Mozilla slams Microsoft for using dark patterns to drive Windows users toward Edge Mozilla on Thursday accused Microsoft of forcing its Edge browser down the throats of Windows users through "dark patterns" – design elements geared to push people towards certain decisions. In a report [PDF] titled, "Over the Edge: How Microsoft's Design Tactics Compromise Free Browser Choice", the public benefit browser org …
My Dad called me over yesterday to look at an issue when trying to join a Teams call from his Outlook calendar. It had opened a modal pop-up claiming that he would have a better experience if he allowed Outlook to open Teams links in Edge. Options are OK or Manage Settings. We clicked the latter and had two options: Edge (recommended, default) or "System default browser (Chrome)".
We picked Chrome, and now we find that Teams links are broken in anything except Edge - we are forced to input the meeting ID and passcode manually, even though they are in the link.
My Dad is partially sighted and there's no way he could do the manual ID/code thing for every meeting, so Outlook is effectively forcing him to use Edge.
Microsoft unashamedly states that Firefox is not a supported browser for Teams.
There's a workaround for that particular bit of nasty self-serving bullshit behaviour, but in general MS can FOAD for all the use they are in actually allowing people to do what they need/want with the kit they own—I think it's called 'general purpose computing'.
Techies have been calling it "outhouse" for over 20 years tho.
I prefer the term "outhouse" myself.
Personally, I use Evolution. On a KDE desktop. Because I'm chaotic like that, plus KDE doesn't have a decent mail/calencar/contact/tasklist program.
I think very few techies use Outlook, not a hard sell there...but for regular users you can't because "it's what everyone else uses" and "I already know how to use Outlook" also "But the other one won't integrate into $CRM".
Forget browsers, we need a proper anti-trust lawsuit on e-mail clients.
The only piece of software that users are willing to chop and change is their anti-virus product..."what is currently the best free anti-virus?"
Could he not install the Teams app? Probably more stable than the web app in any browser although still crap. Just be aware that the Teams app also defaults to opening links in Edge unless you change the setting to "System Default Browser" in there too.
> …Are they new here?
Exactly. Let's remember that amongst the techniques Microsoft used to force upgrade Windows 7 and 8 users to Windows 10 circa the mid-2010s (*) one of the other things was to redefine the universally-understood acceptance of the "close" button as an implicit "cancel".
Even "redefine" makes that sound more dignified and deserving of respect than it actually was, since there's no way they even cared about that- it was just an excuse to ignore what people wanted and shove Windows 10 onto their systems against their wishes purely because it suited MS.
Does it even deserve to be called a "dark pattern"- a bad faith attempt at conning or railroading users into alleged "consent"- when Microsoft clearly didn't even care about *that*?
In the older story linked from the article, the injected faux-banner ad proclaims "Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft". Microsoft being associated with anything these days is a strong reason *not* to trust it as far as I'm concerned.
Going by others in this thread saying that Edge might be a good browser but they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole for similar reasons, I'm far from the only one that feels this way.
(*) Including mysteriously "forgetting" repeated refusals of that "offer" and going ahead anyway and even trying to bypass tools written to specifically enforce users' wishes not to be "upgraded". Or the weaselish and trust-destroying misuse/misclassification of allegedly essential security updates to include code related to the upgrade.
…the occasional full-screen and un-closeable “finish setting up your PC (by switching to Edge)” popups that appear when starting Windows?
Or the super simple and reassuring-sounding “Use Microsoft’s Recommended Defaults” button in Settings, that makes it oh-so-easy to (accidentally) set your default browser to Edge?
Or the recent kerfuffle with Edge hijacking Chrome users’ tabs?
Frankly, Edge could be the best browser in the world, and I still wouldn’t use it. Microsoft’s clingy, creepy, manipulative attempts to trick people into using it have put it on my “hell no, not ever” list for a long while now.
And it's not just Edge either.....
...I'm royally pissed off about how the user directory no longer defaults to the local C:\users\username\ , but is instead pointing to the user OneDrive home, with seemingly no easy way to switch that (eg imports from SD card)
Same here. For work I am forced to use it and it isn't a bad browser if I'm honest, but I refuse to use it on any of my personal machines simply out of principle. I deeply object to MS trying to forcibly ram it down my throat at every available opportunity, so it's also ended up on my "hell no" list as well...
> …the occasional full-screen and un-closeable “finish setting up your PC (by switching to Edge)” popups that appear when starting Windows?
Yes, they did mention that. It's in the PDF, first link in TFA
Although one thing that wasn't mentioned was the array of creepy messages one gets when Edge is launched for the first time on any Windows machine..
Would you like to importslurp all your bookmarks, tabs, history, saved site data etc. from your old browser? <high-contrast yes of course button> <semi-hidden low-contrast no thanks button>
Would you like to syncslurp all that data to your Microsoft account? <high-contrast yes of course button> <semi-hidden low-contrast no thanks button>
Keep your brainwashing up to date with Microsoft News .. (let us) harness your creativity with AI powered search from Bing ... Stay safe online by sending all your browsing data to Microsoft ...
"Frankly, Edge could be the best browser in the world, and I still wouldn’t use it."
Hell, yeah. The only use I have for edge is to download my browser. And, as a petty revenge, I make sure to use Bing to search for it - and click on the link. Just to tilt the numbers.
I know, I know. Won't make a difference. I said it was petty, didn't I?
Yet I find it somewhat ironic that Mozilla pushes an agenda of usage patterns on Firefox users (how many UIX changes have we had to go through regardless of our user's opinions). Mozilla has been losing market share for years because of their own recalcitrance in listening and responding to users, only caring about their programmer's choices for exactly how many years now??
Note: I am strictly a FF user. But don't think that Mozilla has pissed me off dozens of times and dismiss a bit of the "pot, meet kettle" here.
I disagree. While it's quite legitimate to dislike many of the irritating and pointless changes to Firefox's UI in recent years- I certainly do- there's still a huge and fundamental difference between that and MS's intentional and actively malicious misuse of interface elements and design to mislead and coerce users into making "choices" purely to benefit MS and entrench their monopoly.
You do realize that Firefox is open-source, right? That means that, if you are dissatisfied with how the original project is going, you can fork it off in a different direction?
And that lots of folks have done exactly this? Would you like to find out about some of them?
IDK how I use Chrome every day without much issues on Win 11. I have Edge and Firefox too. Am I just missing this behavior because my PC is setup correctly, or because if it opens something sometimes in Edge I just don't notice at all due to how similar these are?
Btw I am still sticking with Chrome due to tab/history/password sync with ny phone and dark mode. Edge was lagging in these features for so long I stopped even checking if they've fixed it.
On the other hand I never agreed well with Firefox, not even when it was actually best browser (in IE times before Chrome). One thing alone is what's missing for me in Chrome/Edge - extensions on Android. Then again, there's whispering that Edge started showing extension in Canary builds. So instead switching Chrome to Firefox, I might end up switching to Edge on both desktop and mobile.
Why? Well, despite MS being unloved (hated?) corporation, so far they haven't used any of their OS telemetry to outright profile me as a single person, offering Bing ads in Windows for something I did on completely unrelated device (phone or at work), and similar. On the other hand Google does use any input it gets to "personalize" mu "experiences". I do use Google apps on phone, Gmail, Gboard, Chrome, Calendar, Maps... So I'm sort of scr**ed anyway. But I do bot have same thoughts using Windows. I never once thought to myself stuff I sometimes think while using Android like "if I type this on Gboard keyboard even if I am using Firefox in icognito, will Google get the memo?". I honestly do wonder sometimes. Yet I never once had that thought on Windows PC, MS using my PC as a keylogger. With Google I'm not so sure.
Anyway, back to Firefox, it is wonderful opensource product, but it just has stuff I'll never get over. Might be just me having elephant memory of the old days. If open was the key, then simple Chromium would suffice for me.
"Why? Well, despite MS being unloved (hated?) corporation, so far they haven't used any of their OS telemetry to outright profile me as a single person, offering Bing ads in Windows for something I did on completely unrelated device (phone or at work), and similar. "
Is this a joke? Edge is Microsoft's front end for their own ad network, it less privacy friendly than even Chrome [1], and even has monetization features built in (shopping with Microsoft and Microsoft Rewards).
But Edge is just one gear in Microsoft's monetization machinery, which includes telemetry and user data from Windows and other products like Office. And Microsoft also still scans user emails in Outlook.com for ad profiling, a practice that Google stopped a decade or so ago.
If you seriously believe that Edge respects your privacy any more than Chrome or any other browser then you're deluding yourself.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study-ranks-edges-default-privacy-settings-the-lowest-of-all-major-browsers/
So Edge throws ads at you...Bing shows ads...the back of a bus shows ads. Do you buy these products like some zombie with no PFC? Am I the only one whose hackles rise when I detect an ad, arm my self to reject it and move on? Kids must be protected until their PFC is functional (age 20-25!) but if so-called adults are so easily seduced by a flicker of light or color, they need to stay in a quiet room.
“The Edge” is a wrestler who is liable to swoon limply into the arms of Hulk Hogan, so as to become subject to a persuasive “slam.”
But you’re right about developing your PFC. How many times has “Macho Man” Randy Savage enjoined all of us to “snap into a slim jim” with him? You might cooperate with that suggestion… once, maybe.
After that, you’re likely to become a little apprehensive about those advertising suggestions… !
>>…the occasional full-screen and un-closeable “finish setting up your PC (by switching to Edge)” popups that appear when starting Windows?
Odd that. I've got Windows 11 and have never once seen such an "un-closeable "finish setting up your PC (by switching to Edge)"" popup when starting Windows. And I don't have MS Edge set as default. I do have to use it occasionally for certain things but it's certainly not set as my default. What's up with that.
>>Or the super simple and reassuring-sounding “Use Microsoft’s Recommended Defaults” button in Settings, that makes it oh-so-easy to (accidentally) set your default browser to Edge?
Stupid is as stupid does if you're stupid enough to push that button and not think it's going to set everything to Microsoft defaults. That is all.
>>Or the recent kerfuffle with Edge hijacking Chrome users’ tabs?
Like Google somehow managed to install the Google Docs Offline Extension into MS Edge without permission simply stating in the description, "We have readily installed this extension to help optimize your Google Docs experience when you're without internet." Installed without my permission. Don't know where it came from but there it is as sassy as anything.
..... it seems that they are preaching to the choir.
Those of us that take notice of the reports produced by Mozilla are also those of us that already aware of the lengths that M$ (& Goggle & The Fruity Ones & Spamazon & FaecesBook & Xitter & Ariston & on & on & on) go to to try to make us use their products, and also the ones that tend to avoid those products where possible.
"Your name butcherings aren't funny, clever or original. Grow up, be professional and your arguments will carry more weight."
Unfortunately You have to grow up. We, hardcore users (o/), developers, system engineers, pioneers of the internet and alike... we have a long and proud history of dark humor (bus factor, anyone?), puns (A Patchy Server?), and tong in cheek jokes.
Grow up, learn to laugh (at others AND at yourself), and go with the flow. It will be a much pleasant ride. :D
> Your name butcherings aren't funny, clever or original. Grow up...
Confused, AC scrolls to the top of the webpage, notices the big red banner *is* plainly visible (phew) but wonders if perhaps someone else has forgotten where they are?
> professional
Looks back at a few LE posts, soon spots some effing and blinding, sighs and shakes head sadly.
It is honestly amazing they can say that without a trace of irony.
Self-awareness is truly dead and buried at MS... probably laid to rest in the same casket used in Microsoft's iPhone funeral
Rowan Atkinson best summed up my feelings toward Microsoft years ago in a skit called "Father of the Bride," in which he made the statement: "I wouldn't trust any of you to sit the right way on a toilet seat." For the record, this is far more than I trust Microsoft - and so long as their reach exceeds their grasp, I think we have some hope. The moment they actually become a competent, functional organization, that is when we need to fear. It's not that they don't have plenty of horrible intentions now - what saves us is they don't have the capability of acting on most of them due to incompetence. Thankfully.
That said, with the focus and drive on AI, I am worried it might actually overcome some of their natural stupidity.
Just to point out that the quote above isn't from the (new) article here, but from the article it links to from last year.
I agree with you 100% regardless.
I've nothing but contempt for the kind of companies- and the weasels that work for them- who use these sorts of scummy, forcing-of-words-into-mouths, railroading, non-choice on users.
Like I'm going to ******* give you my email address because the only alternative is the weasel-worded "No thanks, I don't want to sign up for discount vouchers because I love wasting money" or something similar.
Speaking about Google, I remember when Hangouts was a thing (is still?) that I was required to install some .deb to run it under Linux. That might've been about 10 years ago...
Before installing, I decided to take a look at the control files, and particularly post_install scripts
They installed a small crontab which, every fricking hour, checked whether a line in APT's sources.list existed for Google's repository and, if not, it added it. If I hadn't looked, I'd ended with a system where even if I removed Google's apt lines (which I would definitely had done), they would keep reappearing
It is a known/trivial thing that both xdg and crontab can be easily modified by deb/rpm however ethics have stopped packagers. At the last resort there could be google-chrome-stable-default package can do same thing.
Both are corporate packages which are abusing mechanism designed with good intentions.
About your crond: I remember Google was abusing OSX launchd with something triggered every hour.
Strange, I recently installed Chrome on a number of Linux workstations, and Firefox is still their default web browser.
At the first launch Chrome asks if it should be the default browser, but after the offer is declined it seems to leave it at that.
This was on Alma Linux, Oracle Linux, openSUSE Leap and Debian, so it's not distro specific.
Not sure what makes you think Chrome does just by being installed, but I'd have to say it's nonsense.
Oh look, it’s configurable:
ldo@theon:~> ls -l /etc/alternatives/ | grep -i firefox
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 May 5 2023 gnome-www-browser -> /usr/bin/firefox-esr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 May 5 2023 gnome-www-browser.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/firefox-esr.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 May 5 2023 x-www-browser -> /usr/bin/firefox-esr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 May 5 2023 x-www-browser.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/firefox-esr.1.gz
See also: sensible-browser.
There's only one justification for all this deception : that Edge is so inferior to the competition that nobody would use it if given a free choice. In other words, the company is admitting that their browser sucks, or is at the very least unnecessary, which is sufficient reason in itself to stay well clear of it forever.
They are also publicising their own control freakery yet again, and showing that this is how you can be treated when you use any of their products.
It sure got annoying but Edge isn't a bad browser even on Linux. I am using it for a restaurants online ordering control panel which has uptimes like 10-12 days. No leaks of any kind.
It is really like Balmer left a small gang there making 90s things.
I'm not sure these are dark patterns. MS trying to get you to use Edge and give up your privacy in other areas is overt obvious, persistant and bloody annoying.
They are only a couple of steps away from that 90s 'funny' exe that used to make you chase the close window "X" around the screen.
I should be able to invoice MS for my time since I need to undo their privacy 'suggestions' after every fucking update.
The opening from a famous British sit-com, change some words to make it fit better - 'arrest' to whatever happens to a company. 'Imprisonment' to 'a fine', 'term' also to 'fine'. 'Prison for five years' to '10% of global profits' - or whatever is the maximum fine available.
"You are an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner. We therefore feel constrained to commit you to the maximum term allowed for these offences; you will go to prison for five years."
Outlook for Android had a shameful popup that looked like a system card, asking which browser to open links in. It made out like it was possible to just select Edge, when in reality it would have triggered a download due to not even being installed.
I made sure to uninstall Outlook from my phone, and migrate my paid Exchange service. I'm sure MS doesn't care about my £80 a year sub, but I felt a lot better.
Mozilla should realize that their target market isn't the sort who will be lead over to Edge by Microsoft's weak advertising attempts.
Instead they should focus on the more technical market and as such fix the fact that their profiler is not built in and by default, requires an internet connection to Mozilla's web servers or another hosted service. Terrible usability. Terrible decisions.
If you capture the *developer* market... you ultimately capture the entire market since developers produce the software people use.
Besides mictosoft's shenanigans, my wife has discovered some related bovine excrement courtesy certain web sites. She will often enter various sweepstakes or order items online. She claims the sites will only function correctly using edge. Hmmm...Sound phishy to me. I have noticed that the HGTV sweepstakes page returns the underlying code instead of the web page when successfully entering their sweeps.
{"state":"success","url":"/display/confirm/sweepstake/a587a142-38bd-4a4b-ad68-939d090ab1d1/313669/confirmation?campaignId=313669&channelId=30847&medium=direct&source=hgtv&containerId=32a0e70d-bc38-4281-af24-46e89bac32f7&channel=website","entry":{"id":"9e586639-6cdf-471a-b890-c20d7a63461c","uid":"w1f1ef105ebef075e0fe0788fc782b5a9","ngx_ext_id":"62a4e7faf65bc16d411a1a6c6728747b","ngx_ext_id_type":"integration_id","content":{}},"route":{"routeRef":"display:route:activate","token":"|:|WmF2No9XkTU4GX41y8L_Fw3ZLK9xFfG5BrBqtY70yEU"}}
Microsoft has been using unethical bullying tactics across the board which is going to comeback and bite them sooner than later. They forcing people to discard their old good pc’s by preventing upgrades from Win10 if you cpu is less than 8th gen. There are buying game studios and destroying them like bungee, Bethesda, activision. And now this, so basically becoming evil. Boo
"There are buying game studios and destroying them like ..."
To be fair, I think the AAA arena stinks to high heavens, and has for a long time. Honestly, I think the indie crowd got it right: smaller games, smaller player base, more passion and better quality.
You only need to make 500 million from your game if it costs more than 200 million to make it. A small one, costing about 500k, will be quite profitable making "just" 2 million.
Their strategy is obvious: they are trying to shore up the only area where Windows might still enjoy undisputed dominance, and that is PC gaming.
(Un)fortunately, that too is cracking under the Linux onslaught.
Sony bought Bungee.
BTW I am pleased that Starfield was not too good*, as I will not buy an XBox as I only use MS stuff if I have to, or if it is good (their mice)
* MS Scrapped the almost complete Playstation version.
Sony are a lot nicer to me than MS, for a start they used to do really good TVs.
This is all part of Microsoft’s data grab, Edge is chromium based but I hate the controls of it so much that I don’t use it. I don’t want to be forced to set a background, or set sites or always be directed to msn. I want it out of my way!
I noticed the next part of their grab in the mail client on win10, seems that gmail accounts will now be ‘cached’ on Microsoft’s servers rather than just accessed by the client. We all know that cached by Microsoft means plundered for as much data as they can get.
Bad Microsoft, just bad!
Why do we need independent research, man and his dog know that the Mega Corps are basically running closed shop cartels with each other and in many cases are being helped by the regulators and governments. Yes, every now and again the Mega Corps lose a tiny battle to regulators and governments but this is just an agreed game to keep the masses and those on the outside happy, if it wasn't the Mega Corps would be constantly hit with billion £$€ fines for the blatent disregard for laws and regulations and yet they are not ????
Interesting. Just lately I’ve started getting a malware warning when trying to do a backup using the old Win 7 backup on Win 11. (Yes, I’m old fashioned like that). Anyway, said malware only flags in shadow copies of the profile entries for both Firefox and Thunderbird. Parent folders scan as clean. My own research suggest they are false positives. Excluding these folders backups up with no problems. Just coincidence?
This for years that Microsoft are long due another anti-trust case likes its 1999. They make it complicated for normal users to change the default browser. You now have to do each ext relating the browser. When you do try to make the change it asks if you're sure but worded to make a regular user just keep Edge as default. And as mentioned, do a search for another browser and it now tells you how great Edge is.
They did the same with the Windows 10 push.
I like Windows (not Windows 11) but its getting ridiculous.
You guys exaggerate too much.
“Slam” refers to a wrestling move that Hulk Hogan might perform upon Jesse “The Body” Ventura.
(For the slam to work persuasively, “The Body” has to become somewhat limp, like a piece of week-old celery that isn’t as crunchy as it had once been.)
What you have here is a representative of one company expressing some vague criticism of some kind of communication from a second company.
Another usage: if you go to Denny’s restaurant, and order yourself a “slamwich.”
These are two of the most widely accepted uses of the word “slam.”
(Your editor deserves 30 days in the “slammer” for these egregious breaches!)
If Microsoft keeps changing the Windows Update page, or they use non-standard functions on it that reach intimately into the operating system, so that it needs Bing to work properly, I'm not going to object to strenuously for Bing to be used for Windows Update even when Firefox is the default browser for everythilng else. Of course, though, the way Microsoft is doing this at present is still anticompetitive, as it covers other things for which Firefox or other browsers are not unsuitable - but if Microsoft were prepared to respect the principle of fair competition, having a way to carve out certain vital system-related web functions for Microsoft's own browser is something that could be done in a legitimate manner.
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