back to article Microsoft seeks EU Digital Market Acts exemption for underdog apps like Edge

The European Commission is looking into Microsoft's request to remove Bing, Edge, and Microsoft Ads from the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and at least one rival has claimed the company is not playing fair. A Microsoft spokesperson told The Register: "We accept our designation as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act and …

  1. JimmyPage
    Flame

    If I could nuke Edge from space

    I wouild

    also when did edge:// become a valid scheme, since that's what can't-kill-it MS Start cruft insists on using.

    1. WP7Mango

      Re: If I could nuke Edge from space

      Why would you nuke just Edge? Surely that means nuking Chrome too, since both are based on the same open source rendering engine?

    2. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      Re: If I could nuke Edge from space

      Edge is a by-product of websites insistence that they only want to code for a single web browser engine. I have to switch to Edge (a.k.a. Chrome) regularly just to get some sites work properly.

      Only Google is in the driver's seat, however, modifying Chrome to suit its needs. This is illustrated by their API changes to thwart ad-blockers. They won't ban ad-blockers entirely (that could result in an anti-trust investigation) but they'll make their lives as uncomfortable as the law will allow.

      1. DerekCurrie
        Facepalm

        Re: If I could nuke Edge from space

        ...Another Chromium derivative is Brave. Of the Chromium based browsers, it's the best IMHO. But don't count on it being perfect. For example on Mac, "Warn Before Quitting" has NEVER worked. (0_o) Nonetheless, it's the only browser I'll use, if I can help it specifically because it's the best at making the commercial aspects of the Internet bearable.

        Again on Mac: Chromium and its children has become the default. That's lazy and stupid on the part of website designers. It doesn't help that Apple willfully ignores Google web code innovations (whether they're good or buggy crap) and keeps them out of Safari until a gun is put to their head. Mozilla is doing GREAT IMHO with Firefox and friends. But the Google monopoly via Chromium remains the core problem.

        1. Blackjack Silver badge

          Re: If I could nuke Edge from space

          https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave

          [Brave is self updating software, uses Google as the default search engine, has built-in telemetry, and even has an opt-out rss-like news feed similar to Firefox Pocket. These shouldn't be the things that come to mind if someone were to imagine a privacy oriented browser.]

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Devil

    Whatever next?

    Boutique book emporium Amazon seeks exception from the DMA? Perhaps an also-ran search service like Google?

    1. Dinanziame Silver badge
      Angel

      Re: Whatever next?

      Well Amazon did complain about being called a "very large online platform", though it was not for DMA but for DSA:

      Obscure internet boutique Amazon sues EU for calling it a Very Large Online Platform

  3. t245t Silver badge
    Boffin

    Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

    Is there a way of totally removing Edge from Windows 10/11/12 without breaking something and prevents Edge re-installing itself on the next update.

    1. ScissorHands
      FAIL

      Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

      No.

      Is there a way to remove Safari Webview from iOS?

      Is there a way to remove Android Webview and replace it with another Webview?

      The OS vendor has to test against a controlled Webview.

      More and more internal Windows components (edge://) will depend on that Webview, and it could have advantages, since Teams/Edge seems to be faster, slimmer and less buggy than Teams/Electron.

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

        The new Teams has the same default as the Classic Teams: it doesn't crash when starting.

        The only redeeming feature is that it will become possible with Copilot to have said Copilot use it in your stead.

        1. Snowy Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

          You say that like Copilot is a good thing!

          1. WP7Mango

            Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

            Why is it not a good thing?

      2. t245t Silver badge
        Boffin

        Teams/Edge seems to be faster, slimmer and less buggy ?

        @ScissorHands: “Teams/Edge seems to be faster, slimmer and less buggy than Teams/Electron.

        You mean Edge components are loaded at boot and given higher system priority ;)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

        "Is there a way to remove Android Webview and replace it with another Webview?"

        Actually yes, but it's long winded, tedious and your app won't work on many devices.

        1. WP7Mango

          Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

          "Actually yes, but it's long winded, tedious and your app won't work on many devices."

          So, although technically possible in a very limited way, in practice there is no way.

    2. Yankee Doodle Doofus Bronze badge

      Uninstalling Edge

      I haven't tried this, but Chris Titus has a utility that will supposedly remove Edge. (I have used his utility before, just not to remove Edge)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQZ5oQg8XA

    3. gzgweilo

      Re: Edge has so little market share that they don't matter?

      I had this last night. As far as I was concerned I had pretty much excised Edge from my machine when I got it 2 years ago and have seen neither hide nor hair of it since through all the subsequent updates..

      I decided to install the October win 10 updates and after longer than normal my system was back up and running ........you guessed it with Edge front and centre........

      Could not delete directly in Programs in the Control panel. Then spent about 15 minutes looking at possible solutions online (using Brave) and then deleting 4 lines in the registry has got rid of it for now. However I note there are still multiple Edge mentions in the registry.

      Linux is beckoning me again.........

  4. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Big Tech

    Governments want technologies of big corporations to dominate the market so that they can be more easily controlled.

    It's easier to force big corporation to deploy mass surveillance than to ask thousands smaller players to play ball.

    The "good EU" many people have in their hearts is long dead.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Big Tech

      I think you'll find many who "like the EU" like the concept of what it is and what it represents. The actual implementation? Not so much.

      But, then, it took Windows three tries before it hit the mainstream, and there's the expression "third time lucky", so here's hoping the EUv2 upgrade will be released sometime soon.

  5. Tim 11

    you cynics should try it

    it's basically like chrome but faster :-)

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: you cynics should try it

      You mean its a chrome-clone pre-loaded at boot to give that impression?

      A pox on both of them for advert whoring!

    2. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: you cynics should try it

      > it's basically like chrome but faster :-)

      And with the Added Trust of Microsoft!

      At least 5 people's sarcasm-detectors have failed. You should have used the Troll icon for that post.

      .. Unless you were being serious, in which case you should have used the Coat icon.

      Edge is Chromium with Microsoft evilware instead of Google.

      Since I use GMail, Google already has me by the goolies. There's no reason to add another megacorp to that list. So I use Chromium on Debian. It's a memory hog but sod it, DRAM is cheap and I don't see how adding Microsoft bloatware and spyware would fix that.

      Windows users need an easy way to get vanilla Chromium when they install, but neither Microsoft nor Google would like that very much.

    3. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

      Re: you cynics should try it

      How's the weather in Redmond today?

    4. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: you cynics should try it

      And how much are you paid by Redmond?

      I don't have to try it - I try it whether I want to or not every bloody time Microsoft try forcing on to people for the umpteenth bloody time.

    5. lockt-in

      Re: you cynics should try it

      "it's basically like chrome but faster". Not in my experience, Microsoft even says it uses the same engine as Chrome, says this when it is trying to prevent you from installing Chrome.

      Edge is intended to become the new IE, it is 100% about vendor lock-in. If you were effected by this you won't forget. Can't believe systems admins enable it as their default browser.

      1. WP7Mango

        Re: you cynics should try it

        Thing is, Edge is based on the same open source rendering engine as Chrome, so I'm not sure how it follows the same path as IE, unless you are implying that Chrome is also the new IE. How is Edge any worse than Chrome? The reason why Edge is enabled by default is because it offers the same compatibility as Chrome but with more enterprise control.

  6. heyrick Silver badge

    Just want to call out Xiaomi here

    My main browser is the Android version of Firefox. It's set as the default, and web links are to open in Firefox.

    Yet when an app opens a link (such as Blackplayer's "Search for lyrics"), it's the Xiaomi browser that pops up. It seems that there's no way to change this (short of rooting and hacking).

    Likewise, tapping files in the file manager opens them in Xiaomi's own apps, even if you've told it "remember my choice" to open files in other apps (because for some reason the PDF viewer decided to make the page background grey which makes it harder to read, so anything else would be preferable), guess what happens...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just want to call out Xiaomi here

      For reasons, I had to install MS Outlook on my old phone. Edge was included as well - and tried to set itself as default too.

      So my Samsung phone had Samsung Internet, Chrome, Edge and the browser I actually wanted - Vivaldi installed!

  7. v13

    Here we go again

    Microsoft b(e)ing Microsoft. People forget what the world was like in the early 2000s when you couldn't browse the internet with Linux because Microsoft was doing shenanigans with internet explorer. And now they claim to be on the other side where they can't force enough of their users to use their fine browser and search engine. Poor them.

    1. Erix

      Re: Here we go again

      It's 2023 and you can't watch e.g. NBA streaming with Linux since Microsoft took over the hosting last year.

      Open any free NBA stream (for example www.nba.com/watch/featured) in Linux and you'll get the DRM error:

      Error Group:Invalid DRM error with DRM_FAILED_LICENSE_REQUEST

      Error Code:2003

      Open the same stream in a Windows VM running inside that same Linux and it plays.

      1. andy the pessimist

        Re: Here we go again

        It works on Fedora using chrome. It doesn't work with Firefox.

        1. Yankee Doodle Doofus Bronze badge

          It doesn't work with Firefox

          I don't watch NBA, so I wasn't sure, but this was my guess. I use Firefox as my main browser, but I will always have a Chromium based browser installed for those few sites that just don't play well with anything else.

  8. Jason Hindle Silver badge

    It’s the default browser for Windows

    And as Microsoft beefs up Windows Co-Pilot*, users may be tempted to stick with that default.

    * Co-Pilot only worked with Edge when I tested the latest Windows 11.

  9. Blackjack Silver badge

    People only use Edge to download and install Chrome or for some web app deal if Edge still has Microsoft Explorer emulation mode.

  10. steviebuk Silver badge

    In court

    Why Edge hasn't caused Microsoft to be put back in court like its 1999 again is anyone's guess. What they are doing with Edge seems very similar to why they were in court back in 1999. Making you have to change each ext to point to another browser instead of Edge. And when you do, the fear monger message to scare non-IT people from changing the default browser.

  11. arachnoid2

    History repeats itself

    (Microsoft) windows wont run without internet explorer, its an integrated part of the system

    (Concerned Citizen) Removes Internet explorer and windows still works

  12. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    They can try

    They can try of course, but I assure you the EU Commission will not give Microsoft any slack. Big American Tech companies are the Devil as far as the EU is concerned.

    1. Snowy Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: They can try

      Or let them and then fine them when they abuse their market position in someway?

  13. DerekCurrie
    Devil

    HaHaHaHa

    Corporatocracy from Microsoft asserting itself yet again.

    Baloney EU! Dump their manipulative request. They require ZERO sympathy for their Windows monopoly infested Edge browser.

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