back to article It looks like you want to browse the internet with Chrome. Would you like help? Maybe try Edge? Please?

The UK health service can't kick its Microsoft habit, plus there are new toys for Azure botherers out this week. Microsoft 365 for the National Health Service Blighty's beloved NHS snuggled further into bed with Microsoft as it confirmed that it would be deploying BSOD Bob's productivity platform, Microsoft 365, for up to 1.2 …

  1. Hubert Cumberdale

    Ah, that explains why...

    ...my mum was asking me what this "Edge" thing was and whether she needed to do anything about it. Bastards. Starting to be desperate bastards, too, perhaps understandably.

    1. Blackjack Silver badge

      Re: Ah, that explains why...

      I use Icecat even if only the Windows 64x version seems to update regularly.

      1. Hubert Cumberdale

        Re: Ah, that explains why...

        I'm actually surprised that Firefox (or other forks/semi-parallel lines) has such a low market share these days. I'm rather fond of it. It's certainly not perfect, but I find it the least-worst option in terms of balancing security/usability/non-Googliness/non-tracking etc.

        1. TheIO

          Re: Ah, that explains why...

          Used to be a lot bigger, but then Chrome overtook Explorer; I'd say that having Chrome bundled with Android smartphones was what did it, that and Google having more money than God.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @TheIO - Re: Ah, that explains why...

            Not to mention Google graciously offering to install Chrome-the-best-browser each time you visit one of their web sites with a non-Chrome browser which Firefox couldn't afford to do. So with people fed-up and allergic to IE went the Chrome-way en masse.

    2. BigE

      Re: Ah, that explains why...

      Isn't he, the Edge, the guitarist from U2? Oh you mean it's a browser.

      Naah tis nothing like the wars of the 90's. This time they are going after an even bigger monopoly and they will play the victim. Google ain't no Nutscrape.

  2. Mr_Happy

    I'm seriously starting to use Edge over Chrome as it looks like Google are going to hide most of the URL making IT support a nightmare when asking a user what the URL says in the address field and most of it is going to be hidden and getting users to click the address bar to show everything just isn't going to happen

    1. Cederic Silver badge

      I've been avoiding Chrome as much as possible for a while due to Google's attempts to intercept all internet traffic and prevent people understanding what they're actually doing.

      Sadly many sites don't work properly in non-Chromium based browsers, so I do have Chrome installed anyway.

      Microsoft are not however a company I trust to do any better :(

      1. iron Silver badge

        My personal desktop has never had a Chromium based browser installed. They are not necessary. On the rare occasion a site doesn't work in Firefox it won;t work in Chrome either.

        My work box has all the borwsers but that's just for testing, Firefox is still the only browser I use in anger.

    2. logicalextreme

      Vivaldi. It's proprietary, but so's Edge. I haven't had an actual Chrome installation on any desktop machine for many years now, and haven't even had a Chromium build for the last two.

      1. Lorribot

        Vivaldi is a Chromium based browser like all the others, thats why you can use extensions from the Chrome store. Firefox, Old edge and IE are pretty much the only non Chromium based browsers you can get.

        I do wonder how long MS will put up with Chromium once Google start really embeding their stuff in it and MS have to re-engineer every release to stop it using Google services.

    3. Claverhouse Silver badge

      They've been hiding parts of the URL a long time --- and obviously Firefox copied them, sedulously as is Mozilla's wont. What sort of suspicious paranoid wants to see where they are on the web ? Trust Mother Google: Google knows best...

      One could do some about:config stuff to undo it; but I got sick of having to do manoeuvres simply to restore a once perfect normalcy, so junked [ my once beloved ] Firefox.

      Pale Moon on Linux has surpassed even the last good Firefox. Particularly with Classic Theme Restorer to eradicate the last infections of modernism.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Claverhouse - This is what Firefox displays for me in address bar

        right now: https://forums.theregister.com/post/reply/4053089

        so I don't know what else FF is hiding from me but URL is not hidden.

    4. X5-332960073452
      Megaphone

      Suspicious Site Reporter

      I'm also annoyed with Chrome 'hiding' parts of the URL (they call it trivial information).

      Install the Suspicious Site Reporter extension.

      This shows the full URL again.

  3. logicalextreme

    Just now realising

    that "EdgeLords" could have been a suitable Micros~1 moniker.

  4. chivo243 Silver badge
    Windows

    Edge, given an inch

    It takes a mile, seems more users are losing out to Edge, wants to read PDFs open links etc. What's next Office Docs?

  5. Andy the ex-Brit
    WTF?

    Microsoft seriously pushing Edge

    I logged onto my home PC this morning to find that it had rebooted overnight.

    Edge was open, full screen, asking me to copy my settings over from Chrome and make Edge "Built for Windows 10" my default browser.

    Edge shortcut pinned to the taskbar.

    Edge shortcut on the desktop, that I had to use admin privileges to delete.

    Anyone else?

    1. logicalextreme

      Re: Microsoft seriously pushing Edge

      No, but your post scans like folk-punk lyrics! :)

    2. Hubert Cumberdale

      Re: Microsoft seriously pushing Edge

      Indeed. It's the late 90s all over again. C*nts.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Happy with the fox on the penguin.

    Only need to buy a WiFi dongle for my old PC boxen to tap into the interwebs off my hotspot iThingie. And then Fly Away W10 into the heaven of BSOD's Bob and make another penguin happy on MY hardware.

    1. RockBurner

      The Fox and Penguin

      Sounds like a Home counties gastro pub.

  7. General Purpose

    They know their place

    Microsoft doesn't suggest Edge if you click Start and type "Firefox".

  8. DrXym

    Why would I want to use Edge?

    These days it's just a knockoff of Chrome / Chromium right down to it's icon. The UI is so like Chrome that you have to compare them side by side to see the superficial differences - practically a skin.

    I'm not saying I used the old Edge for a whole lot either, but at least it stood on its own two feet.

  9. Claverhouse Silver badge
    WTF?

    World-Beating

    Master Hancock:

    "We have seen incredible, innovative uses of technology throughout the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic and this new deal with Microsoft will pave the way for that to continue by ensuring we get the basics right."

    Don't a lot of people start with 'The Basics' ?

  10. jvf

    it's no joke, it's a funny truth

    Of course. Faced with a clean windoze you fire up Edge and install Chrome. That's what I do (and all this time I thought I was the only one). I think it's rather polite that M$ provides a path to the web on a new machine so you can easily go and get what you need. Thanks, uncle Bob.

  11. RyokuMas
    Stop

    To be fair...

    "Having installed Chrome following the clean install, typing "Chrome" into the search box brought up the required application as well as a recommendation for the also-installed Microsoft Edge.

    To be fair, think back to when Chrome first launched - if you weren't already using it, there would be a "recommendation" ("download Chrome for faster, more secure browsing!") at the top of the Google search results page, regardless of what you were searching for... and given that this was back when the vast majority of people (even in IT) still bought into the "dont's be evil" BS, it's no wonder that Chrome suddenly grabbed to highest market share - it's tantamount to Microsoft leveraging Windows to detect whenever any web browser is started and sticking a great big "Use Edge!" message up.

    To only pop something in Edge when someone searches for Chrome is pretty small potatoes by comparison, really...

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: To be fair...

      Chrome suddenly grabbed to highest market share

      It didn't happen suddenly, it took years. And it wasn't just advertising – arguably the installs along with other software was even more important – and this was while Microsoft was neglecting Internet Explorer. Google poured lots of resources into making it the best browser and was even cooperating with Apple on WebKit at the time, until it forked that because Apple had also largely stopped working on HTML.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: To be fair...

        And Chrome installed alongside Avast/AVG/Flash/Acrobat and God knows what else didn't have anything to do with it?

        People who knew how to uninstall programs and bothered about that kind of thing deleted it, others just shrugged and used it.

        My father-in-law decided it must be better because it's everywhere.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: To be fair...

          Of course it did and I mentioned it. This was indeed probably more effective than the adds on YouTube, bus shelters, etc.

    2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: To be fair...

      I think I still get told by Google on my work computer (at home currently) that I would be better off using Chrome, but that is in Internet Explorer so I think even Microsoft is calling that fair.

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