek wrote:
| It sounds like it's plain old tracking, but pushed and
| owned by Google through it's control over Chrome.
| thewataccount wrote:
| No it's objectively less intrusive.
|
| The proposals involve reducing UA data, ip tracking, etc.
|
| But still allows for some amount of targeting. From my
| understanding instead of you being an identifiable
| individual via fingerprinting, the aim is to make you
| "probably one in [large group] of technology people".
|
| I'm not saying I think it's a good thing, but on the
| surface it does appear _better_.
| codedokode wrote:
| Does Privacy sandbox prevent fingerprinting completely
| (for example, canvas fingerprinting, WebGL
| fingerprinting, audio fingerprinting)? Or the advertisers
| would be able to use both fingerprinting and newly
| provided data?
|
| I don't understand why we need to trade here. Just block
| figerprinting and do _not_ provide any alternatives for
| advertisers. This is the best for users.
| None4U wrote:
| We "need to trade here" because Google is an adtech
| business
| cptskippy wrote:
| > I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your
| information but blocking everyone else from collecting it?
|
| It isn't so much a privacy sandbox, it's an anti
| competition sandbox.
|
| Google is designing standards and practices under the
| auspices of user privacy but in reality these changes
| simply lock others out of accessing data while serving it
| up to Google.
|
| * Not only are they locking out competition, but they're
| preventing the user from stopping or mitigating collection
| of data as well.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I posted this below, but I suspect the scoping for Chrome.exe
| was done because Chrome was misusing an API.
|
| According to the article:
|
| "the worst was reserved for users on the enterprise version of
| Windows. For weeks, every time an enterprise user opened
| Chrome, the Windows default settings page would pop up. There
| was no way to make it stop unless you uninstalled the operating
| system update. It forced Google to disable the setting, which
| had made Chrome more convenient."
|
| Enterprise maybe didn't like settings getting changed that way
| (conflict with group policy?). If it was constantly opening new
| windows, it's probably because it was constantly calling an API
| (probably in the wrong or an undocumented way). So it would
| make sense to change how the API works based on a known bugged
| application. It wouldn't be the first time Windows changes how
| something works based on application name [0].
|
| Keep in mind there's also more than just the documented Win32
| API exposed to applications on Windows (and who knows if Chrome
| was misusing these undocumented ones) [1].
|
| [0]
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20031224-00/?p=41...
|
| [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/sysinternals/resources/ins...
| moogly wrote:
| It's quack.exe all over again.
| andirk wrote:
| Or virus.exe as seen on Office Space.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| In a fight of Microsoft against Google, I support the fight.
| kbenson wrote:
| I don't. In a fight we all as end users lose. Competition is
| beneficial to the end user, fighting, where they sabotage
| each other or bar each other or their own apps from platforms
| is not.
|
| Did end users benefit when YouTube was blocked from being
| used on Amazon Firesticks? Did they benefit when Roku and HBO
| were feuding and you couldn't use HBO Max on Roku devices?
|
| Be careful what you wish for.
| tremon wrote:
| In Dutch we have a saying "when two dogs fight over a bone,
| a third runs off with it". I support the fight if it will
| weaken both Microsoft and Google.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| It looks like they're going back to the days of "DOS isn't done
| until Lotus won't run," alright. Very shady.
| dmix wrote:
| Can Google sued Microsoft for doing this? I'd imagine the
| Justice Dept might come calling if Edge takes #1 spot in the
| future.
| DANmode wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Any chance you're familiar with their last antitrust suit?
| neonsunset wrote:
| Can Google be sued by Microsoft in return for breaking
| YouTube for years on non-Chromium browser?
| DANmode wrote:
| Yes.
| grishka wrote:
| What surprises me about this stuff is that no one has ever
| tried to get a definitive answer to this sort of question with
| the help of reverse engineering. It's always this guesswork for
| some reason. It does not have to be guesswork when the ground
| truth is right there inside your C:\Windows folder.
| Kye wrote:
| I don't know why it's surprising. Reverse engineering an
| executable is quite a jump in skill level from guesswork.
| nneonneo wrote:
| That, and Windows is *huge*. The best bet would probably be
| to reverse engineer the patch in question, but if it's a
| typical combo patch then you're probably looking at changes
| across a dozen system files. If you're unlucky, the patch
| is just flipping a flag or something for a feature that
| already existed: it wouldn't surprise me if Windows
| _already_ had hacks specifically for "chrome.exe" (for
| compatibility or anti-compatibility reasons). In that case
| it becomes much more time consuming to isolate the one
| component that is responsible for the problem.
| 762236 wrote:
| Wow, drive letters in 2023.
| [deleted]
| dacryn wrote:
| you act as if reverse engineering is easy. I guarantee you
| its not, especially something like edge is a rats nest of
| packages, assemblies, 3rd party components, config files, all
| neatly bundled in something unreadable for security reasons.
|
| Browsers are hard to reverse engineer
| JohnFen wrote:
| I specialized in reverse-engineering binaries for a few
| years (it's shockingly common for companies to lose the
| source code for their own products), and I second this.
|
| Reverse-engineering is difficult and time-consuming.
| Reverse-engineering something as large and complex as a
| browser would be a huge project all by itself.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| Currently writing a talk about loss of institutional
| knowledge.
|
| Can I quote you? Also, if you're comfortable, can you
| give me more background on yourself so I won't just be
| quoting a rando on the Internet?
| andirk wrote:
| What about getting ahold of the binary or whatever raw
| version of Windows you can get (C++, assembly?), and look
| at the diff from before this change and after. Would that
| drastically narrow down what you should look at?
| Moreover, if there is a literal CONSTANT that says
| "Chrome", is it possible that it's not obfuscated and
| sitting in the code in plain sight?
| yrro wrote:
| Nothing new under the sun.
|
| Edge ain't done 'till Chrome don't run...
| garganzol wrote:
| "What a convenient coincidence. Mind you, it was absolutely
| uncorrelated. Everybody knows that everything <a big corp> does
| is for better security." - a typical bitter sarcasm nowadays.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I love browser wars. Google is getting taste of its own medicine.
| They also have endless message "Install google chrome" when we go
| to google.com or youtube.com.
|
| I think Microsoft should do more to Google. Meanwhile, I am happy
| with Firefox.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Chrome and Edge are both hot garbage. Install Firefox and never
| look back.
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| Microsoft gonna Microsoft.
| fwlr wrote:
| Trying to set yourself as the default handler for anything should
| pop up a system preferences box. Beating a dead horse perhaps but
| in the Apple world this works quite well: there are various
| permissions like "read folders", "capture keyboard input",
| "access location" and so on. When a programs wants to use these,
| all it can do is put in a request, and pop up a dialog box
| offering to take you System Preferences. When you're in System
| Preferences you can look at e.g. "read folders" permissions and
| see all the programs that have requested this, and you can check
| or uncheck each program to decide its access. This is how default
| handlers should work, too (although it doesn't in MacOS at the
| moment, probably because they couldn't solve the UI issue of
| having a list of every possible file type, each with a sub list
| of every program that can open it).
|
| If that was what Windows was intending, and Google found a way
| around it with sneaky automatic API calls, and Windows fixed the
| exploit which then resulted in those sneaky calls popping open
| Settings every time, that would be fine and Google would be the
| bad guy.
|
| Sounds like that was not what happened here, Windows did some
| ugly hack (up to and including 'relying on a Chrome.exe process
| name', like, come on) and in fact doesn't even have a "make
| request then approve in Settings" workflow, so yeah Windows is
| the bad guy here. Google is still a little bit bad - you're
| fucking up my UI by forcing a self-promotion button into my tab
| bar, that's not cool - but overall this situation is a point
| against Microsoft.
|
| (Personally I'm glad the extent of browser wars for Mac is some
| apps doing some trick to make you choose between "Chrome",
| "Safari", or "the default browser [Safari]" every time you click
| a link. I want to use the default option every time
| automatically, that's _what default means_.)
| nr2x wrote:
| Eh, iOS doesn't allow any alternative rendering engines, which
| isn't exactly user choice.
| zamnos wrote:
| Ah yes, the Henry Ford of user choices.
|
| "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants
| so long as it is black".
|
| -Henry Ford, My Life and Work (1922)
| yarg wrote:
| Te be honest, the most unreasonable part wasn't choosing a
| single colour, it was choosing black over grey.
| tracker1 wrote:
| The better to hide the oil... those early cars were very
| messy.
| yarg wrote:
| But not so much the bird shit from needing to park in the
| shade.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Android is back and forth on this. Some items just get a simple
| prompt, and others get "no you have to get forwarded to a
| built-in system page within the settings system and set the
| value there". Generally, things that an app is "unreasonable"
| to ask for (like background use of camera or mic, avoiding
| being cycled out when in background, or access to the
| filesystem) need to go through the full OS settings menu, while
| common things (active in-app use of GPS or Camera) get a simple
| pop-up prompt.
|
| Which makes sense.
| gondaloof wrote:
| > make you choose between "Chrome", "Safari", or "the default
| browser [Safari]" every time you click a link
|
| Apple oughta put a stop to this nonsense.
|
| 1. There's a global default browser setting: follow it.
|
| 2. Almost no app needs an embedded SFSafariViewController just
| to open random links
|
| 2b. Extend this to photo pickers (especially those that expect
| access to the entire library)
| RajT88 wrote:
| > (up to and including 'relying on a Chrome.exe process name',
| like, come on)
|
| I would bet this is an application shim of some sort.
| Hardcoding behavior like this into the shell is risky. Shims
| often target based on process name and executable path on disk
| (but can be configured to also match resource info).
|
| I would dig into it, but I cannot repro the issue on Win10.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Sounds like that was not what happened here, Windows did some
| ugly hack (up to and including 'relying on a Chrome.exe process
| name', like, come on) and in fact doesn't even have a "make
| request then approve in Settings" workflow, so yeah Windows is
| the bad guy here. Google is still a little bit bad - you're
| fucking up my UI by forcing a self-promotion button into my tab
| bar, that's not cool - but overall this situation is a point
| against Microsoft.
|
| I suspect Chrome was misusing an API, because according to the
| article
|
| "the worst was reserved for users on the enterprise version of
| Windows. For weeks, every time an enterprise user opened
| Chrome, the Windows default settings page would pop up. There
| was no way to make it stop unless you uninstalled the operating
| system update. It forced Google to disable the setting, which
| had made Chrome more convenient."
|
| Enterprise maybe didn't like settings getting changed that way
| (conflict with group policy?). If it was constantly opening new
| windows, it's probably because it was constantly calling an API
| (probably in the wrong or an undocumented way). So it would
| make sense to change how the API works based on a known bugged
| application.
| jds-67 wrote:
| One more reason not to use Windows if possible.
| codeflo wrote:
| The year is 2023. Everyone who believes either Microsoft or
| Google are the good guys here is either not paying attention, or
| works for either of the companies (not so unlikely on Hacker
| News). Both companies use every imaginable dark pattern to trick
| users into agreeing to whatever tracking bullshit they added last
| week. With one company controlling the OS and the other the
| browser, the question is just which dark patterns preempt the
| other company's dark patterns in the battle for user attention
| and data in the advertisement wars.
|
| I long for the days where I was able to _pay_ for a piece of
| software. The nature of the transaction ensured that the software
| did what I as a user wanted it to do, and served no hidden
| agenda. But those days are gone, possibly forever.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| > I long for the days where I was able to pay for a piece of
| software.
|
| You can pay for software, but you'll still be the product. Just
| like how it's the case here with Windows.
|
| It's ironic how the best software are often made by unpaid
| volunteers. Compare that with commercial software. Most of them
| are bloated and user-hostile.
| timmaxw wrote:
| Yep. I use GMail and Safari on iOS. When I open links from
| GMail, every so often it shows a popup saying "would you like
| to install Chrome and open this link with Chrome instead of
| Safari"? It only appears intermittently, not on every link
| (fortunately), but there's no way to disable it.
| arepublicadoceu wrote:
| Have you tried: settings > default apps > disable ask me each
| time?
| davey48016 wrote:
| The way Google released "experimental" features behind prefixes
| instead of configuration for years always seemed like a way to
| get developers to break their sites in non-Chrome browsers as
| much or more than a way to test features.
|
| I assume that Google's takeaway from the Internet Explorer
| anti-trust case was that they needed plausible deniability for
| their non-standard browser features.
| gondaloof wrote:
| Historic tidbit: Mozilla had a slew of "internal" prefixes to
| be used in their UI and extensions, but Apple really broke
| new ground and made them mainstream when the iPhone came out
| and really needed CSS to be useful. That's when stuff like
| -webkit-transition` and the fabulous `-webkit-box-reflect`
| were pushed out without waiting for anyone.
|
| -ms- wasn't really a thing until IE10 if I remember
| correctly, when they started prefixing their own IE5-era
| properties like the DirectX-based `filter` [citation needed]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The way Google released "experimental" features behind
| prefixes instead of configuration for years always seemed
| like a way to get developers to break their sites in non-
| Chrome browsers as much or more than a way to test features.
|
| Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Opera all were doing that
| before Google even had a browser; there never even was a
| Chrome-specific prefix, all of the features included in
| Chrome this way were -webkit- prefix and, IIRC, implemented
| in the WebKit shared codebase.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > The way Google released "experimental" features behind
| prefixes instead of configuration
|
| This was not a "Google" thing - vendor prefixes were a common
| practice in the industry. Webkit was using -webkit- prefix
| before Google was using it.
|
| Many years ago the harm of this was recognised and browsers
| did move these to configuration/feature flags instead.
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Glossary/Vendor_Pre...
| waboremo wrote:
| Judging by Google's sloppy handling of evidence related to
| their antitrust suit, it seems your assumption is entirely on
| the money.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| I don't think people are rooting for Google here, it's more of
| the "I don't want X (Google) to win I just want Y (Microsoft)
| to lose" mentality. Neither are the "good" guy here, but in
| this specific interaction there's definitely one party at fault
| who should be punished/prevented.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The definite party is almost certainly Google, who probably
| implemented an unsupported API to hack this feature, and then
| are expecting people to blame Microsoft when it inevitably
| changes. (News about Microsoft adjusting how default apps are
| set went out like two months ago.)
|
| Microsoft has, whether you like it or not, a documented and
| official way to set your app as a default app. And apps which
| growth hack around that will probably have problems.
| zubiaur wrote:
| Absolutely. The moment it became clear to me was back when
| Google completely broke gmail and search for WebOS devices. It
| served the most rudimentary, broken WAP like version of Gmail
| and a stripped down version of search. Gmail was basically
| unusable.
|
| The fix? as simple as changing the browser's user agent to look
| like Android/Chrome.
| simplotek wrote:
| > The fix? as simple as changing the browser's user agent to
| look like Android/Chrome.
|
| I'm not defending Google here, but once I worked for a
| company whose web support strategy consisted of explicitly
| supporting a specific subset of browsers, and have a user-
| agent allowlist to pick if a request loaded the current
| version of the page or a legacy, feature incomplete but
| broadly supported version. The guiding principle was that we
| would have to draw the line in the sand regarding which
| browsers we'd cover in our test matrix, and instead of
| risking subjecting users who used unsupported browser to
| broken experiences then it was preferable that we assured
| they would experience an old but bulletproof version of it.
|
| We started off by showing a "this browser is not supported,
| please upgrade" page, until some other department in our
| company complained up and down the org tree because they used
| thin clients with outdated browsers. Thus instead of showing
| a "please upgrade" page we fed the old version, and everyone
| was happy.
|
| I see how this looks like intentionally feeding a degraded
| experience to subsets of users, but having been in a
| decision-making process that led to the same outcome, let me
| assure you there are real-world scenarios where this outcome
| does not originate in malice or any ulterior motive.
| az226 wrote:
| Why not give the user the option? If it then looks fine,
| they can keep the newer website, and if it doesn't they can
| switch to classic.
| simplotek wrote:
| > Why not give the user the option?
|
| The users affected by this case were at the tip of a very
| long tail of unsupported user agents. Those who want to
| circumvent the issue can either upgrade or resort to
| tricks like faking user agents. The key take here is that
| we could not possibly support all browsers or the old
| version, so for the very rare cases we kept the lights on
| in a very old and unmaintained version of the app. In my
| company there was no sneaky ulterior motive, it was just
| that we couldn't afford maintaining obscure platforms
| that, even if we really wanted to, we couldn't possibly
| test.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| They did the same multiple times for Windows Mobile. They
| support iOS because iOS only ships for Apple devices, it
| isn't really a competitor in the OS space. But they are
| absolutely brutal towards any company which might offer a way
| out for OEMs from the Google prison.
| fwlr wrote:
| I have no illusions about Apple being "good guys", but this
| _is_ why I use MacOS and Safari - both of those exist to sell
| Apple hardware, which is at least a little better than existing
| to sell my eyeballs. Not great, but not Microsoft or Google bad
| (yet).
|
| Basically, I am paying the Apple tax because I get to be a few
| cycles behind the state of the art in software commoditizing
| their users.
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| Yeah well I just use Firefox on Linux
| fwlr wrote:
| Also a good option. Edge and Chrome are definitely on the
| biting edge of this particular ratchet, while Firefox and
| Safari are at least half a whole rotation behind. (We could
| split hairs about who is a click behind whom, and how much
| of that is because of development velocity rather than
| intention, but the difference is minor compared to where
| Chrome and Edge are at.)
| lockhouse wrote:
| What do you use for a mobile phone?
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I use Fennec F-droid on android
| SXX wrote:
| For last 3 years Firefox works great on Android and does
| have working ad-blokers.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Are you using one of those de-Googled custom Android ROMs
| or stock?
| SXX wrote:
| Honestly nope. I mostly need phone for banking apps that
| thanks to Google DRM (SafetyNet) dont play too well with
| custom ROMs. Yet Firefox work quite well across Windows,
| macOS, Linux and Android and it has huge advantage of
| having proper adblocking. So it's mostly no brainer which
| browser to use.
| miloignis wrote:
| I am - GrapheneOS is excellent. I do unfortunately run
| sandboxed Google Play Services for access to Google Maps
| & Google Play through which I get my banking app. Pretty
| much everything else (launcher, podcasts, VLC, Firefox,
| FluffyChat&Element for Matrix messaging,
| ntfy.sh/UnifiedPush) is via f-droid, and works great.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| Unfortunately, Firefox's security on Android is .. not
| the best
|
| (https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-
| chromium.ht...)
| DANmode wrote:
| It's not just Android.
|
| Unfortunately.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I'm running Firefox on both iOS & macOS.
|
| Also installed it on my pc.
| hackerbrother wrote:
| I use Lynx on OpenBSD.
| pacija wrote:
| I wold have problem with Lynx on OpenBSD, but Iridium on
| FreeBSD is quite ok, as long as I add obligatory ublock
| origin, umatrix and cookie autodelete extensions.
| kneebonian wrote:
| You mean your leasing a Mac from Apple to use it in a manner
| consistent with and approved by them.
| dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv wrote:
| https://asahilinux.org/about/
| gondaloof wrote:
| > I get to be a few cycles behind the state of the art in
| software commoditizing their users.
|
| Have you been on the App Store lately? macOS and iOS are
| relatively clean, but the most apps in the stores are out to
| get you.
| [deleted]
| cutler wrote:
| "Party like it's 1999"
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| On one hand, Microsoft has been ridiculously scummy lately in
| regards to Windows and Edge (e.g., dark patterns everywhere) and
| I downright abhor what Edge has become. On the other hand,
| programs probably shouldn't be able to silently change a user's
| default programs. But back to the first hand, it seems like this
| was targeting Chrome specifically rather than actually improving
| the API, so more scummy nonsense from Microsoft.
|
| While Chrome included a button to ask users beforehand, they
| could've just as easily changed the default browser without
| asking. I'm not saying Google would do that, but maybe they
| shouldn't have the ability to do so regardless of intention.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm not sure what to switch to at this point... disabling the
| shopping suggestions, fine.. but this bing sidebar and the
| giant button, even if you disable the ever-present mode is
| annoying to say the least.
|
| I really liked edge, but that didn't last long... I'm trying to
| minimize the Google in my life as well, beyond search which is
| less and less useful itself. Not sure what to use. Keep seeing
| Vivaldi mentioned, and I do use Brave on my phone.
|
| And no, I don't find Firefox "good" ... I do like having
| bookmarks and plugins sync'd though. Anyone have an extension
| that syncs bookmarks... I keep my passphrases in Bitwarden, not
| the browser as it is.
| Pxtl wrote:
| That sounds like it should be up to the OS to prompt with a
| confirmation when the software tries to change a global
| setting. That's what mobile devices do.
| linster wrote:
| I wonder if the workaround you mentioned in your second
| paragraph is bait Microsoft left for Google PMs?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| They are allowing a Trojan horse application on their platform
| two of the main purposes of which are to convert paid MS Office
| users to paid Google Suite users, and to convert Windows users to
| ChromeOS users. I think Microsoft is being quite generous,
| patient, and tolerant, if anything (although to a large degree
| probably because they are required to act in this way by naive,
| ignorant, and/or Google-funded regulators).
| elaus wrote:
| We live in dark times if we unironically talk about Microsoft
| "allowing" certain executables in Windows.
| mynonameaccount wrote:
| It's all a game to Microsoft and you are just the product
| asldkfjaslkdj wrote:
| Are we just going to ignore the time Google was caught slowing
| firefox with useless loops (well, actually turning on a client
| side noise reduction algo IIRC) in google meet and docs to make
| it look like chrome was faster? could also be 'fixed' by changing
| user agents to chrome.
|
| ...countdown to downvotes and replies asking for source for
| something that is easy to find online.
| PlutoIsAPlanet wrote:
| Applications should not be able to register themselves as the
| default handler for file and uri types.
|
| Google should be forced to open the system settings panel that
| allows users to change the default browser, not do it for them.
| If this window unfairly favours one browser over another, I'd say
| that would be anti-competitive, but requiring to go through said
| window is not.
| simula67 wrote:
| > Google should be forced to open the system settings panel
| that allows users to change the default browser, not do it for
| them.
|
| Why is it not enough that the user clicked on the button to
| change the default browser?
|
| > If this window unfairly favours one browser over another, I'd
| say that would be anti-competitive, but requiring to go through
| said window is not
|
| Making it harder for users to switch from the default browser
| to another browser unfairly favours the default browser over
| non-default browsers.
| fwlr wrote:
| > Why is it not enough that the user clicked on the button to
| change the default browser?
|
| It's a button in Chrome, intuitively it should only be able
| to affect things inside Chrome. If you want to affect system-
| wide (user-wide...) defaults, that should be done in System,
| not Chrome. A analogy might be "turning your house lights'
| dimmers to maximum brightness shouldn't also set your car's
| headlights to high-beam".
| 015a wrote:
| I agree with this take, at a theoretical, hypothetical,
| utopian level. But I think its only the right path when we
| can trust that the vendors of the operating system are
| neutral stewards; when they act to at least a useful degree
| in the service of their customers, both the users and the
| application developers, versus their own network effect
| self-interests. Unfortunately, the majority of operating
| system developers out there are everything except neutral.
|
| In the absence of this utopia, you have to ask if its a
| _better_ world that Microsoft retains unilateral control
| over its users ' ability to set a default browser (or, any
| other decision of a similar caliber). I'd rather no one
| have control; that it just be some file content on the disk
| that any program can edit, and I'll adopt the
| responsibility of trying to make sure the programs I
| install can be trusted with that power.
|
| The alternative smells more like Apple's Security Dystopia
| than a utopia. Microsoft has already proven to be a bad
| steward of this functionality: there was a time (which may
| still be the case, I don't know) where changing the default
| browser would prompt you to "give Edge another shot" no
| short of three times. There was a time when even _Googling_
| "Chrome" in the Edge browser would re-write the HTML to
| list the Edge website first (I'm pretty sure they've
| removed this). Click on a link in any of Windows 11's
| useless widgets will always open Edge, even if you've
| overridden the default browser.
|
| The better analogy is possibly: Turning your house's lights
| to maximum brightness maybe _should_ also set your car 's
| headlights to high beams, if the car manufacturer prompts
| you to install their own more expensive, worse headlights
| every time you adjust their brightness in the car.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >In the absence of this utopia, you have to ask if its a
| better world that Microsoft retains unilateral control
| over its users' ability to set a default browser
|
| You are running on Microsoft's operating system, they
| will always outrank you in decision making. Even if they
| expose an API for you to use, nothing can stop them from
| perverting that API if they want to harm you. You can
| only hope that the users prefer that they have final say,
| which at least used to be Microsoft's policy.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| You can give browser vendors an API to throw up system UI to
| make it "just as easy".
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| That's literally how you're supposed to do it, Google just
| doesn't and instead fumbles with Windows internals
| directly.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I get the risk here. But it has to be balanced against the
| downside of the OS being able to say: "Oh, you'd like to change
| the default file handler for X? Sure, just follow this 7-step
| process to make that happen."
|
| If applications can't change this, then an OS with a competing
| application can just implement a high-friction process that
| discourages most people from completing the switch.
| shultays wrote:
| What about photoshop and .ps files
|
| Perhaps we should add "for unregistered file types" there but
| if I am installing a software, I am probably wanting it to
| associate themselves for relevant files and I wouldn't want to
| go through settings to find all relevant files
|
| The proper ux is peovably a "this application wants to open
| these file types" system pop up
| sensanaty wrote:
| Lots of applications (specifically dev-oriented ones to be
| fair) will have a part in the Windows Installer where you can
| tick a box that says something like "open .xyz with
| APP_GETTING_INSTALLED". Some better ones give you a list of
| file extensions that you'd like to open with the installing
| app.
|
| Been a while since I've seen the WinRAR install screen, but
| pretty sure it does exactly what I described
| bdw5204 wrote:
| On Windows, it is normal for applications to set themselves as
| the default for whatever files they open. The honest ones ask
| for user consent first. The dishonest ones just hijack file
| types.
|
| I don't see anything anti-competitive about Windows coming with
| a Microsoft browser or Microsoft setting it as the default as
| long as we're able to download other browsers and go to the
| system settings to change the default. Pretty much the first
| thing everybody does after installing Windows is use Edge to
| install Chrome although that's probably not necessary these
| days since Edge is just a Chrome reskin that is integrated with
| the Microsoft ecosystem instead of the Google ecosystem.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That's fine, if Edge has to do the same.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But it makes sense contextually for users to set defaults _from
| within_ the app they 're using, that's when they're thinking
| about it. It's more intuitive UX.
|
| The best solution is a system permissions dialog to confirm the
| change, so an app can't change anything silently.
|
| Because using a control panel for all handlers isn't a
| particularly user-friendly experience, scrolling through 60
| file types to hunt down the one you're looking for and then
| locate the appropriate .exe file. I mean the panel should
| _exist_ but for power users.
| meindnoch wrote:
| It should work exactly as camera and microphone permissions
| work.
|
| No 3rd party app should have write access to system
| configurations.
| tarimbreazeaim wrote:
| [dead]
| fwlr wrote:
| It is most _convenient_ by far to set defaults from within
| the app, but I don't think it makes the most _sense_ , it
| produces too much "spooky action at a distance" where e.g.
| because you clicked a button in Edge, now when you're in
| Chrome and click on a pdf, Edge opens up, or vice versa.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| The natural time to ask to set a default browser is:
| - The user attempts to open a link in the default browser and
| it isn't set. - The user installs a new browser.
| - The user uninstalls a browser that is set as the default.
|
| Inside the app there is no way to tell the difference between
| wanting to use that particular app for this one specific
| task, or preferring this app above all others. (An adaptive
| UX could notice that the user has manually opened an app many
| more times than others and suggest setting it as default.)
|
| The problem here is Microsoft gives no way to uninstall Edge.
| So the only way to know if the user wants to stop using it as
| default, if they didn't switch when installing another
| browser, is for the 3rd-party app to reach in and claw back
| the default setting.
| [deleted]
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Some programs, like 7zip, handle dozens of file extensions, I
| don't want to have to manually change all of them.
| SCLeo wrote:
| Another example is mpv. It also handles a very significant
| amount of extensions. Maybe unpopular opinion, but I actually
| like how even batch scripts are able to register default apps
| for file extensions.
| qumpis wrote:
| Offtopic, but I started using Edge because of Bing integration,
| which turned out to be terrible (just give me exact gpt4-based
| copilot, not the watered-down version), but stayed for the side-
| tabs: sticky permanent tabs that allow to quickly reach you
| popularly use. I haven't found a browser that offers this
| functionality either natively or as a well-supported plugin.
|
| I'd love to ditch Edge, any recommendations?
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Vivaldi, arc browser or the new Opera
| ogurechny wrote:
| If you mean side-by-side split screen, The Old Opera had
| multiple document interface. If you mean opening (mobile/full)
| site in a side panel, The Old Opera had side panels. If you
| mean vertical tabs, The Old Opera had vertical tabs. Browser
| that follows the path of The Old Opera exists, and is called
| Vivaldi.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Can you share a screenshot of the feature you are talking
| about?
| skellera wrote:
| I think edge is doing the most interesting customer focused
| features for browsers that I've seen in a long time. I get that
| some might feel it'll get bloated but most are configurable.
|
| It's not for everyone but it's interesting to see someone
| trying new things.
| [deleted]
| nashashmi wrote:
| An overreacting ad. Nothing more. Calling it a 1990s behavior is
| like calling the entire internet behavior of dark patterns
| monopolistic.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I'm struggling to understand your comment, both of those claims
| seem valid to me
| RadixDLT wrote:
| sabotage?
| atesti wrote:
| I tried to read all the links, but there are still some
| questions:
|
| So Google has a button to make it the standard browser and a
| group policy to do that automatically. This computes the
| userchoice hash based on the SID, obfuscated formulas, the create
| time of the registry key (minute only, retrying when the minute
| has changed while writing).
|
| Now MS publishes an update which breaks this (But how?). Gizmodo
| says it only happes to "chrome.exe". Google implemented the
| userchoice hash algorithm, but now they disabled "the
| experiment".
|
| And now?
|
| When will Google come up with another solution? Does the group
| policy still work? What exactly did the update from MS change?
| Did the userchoice algorithm change somehow?
|
| Does the button in Chrome to set the default even still work?
|
| Here's how userchoice is or was implemented:
| https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/0dfc676a46a...
| https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/58e203f9ba9...
| fsfod wrote:
| I thought the whole point of the hash was it could change
| arbitrarily with windows updates to stop programs reverse
| engineering it and then setting file associations or browser
| choice directly in the registry.
|
| Although not sure if it has ever changed before though just by
| quickly scanning the change log for this app people were using
| to set it https://kolbi.cz/blog/2017/10/25/setuserfta-
| userchoice-hash-...
| bogwog wrote:
| Consumers never win.
| hooby wrote:
| > "For information on this, please see this blog post about
| Microsoft's approach to app pinning and app defaults in Windows.
| Microsoft has nothing further to share," said Miranda Davis, a
| Microsoft spokesperson. The post describes the company's "long-
| standing approach to put people _in_ control of their Windows PC
| experience."
|
| There's a little typo in there. They wrote _in_ - but what they
| actually meant was _under our_.
|
| Common mistake. The keys are right next to each other.
| junaru wrote:
| How is this Microsoft fault? Google presumably made their browser
| go around the usual interface for changing default browser( via
| some sneaky api manipulation?). Microsoft patched it to require
| more than a single click.
|
| The only reason Edge or whatever Microsoft is pushing these days
| didn't trigger the issue is because their browser didn't make the
| API call on every new window event and not because of some
| sinister plan to increase their market share.
|
| Back in the day trying to do things as silently as possible was
| reserved for malware.
| we_never_see_it wrote:
| Lately HN reminds me of Slashdot. Everything in the universe is
| MS' fault. Chrome is an adware. It tried to use a bug in
| Windows to sneakily install itself as the default browser. MS
| is looking out for its users and suddenly MS is the evil guy.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > MS is looking out for its users
|
| Yes, installing Candy Crush and a version of solitaire filled
| with IAP or filling the start menu with MSN news cruft is
| really looking out for its users. The only entities that
| Microsoft gives half a shit about is their shareholders.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| So far, I've seen nothing in these comments promoting Chrome,
| or Google more generally. They (Google and Microsoft) are
| both the tech equivalent of boogeyman, but this article
| focuses on specific anticompetitive behaviour from Microsoft.
| I think it's safe to generalize and say that nobody here
| thinks Google a saint.
| [deleted]
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Not suddenly the evil guy, historically.
| lozenge wrote:
| Chrome does not automatically set itself as the default
| browser.
| mjr00 wrote:
| According to the article this does not seem to be the case:
|
| > Gizmodo was able to replicate the problem. In fact, we were
| able to circumvent the issue just by changing the name of the
| Chrome app on a Windows desktop. It seems that Microsoft threw
| up the roadblock specifically for Chrome, the main competitor
| to its Edge browser.
|
| > Mozilla's Firefox has its own one-click default button, which
| worked just fine throughout the ordeal.
|
| so no, this doesn't appear to be about an app using a backdoor
| API, it's specifically targeted at Chrome.
| DWakefield wrote:
| Breaking it for everything would be one thing, but in this
| case, the update only impacted the application when it was
| named Chrome.exe. Changing the name or doing the same thing
| with Firefox still worked the way it had with Chrome. This
| would point to a deliberate action on Microsoft's part to
| stifle one particular competitor.
| jokoon wrote:
| Also it seems that associating a file type with a program also
| change its icon, you cannot have separate icon and file
| association.
|
| For example, I want a separate icon for .txt .py .cpp, and all
| open them with sublime text. I tried many things, but I just gave
| up. Once I associate with ST again, it sets to another icon.
|
| There are really few things holding me back to windows, really.
| retox wrote:
| It's definitely possible, IrfanView lets you customize the
| icons for each file or at least at the icon 'pack' level and
| have all the images open with IrfanView. For instance PNG files
| can have the IrfanView logo with PNG written across it.
| McDev wrote:
| After what I think was the same Windows 10 update last month I
| noticed a giant Edge search bar planted in the middle of my
| desktop which I did not ask for. I've since rolled back the
| update and group policy disabled Windows Updates entirely
| jackbrookes wrote:
| Disabling updates in a recipe for malware - you can remove the
| search bar in 4 clicks.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| You can remove windows in quite a few more clicks, but it's
| ultimately worth it. Though I wouldn't put it past Canonical
| to add ads to the default desktop at some point.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| Hey did that in the past with the amazon integration
| pritambaral wrote:
| > you can remove the search bar in 4 clicks.
|
| On every major update. It's just a nag.
| Karunamon wrote:
| At some point it's going to be worth calculating whether
| malware (the vast majority of which is mitigated by not
| running as admin) or the latest update is going to be more
| disruptive to your workflow.
|
| At least on the systems I manage, workstation updates have
| been responsible for a lot larger share of the same kind of
| problems (data loss, availability loss, etc.) that I am
| starting to get questions that I don't have very convincing
| answers for.
| everyone wrote:
| Funny cus edge _is_ chrome anyway right?
| DANmode wrote:
| Privacy-wise, yes.
|
| Upstream source is Chromium.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Hey, I heard there are open-source OS'es where this bullshit is
| not possible because it would be out in the open ::looks at
| penguin::
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Looking at the comments, it's clear other people read a
| completely different article than I did. I recently canceled my
| LinkedIn account as LI refused to allow me to upload images when
| using Firefox. I have no desire to live in the MSFT-centric world
| of the 90s they seem to be re-creating.
| dur-randir wrote:
| Like google never did the same to other browsers on gmail/main
| search page? Who're they're trying to fool?
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| Which would be a good reason to chastise Google when they do
| such things.
|
| It's no response to MS's anti competitive behavior.
| tarimbreazeaim wrote:
| [dead]
| ogurechny wrote:
| > Chrome is, it bears repeating, the world's preferred internet
| browser
|
| I see that journalism remains second oldest profession.
| dataf3l wrote:
| If 123.exe then fail
| garganzol wrote:
| This is exactly how some "anti-virus" products behave.
| esafak wrote:
| Can you cite a source? I got the reference but failed to
| corroborate it. How did it fail?
| dahwolf wrote:
| It's unsurprising that they try, it's surprising that they get
| away with it. Blatant market manipulation by several big tech
| players with zero consequences. Which then emboldens them to go
| even further.
| neonsunset wrote:
| Where were all the commenters when YouTube was silently breaking
| (old, Trident-based) Edge, Firefox and Safari with user-agent
| detection completely ignoring actually supported browser
| capabilities? Somehow they are able to get away with this while
| other companies don't.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Can you link to what you're referring to? Firefox has always
| worked fine for me on YT, in fact I'm using it right now.
| deely3 wrote:
| One example that I personally remember is when Gmail and
| Youtube is stopped working on Opera browser. But if you
| customize user agent to any other browser (like Firefox) it
| suddenly start to work. [1]
|
| It happened decade ago tho.. Now Google is practically leader
| in web standards so there no need to use this practice
| anymore.
|
| 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/operabrowser/comments/e6e7x/googl
| e_...
| dahwolf wrote:
| Where? How about right here and on every tech site?
| moss2 wrote:
| "Antitrust: Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with
| browser choice commitments", European Commission 2013:
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_13_...
|
| We need more legislation it seems.
| acdha wrote:
| That's how the headline spins it but reading the article
| suggests the opposite: this is Google trying to _avoid_ using
| the standard browser choice interface put into place in
| response to those legal requirements, which is rather less
| sympathetic.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| It is Google allowing the user to set the default browser
| using its own interface, using the API Edge uses to allow the
| user to set the default browser using its own interface.
|
| Microsoft loves to complain about applications doing things
| it doesn't like, while its own applications are doing those
| exact same things. According to Microsoft the rule is that
| the rules just don't apply to Microsoft Office and Microsoft
| Edge.
|
| Microsoft likes to pretend they play fair. But when they
| can't win by playing fair, the facade quickly drops.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Except we know from the time that Windows source code
| leaked that the reason Microsoft internal products use
| undocumented features or APIs is that the Office team is a
| bunch of incompetent hacks that ignore all the
| documentation and do things the wrong way all the time.
| There are literal comments in the code cussing out the
| Office team for doing something so wrong that the kernel
| team has to hack around it like they do for other popular
| misbehaving apps.
|
| They are purposely separate teams because if it were any
| other way, IBM would have sued them into the ground for
| anti-competitive actions.
|
| At least, this was the case ten years ago.
| [deleted]
| nr2x wrote:
| Please, Google has explicitly made their products not work
| correctly in other browsers for years. This is totally
| playing fair, it's just Google getting back what they give.
| 015a wrote:
| For a long time (I'm not sure if this is still the case):
| There effectively was no "set a default browser" interface in
| Windows 10/11. The closest thing was a file handler to
| program association screen, where you had to manually set
| Firefox or Chrome as the default application for every
| possible filetype a browser could open (IIRC there were maybe
| 8 or 10); and one of them with an unassuming and non-obvious
| name was the "magic" one which caused the browser to become
| the default for opening links (I think it was ".html files"
| or something like that).
|
| Point being; there's history and context to this fight, and I
| don't think that sympathy is a valuable experience to hand
| out to any megacorporation. Both Google and Microsoft can be
| in the wrong; its not binary.
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