Some of the top browser makers around have issued a letter to the European Commission (EC) alleging that Microsoft gives the Edge browser an unfair advantage and should be subject to EU tech rules.
A letter seen by Reuters, sent by Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Wavebox, and supported by a group of web developers, also supports Opera’s move to take the EC to court over its decision to exclude Microsoft Edge from being subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice. The letter states that, “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge’s unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows. Edge is, moreover, the most important gateway for consumers to download an independent browser on Windows PCs.”
What’s the actual alternative they want here? That users look up download URLs on other devices and download their browser of choice via command line using
cURLInvoke-WebRequest? That ISPs provide browser installers on USB sticks?Also, it’s not like MS is cornering the market on browser share here. Even with this “unfair advantage” they’ve only scraped together a 5% slice of browser usage.
I’d settle for them being force to offer links to alternatives when you first install Windows.
AND being forced to stop the bullshit every few updates where they force you through choosing options. One of which is “update to recommended browser settings for security?”… Which just defaults the system to use edge.
Just turn it off. Settings → Notifications → Windows Welcome Experience or some such.
For a while when you installed Windows, the first time user setup gave you a choice of popular browsers and it handled the download and install.
Now Microsoft is actively trying to sabotage other browsers with popups and office apps bypassing the default browser setting.
I agree with you completely on their over-pushiness. They could do without that.
But the first time choice thing doesn’t sound tenable long-term to me.
Welcome to SuperOS! What would you like to use as your web browser? E-mail reader? Calendar app? PDF viewer? Image viewer? File explorer? Porn viewer? Weather app? VPN?
I can think of distros/OSes that, depending on the use case, people really appreciate having something pre-installed for them. And yes, other times people would prefer their own. But imagine amateur users making a pick from that constant stream of questions, not to mention having weird incompatibilities if they make bad choices.
When was that?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/memo_09_558/MEMO_09_558_EN.pdf
They were forced to as the result of an antitrust settlement in 2009, and then the “remedy” expired 5 years later and they ripped it out
https://www.pcworld.com/article/430914/microsoft-kills-eu-browser-choice-screen.html
Oh man, I had no idea this was a thing!
This is an already solved problem - EU did it in the past.
You can get Firefox and Opera on the Windows Store. Ostensibly, this is how every other OS works now, although on Linux it’s usually less of a storefront with Candy Crush pushed up front, and more like a commandline entry to get apps by known name.
I think people are just used to the Windows colloquialism of not having a central store, thus getting every app on the web through an installer file - and then, through meaningful distrust and horrific memories of Windows 8, choosing not to use that store when it was added.
To comply with the court decision, Microsoft have added a super easy to use PowerShell command to install your favourite browser!
ps> Get-Browser-That-Isnt-Microsoft-Edge -Q -Browser Firefox -NumberOfNags 0 -RevertAfterUpdate False -When Now -Why BecauseTheCourtsToldUsWeNeededTowinget install -e --id Mozilla.Firefox --accept-package-agreementsalready works prefectly.Yes, i’m just making fun of the verbose nature of PowerShell commands.
IMO edge coming pre-installed isn’t a big deal. But I’d like to be able to uninstall edge and not have Windows periodically try to trick me into setting edge as my default browser again.
Basically either offer users a dialog box asking which browser they’d like to use or offer the browsers in the Microsoft Store.
And stop telling me that “The Internet is better using Edge”, Microsoft.
Require Microsoft to distribute competing browsers in the Microsoft store.
I can install Firefox, Chromium etc. from my distro’s package manager. I don’t open a web browser to install software. You still do that on Windows because Microsoft has a financial incentive to keep competitors out of their store, so their store sucks.
You can install Firefox from Windows’s package manager Winget with the command:
winget install -e --id Mozilla.FirefoxYou don’t have to use the Store or Edge.
And how many people in the world will use that? eight?
Exactly this. The point is not that there is no way to do it, the point is that the alternatives are obscure to limit adoption. It’s a dark pattern.
This winget thing is worse than just using edge to download an alternative. The problem is not that people are forced to interact with a browser they dont like, it’s all the people who don’t know enough to understand that there are alternatives, and those people will never use winget.