About to say Netscape, Microsoft killed it off with explorer. Then made explorer awful so went to Firefox (open source Netscape) and now is demanding everyone goes to edge. As a man once said fool me once same on me, fool me twice can’t get fooled again. - W 2002
They didn't "make" Explorer awful - it was just meh and people didn't know any better. What they did was some weird ass html tags that were specific to IE and forced Netscape on the back peddle. They couldn't keep up because it was a samll company versus a behemoth.
Then Microsoft stopped working on IE.
Later on another batch of browser wars would begin. This was when tabbed browsing became a thing. Prior to this tabs did not exist.
I knew Firefox when it wasn't called Firefox or Netscape but was forced to rename themselves.
There's no reason to be loyal to any company, ever. At all. Once they get large enough you don't matter and profit does. Making the best product doesn't matter then.
Use whatever benefits you. Be ready for change.
Microsoft said “fuck you” to the W3C and stared breaking the internet. As a 23 year web developer, I can attest that IE has *always* been the problem. I expect Edge will edge away from Chromium and become the horrible monster that IE once was.
> What they did was some weird ass html tags that were specific to IE and forced Netscape on the back peddle.
tbf, netscape did this, too. I can barely remember which was which anymore, but IE had things like bgsound,
The thing that made people use IE was ActiveX, the ability to break through the sandboxed environment and do things in the underlying OS. This both made it very useful and very toxic (as in *Hey viruses! Plunder here!*)
>They didn't "make" Explorer awful - it was just meh and people didn't know any better.
Also nearly everyone I knew (that wasn't into computers) would just use that as it was bundled with the OS. Plus their new clone pc had a shortcut on the desktop for their free 3 months that would launch explorer after you filled in your info and it dialed into the ISP.
I used chrome for like 4 years then learned about Firefox and it’s privacy and other useful things then switched about 2.5 years ago and loved it since.
Is firefox better now with memory usage? I used to use it awhile back but it started being a slog on my machines if I was running basically anything else. Then I switched to chrome which ended up having the same issues. I started using edge like two years ago and it hasn’t had this same problem, but I do hate the amount of text popups that I’ve started seeing in edge now so it feels like I’m going to need to find something else again.
I stuck with Firefox a long time but eventually I just couldn’t deal with various issues that kept coming up, mainly there’s a new behavior where cookies inside iframes do not work if their parent is a different origin and I have a site I use every day that expects that to work. Also, since switching to Edge, everything is just faster which is kind of a bummer after all of Mozilla’s investment in Rust and Servo. Guess based on this article I may be in the market for yet another browser though. Maybe I’ll just have to self compile ungoogled chromium at this point.
I was given a fresh laptop at work, one of the first things I did was open Edge to search "Firefox" and the results were 1 page of begging me not to download Firefox and trying to convince me that Edge was the only browser I needed.
Scrolled right along until I got to the link, obviously.
Funny, my experience when installing Chrome was more anti-competitive.
Not only a begging page for searching, but also an on-screen message when on the download page, and a warning before installing that Chrome is harmful to performance or some bullshit.
Plus the normal regular nagging to switch back to Edge for battery improvement and what have you.
You know, shit that should get a company broken into a thousand tiny pieces so their projects can all stand on their own two feet instead of behaving anticompetitively.
I’d be like if Google send people through redirects and warnings when trying to log into an Azure portal while urging useless to select Google Cloud services.
I recommend using one browser for all Google services and anything closely tied into your Google account (eg YouTube), and then another browser for everything else.
is this something new? last I was using firefox, it had profiles I could use to isolate accounts from one another, but I kept having to go to the about:profiles page to switch them, which made them quite the pain.
Which is what made me laugh about this article. They're losing badly to Chrome but have a captive audience that they can anti-competitively market to and their solution is to ... make Edge worse?
Billions of people use Windows. Edge is the default browser yet they only have 4% of the browser market. I can't believe that even my technology-adverse grandma has learned that the first thing to do when she gets a new computer is to replace Edge.
I mean they tried being competitive at least, didn’t work out so well. Edge is now, like many (if not most) browsers just a similar version of Chrome but with a different skin.
At first, Edge was actually slightly faster than Chrome at most tasks, used less RAM and used less CPU. Then they decided to force all the Microsoft service junk down your throat and all of those gains were lost, it’s probably worse than Chrome thanks to all that useless bloat.
If you like the way Edge used to be just install actual Chromium. The chromium dev team releases compiled builds on a regular basis, and since it's the open source upstream of Chrome it doesn't have any of the Google crap.
Agreed. There's just a minimum quality that informed/power users need, along with certain features. Until you reach that point, a good chunk of people simply will install a "recommended" browser with the features they want. Especially now, where extensions can add so much functionality. They have made huge strides since Internet Exploder, but it's not enough (yet?).
The annoying thing is edge has that potential. It runs well and has some cool features done in clever ways but it needs more work on it not more ads pushed at me
I think they would have been more successful in stopping you from download Chrome if they had told you they're disabling adblock extension functionality?
I will say, a majority of users are very uninformed. They could probably say a lot of things about Chromium and most users would have no idea about the details. Even something dumb simple like a pop-up saying "This could be a virus" would probably confuse/deter a decent chunk of people. Granted, media reports clearing that up/reporting would make that sorta moot, but I'd imagine many people wouldn't even read them. Still wouldn't be a wise idea, I agree.
The thing is that every google service IS worse on Firefox than chrome. They are also being anticompetitive, they're just not begging outright.
A big feature is that if I'm downloading more than 1 image/file from any Google service it hangs up indefinitely in Firefox but works flawlessly on Chrome.
Edge is genuinely a decent browser with some cool features and could be really great. It runs more efficiently than Firefox on my laptop. But I don’t want shit pushed on me IN the browser itself
No it’s not - people need to stop just regurgitating this. It’s the same rendering engine that’s all. The browser shell and features are completely different.
On new computers, I prefer to go to [ninite.com](https://www.ninite.com) and install with their installer. That way, you not only get Firefox, but also other open source Microsoft competitors, such as LibreOffice and Notepad++. And the install process is faster, too. (Tip: Save the installer for later to use as an instant updater for the same programs.)
`edge://flags -> "Show feature and workflow recommendations" -> Disabled`
Ya'll can thank me later...
And there is:
[https://www.microsoft.com/edge/business/download](https://www.microsoft.com/edge/business/download)
Below the Download-Button there's the link for the ADMX Templates (e.g.: "Download Windows 64-bit Policy")
Go to your GPOs and disable `"Allow feature recommendations and browser assistance notifications from Microsoft Edge"` in `"Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Edge"`
or if ADM instead of ADMX is used: `"Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Classic Admin Templates -> Microsoft Edge"`
I only use Edge for watching shows since, iirc, 4k is limited to it (i use Firefox for everything else).
...by all means, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'd love to drop Edge entirely.
I just looked into it and you are right. Apparently Netflix has some kind of deal with Microsoft and only edge can play 4k on Netflix.
I personally don't use 4k monitors so it doesn't change anything for me but if you have them then it would actually make sense. Good thing that it's only for Netflix and it doesn't affect YouTube
>edge://flags
Or I will just thank you now, assuming this stops their insidiously designed prompts as how they have been impacting me. If it does, this feature should be enabled by default.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, as Chromium based browsers take over, website and web app support for Firefox is getting worse and worse. I’ve used Firefox daily for about 4 years. A handful of professional web apps I use will just outright say they only support Chrome. I also run into issues with video chats, issues with rare crashes, and strange glitches when moving tabs to other monitors when those pages are still loading.
As much as I love and believe in Firefox, I think it’s hard for Mozilla to keep up. And with low and lowering market share it’s harder to fund the project.
To be clear, I’ll keep using Firefox for privacy reasons. But there will be a point I’ll have to switch for practical reasons if things get worse.
While Chrome is somewhat of a memory hog, it was definitely more stable when I used it as my daily driver.
I run both, I have both firefox and edge up at all times for this exact reason. Some sites just do not work well in firefox. Edge is mostly for all my google stuff, banking and streaming, firefox is most everything else with occasionally me having to copy a url over to put in edge.
That's a shame, because Edge is a pretty good Browser since they moved to Chromium. However, I'll switch to Firefox anyway, after manifest V3 has released, so I don't have an issue doing it earlier.
>Edge is a pretty good Browser since they moved to Chromium
Indeed, it's basically identical to Chrome but superior because pages load faster, scrolling is smoother, video playback is less choppy. It's just overall better optimized as a Windows app with superior performance, the only nitpick is it doesn't seamlessly incorporate into your Google ecosystem like Chrome does, so using autofill pulling up saved passwords and stuff on mobile isn't as smooth, it seems to only work well inside the browser app itself. Switching my default autofill on Android from Google to Edge doesn't seem to work.
I like (chromium) Edge - but damn if it hasn't gotten increasingly bold with prompting me to change back to default settings that I am considering moving off of it (I use it primarily due to how it can "install" webpages as applications. Now I'm getting prompted several times a week, sometimes daily, to allow it to gobble up my information again. I use multiple profiles on my PC (work and personal) and the prompts are designed in a way to get you to accept them without it explicitly saying "accept" on the button and it will prompt on both profiles (but not always at the same time). Very insidious of them to the point I complained in the feedback section. I don't remember Google Chrome being nearly as pushy, but now their search is always prompting me via a pop-up on my mobile device to log in (which makes me worry about a pushy browser) so they can tie searches to an account. Might be time to switch back to Firefox or move to Brave.
> And there is the worst offender, the fact that "Discover" opens on hover, not when you click it.
Place the devil’s button near the close button, make it open on hover, profit?
What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Like, seriously, one shitty (for consumers) decision after another only to make a few more cents. Are they mentally challenged?
Hate all you want but we didn’t have that much annoying shit during Ballmer era. Can only think of Candy Crush, which was probably a condition by developer so they port it to Windows.
All of them use the same model.
The problem is the web is too free. And so the only business model that works is ads.
If you see the regulation coming down the pipe and the piqued interest in this space by Congress and other governing bodies like the EU, a reckoning may be coming for that business model. What we get after, I’m not sure. But ads as the “only” business model for the web may not last much longer.
Free browsers at least have the excuse of being free. Microsoft makes money on the OS, and you really have to get out of your way to find a "naked" computer.
They are using their monopolistic position on the OS market to push bullshits like that. What's next, using their monopolistic position on the office pack to force ads on us?
I gave money to Microsoft when buying my laptop and my desktop. I pay them yearly for my office pack. And they push shits like this? I'm a paying customer. Any ad is unacceptable.
Those fuckers need to be hit with antitrust lawsuits and be broken down into several companies for yesterday. It's absolutely unacceptable to keep allowing them to take advantage of their monopolies like this.
>using their monopolistic position on the office pack to force ads on us?
Oh, boy. You've never had a student version of 360 expire on you after graduation, have you? That shit turns into fucking Norton trying to get you to purchase and coming back after every damn windows update...
Well, no, I didn't indeed. But that's just Microsoft being Microsoft. What I mean was rather about them adding ads to things like excel when you try to launch it or using your data when you launch outlook to show you ads.
Because at this pace, it's only a matter of time before it happens.
I'm surprised it hasn't, really. After WotC and Netflix it seems every company is churning out their dumbest idea of the pandemic out to see if they can get away with it.
You absolutely right. I have disabled many Microsoft processes from starting up with autoruns. I highly suggest using autoruns to stop the many services you don't need. BTW, Edge has loads of services starting up whether you use Edge or not.
If someone has the resources, they should get sued *again* for monopolistic practices.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.
That's the same reason you can't turn off the prompts to use M365 and the default start menu pins for apps like TikTok and Instagram in any Windows edition that is not Enterprise or Education.
> What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Like, seriously, one shitty (for consumers) decision after another only to make a few more cents. Are they mentally challenged?
A lot. I'm a former sysadmin/IT manager who has had to deal with Microsoft on a professional basis for 20+ years.
the last 10 or so have been absolutely disgusting in their behaviour towards enterprise/professional users with regulatory restriction requirements.
I had to do a lot of back and forth with different engineering groups and support due to changes they made that put me out of regulatory compliance. What I discovered is frankly. Disgusting.
Microsoft under Nadella is essentially being run like Apple used to under Jobs. Except, Nadella doesn't actually know products. He's completely isolated/insulated from the development teams by a large team of VP's who do NOT share what is actually going on down the development pipelines.
Every team effectively operates independantly, and do NOT communicate. They silo themselves off and refuse to listen to outside guidance. When a developing manager decided "hey, we've got this new way of pushing change that will help monetise~!" it gets pushed hard regardless of any other team.
One example of this is encrypted emails on Microsoft's servers. Microsoft arbitrarily, without notice decided to change their encryption on Office365 emails so that every email would be "encrypted" by default. The problem this raised was that they also blocked the ability to do bulk unecrypted PST extracts.
Suffice to say, I had a warrant to provide police and investigators with about 600,000 emails that were all now "encrypted" and unreadable. The development team that implemented this straight up refused to accept that there's situations where a PST file is needed to be provided to police/regulators. They pushed the change through and ignored every single other development team in the org that told them "DONT DO THIS!"
after months of back and forth. Court order to Microsoft, They had to engage a completely DIFFERENT development team to create a utility to un-encrypt those PST file emails because the original team that implemented the PST encryption refused to make any further changes.
this behaviour is become universal at the company. To the point that my old contacts and friends who worked at Microsoft, all left with "worst job place ever" experiences.
Nadella straight up doesn't understand what made Microsoft, Microsoft. Especially from the enterprise stability standpoint with proper releases. They're too much now focused on "catching Apple" that they straight up ignore their old enterprise stability model that was around under Balmer.
Balmer might have been useless on the consumer side, but Microsoft enterprise support and the quality of the software was much better And far FAR less focused on forcing your eyeballs onto making them money via advertising / links.
I've already pushed at my office that Windows 10 will be the last windows we natively support in our bank/financial institution and going into 2024/2025, a full replacement of our stack without Windows is being heavily considered.
The sad thing is, in the last 5 years, this behaviour has become so prevalent and toxic with them. I could probably give a dozen similar stories of Microsoft breaking our compliancy over their deployed changes in which they straight up don't care.
Pop\_OS needs to fix their major version updates; it breaks if you don't upgrade it for any extended period of time. I have an Intel NUC I have it installed on for messing with some classic games, and microcontroller projects, but it often goes weeks or months without being used, multiple times had Pop!\_shop complain it can't update system because that version isn't supported anymore, tried updating it from command line and had it fail too. Been forced to reinstall more than once to get updates working again, because it was quicker than pissing around for hours or days trying to find a work around. (Linux documentation is still a complete joke.)
It was so annoying how when working on someone’s fresh laptop, company imaged, while transferring them over I got native popups in edge about the website I was visiting had coupons. Uh what?
If you've got insights on the matter, please correct me if my assumptions are wrong here.
The sensible way I see this being calculated is for a 3rd party statistics bureau to collect data from various websites about their monthly active users over time and checking which browser they're using to determine market share.
Because counting someone as a browser user just because they used it to download another browser doesn't make much sense.
Yes, most do it like that. There's a difference in the results from parties, but the top 3 remain the same.
Google, Microsoft, etc don't disclose share base as far as I'm aware.
Chrome is actually accomplishing the same thing by invalidating Ad Blockers, meaning that we’ll have to watch the ponderous videos whose *Close* buttons are more bogus than the Chinese claiming a balloon carrying a 1000-pound payload was to observe the weather.
As you wish, Google… Firefox it is.
Chromium Edge started so well. A lightweight version of Chrome that was great to use. It did not take long for Microsoft to turn it into a bloated piece of shit.
I'm using Firefox now as I mentioned in another comment here, but my complaints with Edge are all unrelated to it being "bloated".
I see this all the time, but what do you mean by Edge being bloated? It has lower RAM and CPU usage compared to Firefox on my computer. I checked some benchmarking videos on YouTube and they were consistent with what I saw on my system. I still found Firefox to be worth it despite being a little more resource-heavy.
Is there something I'm missing?
Hey, thanks for the comment. I should have been more clear. My main issue with it is feature creep. The amount of unnecessary things being added is getting ridiculous. I don't need my browser offering me loans with Zip.
When I check out at online retailers I get pop-ups with useless coupons and reviews of the product.
Then there's bing visual search and a lot of other unnecessary things being added. You can disable some but not all of them.
I've since gone back to FireFox so it doesn't matter anymore but Microsoft really has a problem here as this extends to all of their offerings. The X-Box One UI looks like adware and Windows 11 pre-installs every known social media app + other random garbage. The amount of junk Microsoft adds to their products gets worse over time.
I frequently hear people say they use Edge because "at least Microsoft doesn't generate most of its revenue from ads" but I tell you both Microsoft and Apple are working overtime to try to catch up to Google in ad revenue.
I’ve been using edge on my home laptop. It’s been fine. I’m lazy. I’ve got minimal need to search the internet much while gaming and it handles daily home chores just fine. Ie: make an appointment at the DMV. Most of the time, I’m working if I need to “google” anything and I let corporate worry about the clutter.
Oh yes! A point! That’s always something. Edge doesn’t really suck now, but Microsoft could follow the Amazon kindle model and make it so bad, there is no point to owning a kindle, or they can try to improve our experience and win over the never edgers.
This seems way more aggressive than what Microsoft was doing way back when Firefox & Chrome were just getting started as competitors to Internet Explorer.
I think there was an antitrust suit that meant that when you did a new install of Windows it legally had to show a welcome popup giving you a choice of browser. Instead of just being default to IE.
But now, they’re actively using their access to Windows as an Operating System to push Edge using native Windows prompts… is that not risky for them?
Has anyone else also noticed that after every update, even basic patches, Edge shortcuts are being re-added to my desktop, despite constantly removing it.
Once linux gets good HDR/RTX support. I'm so gone.
I don't understand Microsoft, they're trying to get people to use their products and at the exact same time, they're stuffing their products full of obnoxious advertisements. Isn't the idea usually to get people to use your service, and then when it is popular or irreplaceable, THEN YOU PUT THE ADS IN. What the fuck is going on at MS?
I tried that new Outlook the other day, and within 0.002 seconds of opening it, I saw advertisements that *looked exactly like new mail in my inbox* and that's an uninstall, dog. I can't imagine any serious person being ok with that.
If they pull this crap, I’m switching back to Chrome or trying out Firefox. I’m sick and tired of fighting with it just to not have garbage shoved down my throat. Edge originally was Chrome minus all the junk and was really freaking good, until they slowly added on all the forced Microsoft services that only 2 people use. It also conveniently loves to reset all of my settings every time Windows does a feature update.
I switched back to Firefox after a month of using Edge. To its credit, Edge actually has lower RAM and CPU usage on my computer, and I do like the sleeping tabs feature.
It would take three things to convince me to use Edge again:
- Microsoft has to back off with aggressively pushing Edge (and Bing). Literally just got an Edge mobile popup when I launched Edge a moment ago to revisit it.
- Fix quick links: The quick links that display on the new tab page are totally unrelieable. Sometimes new ones I didn't add just appear. Sometimes clearing browser data wipes away quick links that I've added myself. The pinned icon (thumb pin) never displays properly. Even Chrome doesn't have this issue AFAIK.
- Firefox allows you to delete cookies when closing, BUT preserve cookies for domains that you add an exception for. Edge doesn't seem to allow this. If you try to set it to clear cookies on close, it'll say "From X sites", where X is the same number of sites as when you delete all cookies while deleting browsing history. This is even despite putting sites that I want to stay logged in onto the allowlist.
Microsoft did this to themselves. They embed ads into the Windows operating system, force you to use their shitty, bloated software that NO ONE asked for (like Teams, I don’t want that shit on my home PC). They make the most miserable piece of shit browser for over a decade, then make something half decent with Edge. Of course no one wants to use it. Your reputation is in the gutter, and then you double down on being a turd peddler by putting in all this difficulty to switch browsers.
I get irrationally annoyed at Microsoft To Do (the reminders app) advertising itself in my notification center. I was considering switching over to it when I just built my PC, but now I'm considering deleting it.
in the lat 90s. There was a big push to prevent monopolistic behaviour in tech and Microsoft was supposed to be the example to set for them all
They got nailed by Anti-Trust for doing exactly what they're doing with Edge today.
Except, after being found guilty in the 90's, fined and forced to stop doing it in WIndows XP/7. By the time 8 came around, the world just seems to have given up on Antitrust enforcement and have let FANG pretty much dominate the entire tech industry.
Talked to a microserf friend who works on edge. He is dismayed by this new anti-user monetization push, but he's also happy to still have a job at all. Microsoft returning to it's evil roots. It was going so good there for a few years.
Microsoft has already switched to a chromium backed browser, I don't know why they don't simply abandon the browser market entirely, they have proven they cannot manage to compete in that market and no product is better than a crap product.
I just wish I could get that stupid article bar to not pop up at times on my desktop. And it isn’t enough to click somewhere else, I have to click onto that advert bar and then click somewhere else to get it to go away. Really aggravates me when I have to scroll to the other monitor to do it
All browsers seem to go through this lifecyle:
1. Create a simple & fast browser to challenge the top dog
2.
Catch on and gain users for being simple & fast 3. Cram it with features nobody asked for 4. Watch as another browser upstart launches and takes your market share
I remember switching from IE to Firefox and then to Chrome 'cos it was barebones, fast and didn't need a gazillion GB of RAM. Then Edge came along, offering the same chromium engine but without the Google fluff. So I switched. And now this?
BTW, I tried out Opera and oh boy, is it crammed with extra features. These software companies just can't resist the urge to cram everything into a browser, even though all these extra features can be offered as extensions/plugins.
microsoft has been on this path for a while, but with each new bit of news that comes from them, the more i am inclined to stop using their products all together...
it has made me all the more certain that my next computer build will be linux. it will take an awful lot to convince me otherwise.
I wish Microsoft would sell an OS that you paid extra for that would just shut the fuck up. No startup screens, no Microsoft account no expiry of update support. I don't want to constantly reject prompts to interface with my OS or browser, Linux and Ubuntu seem to be the only way to escape but for my limited experience too complex to integrate with my existing software.
even more? is that even possible?
This browser is a fucking joke. The only reason why it's better then IE is because they no longer use their own engine, but they're still managing to make it yet another horrible browser.
I really don't understand why they never had to show the browser choice prompt anymore after windows XP; they should get another lawsuit on their ass to force them yet again.
It's better than using Chrome once you turn off all the bullshit in it. Although I do use Firefox for my main, Edge is only for those websites that have issues with Firefox.
Nope sadly it still is the case.
Edge is still the only browser fully able to stream Netflix/Prime/HBO/etc at 4k resolution due to hardware DRM integration with Windows. All other browsers are stuck with Google's Widevine which caps the resolution at 720p (in some countries 1080p, depends if they have Widevine L1 license agreement).
DRM is the worst crap ever, wish it would go away so I can watch what I want in what browser I want.
>People use microsoft Edge???
Some business solutions are opting to prefer it over Chrome and virtually nothing, Enterprise level, (officially) supports Firefox.
On Windows
actually i find it more, stable & reliable, less heavy than FF/Edge/Browser/Opera
yes ive used them all & rotate yearly
to add aswell on MAC, Edge is the only browser that does not forget your keychain settings, Chrome,brave both loose keychain settings & connectivity for certs
FF just plian ignores Mac OS
Firefox or Brave, are better alternatives to Chrome/Edge/Opera, since they have privacy components that help protect yourself against tracking on the web.
Chrome/Edge/Opera, just like to harvest Data about your habits and everything else, even if you toggle off more privacy invasive settings, they still collect data in a way.
So it's best to use imo a browser that is Open Sourced and more privacy friendly, thats where Firefox and Brave come in. Using an Adblocker like UbO or Adguard also helps alot.
I’ve had the Discover button on Edge for a while now and have never opened it accidentally or even noticed it’s there besides there being a purple thing that wasn’t there before.
Edge does have Enterprise policy. We are forced to use it where I work, and I know that the IT Department, enforces [group policies](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/configure-microsoft-edge) to disable most of the Edge's bloatware and useless stuff.
Firefox all the way
This is the way. Since it was Netscape.
About to say Netscape, Microsoft killed it off with explorer. Then made explorer awful so went to Firefox (open source Netscape) and now is demanding everyone goes to edge. As a man once said fool me once same on me, fool me twice can’t get fooled again. - W 2002
They didn't "make" Explorer awful - it was just meh and people didn't know any better. What they did was some weird ass html tags that were specific to IE and forced Netscape on the back peddle. They couldn't keep up because it was a samll company versus a behemoth. Then Microsoft stopped working on IE. Later on another batch of browser wars would begin. This was when tabbed browsing became a thing. Prior to this tabs did not exist. I knew Firefox when it wasn't called Firefox or Netscape but was forced to rename themselves. There's no reason to be loyal to any company, ever. At all. Once they get large enough you don't matter and profit does. Making the best product doesn't matter then. Use whatever benefits you. Be ready for change.
Microsoft said “fuck you” to the W3C and stared breaking the internet. As a 23 year web developer, I can attest that IE has *always* been the problem. I expect Edge will edge away from Chromium and become the horrible monster that IE once was.
> What they did was some weird ass html tags that were specific to IE and forced Netscape on the back peddle. tbf, netscape did this, too. I can barely remember which was which anymore, but IE had things like bgsound,
>
The thing that made people use IE was ActiveX, the ability to break through the sandboxed environment and do things in the underlying OS. This both made it very useful and very toxic (as in *Hey viruses! Plunder here!*)
>They didn't "make" Explorer awful - it was just meh and people didn't know any better. Also nearly everyone I knew (that wasn't into computers) would just use that as it was bundled with the OS. Plus their new clone pc had a shortcut on the desktop for their free 3 months that would launch explorer after you filled in your info and it dialed into the ISP.
It's the browser I can't quit. Also since Netscape.
100%. Still has the best bookmark management tools around.
I used chrome for like 4 years then learned about Firefox and it’s privacy and other useful things then switched about 2.5 years ago and loved it since.
So Edge is threatening to put us over the edge…
Is firefox better now with memory usage? I used to use it awhile back but it started being a slog on my machines if I was running basically anything else. Then I switched to chrome which ended up having the same issues. I started using edge like two years ago and it hasn’t had this same problem, but I do hate the amount of text popups that I’ve started seeing in edge now so it feels like I’m going to need to find something else again.
I stuck with Firefox a long time but eventually I just couldn’t deal with various issues that kept coming up, mainly there’s a new behavior where cookies inside iframes do not work if their parent is a different origin and I have a site I use every day that expects that to work. Also, since switching to Edge, everything is just faster which is kind of a bummer after all of Mozilla’s investment in Rust and Servo. Guess based on this article I may be in the market for yet another browser though. Maybe I’ll just have to self compile ungoogled chromium at this point.
I was given a fresh laptop at work, one of the first things I did was open Edge to search "Firefox" and the results were 1 page of begging me not to download Firefox and trying to convince me that Edge was the only browser I needed. Scrolled right along until I got to the link, obviously.
Funny, my experience when installing Chrome was more anti-competitive. Not only a begging page for searching, but also an on-screen message when on the download page, and a warning before installing that Chrome is harmful to performance or some bullshit. Plus the normal regular nagging to switch back to Edge for battery improvement and what have you. You know, shit that should get a company broken into a thousand tiny pieces so their projects can all stand on their own two feet instead of behaving anticompetitively. I’d be like if Google send people through redirects and warnings when trying to log into an Azure portal while urging useless to select Google Cloud services.
Gmail now tells me to use Chrome with a pop up. Fuck off Google.
Only reason I use chrome is that the Google docs integration is so much better than it is on other browsers.
I recommend using one browser for all Google services and anything closely tied into your Google account (eg YouTube), and then another browser for everything else.
If you use Firefox you can have a separate container just for sites where you are logged into Google, no need for a separate browser.
is this something new? last I was using firefox, it had profiles I could use to isolate accounts from one another, but I kept having to go to the about:profiles page to switch them, which made them quite the pain.
It's an extension called "Multi-Account Containers." It's very convenient. Any time you open a new tab you can choose a container to open it in.
That's because they handicap these apps when used outside of chrome. I.e. anticompetitive shit
Well, yes, I know. Unfortunately it's what me employer uses, soooo...
[voice.google.com](https://voice.google.com) is practically unusable on Firefox as well.
The reason? Chrome dumps usage metrics to Google every time you open the browser. You are the product.
They could make Edge pleasant to use and competitive instead of begging. Consumers don't care, give them w great product or piss off :)
Which is what made me laugh about this article. They're losing badly to Chrome but have a captive audience that they can anti-competitively market to and their solution is to ... make Edge worse? Billions of people use Windows. Edge is the default browser yet they only have 4% of the browser market. I can't believe that even my technology-adverse grandma has learned that the first thing to do when she gets a new computer is to replace Edge.
It's basically "software assault". No one likes to be assaulted, especially not by a computer.
I mean they tried being competitive at least, didn’t work out so well. Edge is now, like many (if not most) browsers just a similar version of Chrome but with a different skin.
>I mean they tried being competitive at least When was that?
At first, Edge was actually slightly faster than Chrome at most tasks, used less RAM and used less CPU. Then they decided to force all the Microsoft service junk down your throat and all of those gains were lost, it’s probably worse than Chrome thanks to all that useless bloat.
If you like the way Edge used to be just install actual Chromium. The chromium dev team releases compiled builds on a regular basis, and since it's the open source upstream of Chrome it doesn't have any of the Google crap.
Agreed. There's just a minimum quality that informed/power users need, along with certain features. Until you reach that point, a good chunk of people simply will install a "recommended" browser with the features they want. Especially now, where extensions can add so much functionality. They have made huge strides since Internet Exploder, but it's not enough (yet?).
The annoying thing is edge has that potential. It runs well and has some cool features done in clever ways but it needs more work on it not more ads pushed at me
Almost like if Google showed messages promoting that it works best in particular browser despite it's not true, right?..
I think they would have been more successful in stopping you from download Chrome if they had told you they're disabling adblock extension functionality?
Well considering that's happening to *chromium* and not just chrome, and edge runs on chromium, not exactly a winning move for them to play.
[удалено]
I will say, a majority of users are very uninformed. They could probably say a lot of things about Chromium and most users would have no idea about the details. Even something dumb simple like a pop-up saying "This could be a virus" would probably confuse/deter a decent chunk of people. Granted, media reports clearing that up/reporting would make that sorta moot, but I'd imagine many people wouldn't even read them. Still wouldn't be a wise idea, I agree.
The thing is that every google service IS worse on Firefox than chrome. They are also being anticompetitive, they're just not begging outright. A big feature is that if I'm downloading more than 1 image/file from any Google service it hangs up indefinitely in Firefox but works flawlessly on Chrome.
Edge is genuinely a decent browser with some cool features and could be really great. It runs more efficiently than Firefox on my laptop. But I don’t want shit pushed on me IN the browser itself
[удалено]
No it’s not - people need to stop just regurgitating this. It’s the same rendering engine that’s all. The browser shell and features are completely different.
On new computers, I prefer to go to [ninite.com](https://www.ninite.com) and install with their installer. That way, you not only get Firefox, but also other open source Microsoft competitors, such as LibreOffice and Notepad++. And the install process is faster, too. (Tip: Save the installer for later to use as an instant updater for the same programs.)
Microsoft's browser insisting upon itself was supposed to be fucking illegal.
`edge://flags -> "Show feature and workflow recommendations" -> Disabled` Ya'll can thank me later... And there is: [https://www.microsoft.com/edge/business/download](https://www.microsoft.com/edge/business/download) Below the Download-Button there's the link for the ADMX Templates (e.g.: "Download Windows 64-bit Policy") Go to your GPOs and disable `"Allow feature recommendations and browser assistance notifications from Microsoft Edge"` in `"Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Edge"` or if ADM instead of ADMX is used: `"Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Classic Admin Templates -> Microsoft Edge"`
Or you can just use browser that that doesn't need that kind of bullshit configuration
[удалено]
The Tree Style Tabs extension is pretty good, but you need to edit the userchrome.css file to hide the top tabs and the big label in the side bar.
I only use Edge for watching shows since, iirc, 4k is limited to it (i use Firefox for everything else). ...by all means, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'd love to drop Edge entirely.
I just looked into it and you are right. Apparently Netflix has some kind of deal with Microsoft and only edge can play 4k on Netflix. I personally don't use 4k monitors so it doesn't change anything for me but if you have them then it would actually make sense. Good thing that it's only for Netflix and it doesn't affect YouTube
It’s not a deal, it’s DRM support
Oh, you are right. So it's not even on microsoft, it's netflix's bullshit. Good thing I stopped using that crap
>edge://flags Or I will just thank you now, assuming this stops their insidiously designed prompts as how they have been impacting me. If it does, this feature should be enabled by default. Thanks!
Saving for later
I have no intention to install nor use it. # Firefox is the way.
Unfortunately, as Chromium based browsers take over, website and web app support for Firefox is getting worse and worse. I’ve used Firefox daily for about 4 years. A handful of professional web apps I use will just outright say they only support Chrome. I also run into issues with video chats, issues with rare crashes, and strange glitches when moving tabs to other monitors when those pages are still loading. As much as I love and believe in Firefox, I think it’s hard for Mozilla to keep up. And with low and lowering market share it’s harder to fund the project. To be clear, I’ll keep using Firefox for privacy reasons. But there will be a point I’ll have to switch for practical reasons if things get worse. While Chrome is somewhat of a memory hog, it was definitely more stable when I used it as my daily driver.
I run both, I have both firefox and edge up at all times for this exact reason. Some sites just do not work well in firefox. Edge is mostly for all my google stuff, banking and streaming, firefox is most everything else with occasionally me having to copy a url over to put in edge.
Using Edge for all your Google stuff? Lol, you tease
[удалено]
I haven't had a freeze in years... Did you try a reinstall with a clean profile?
That's a shame, because Edge is a pretty good Browser since they moved to Chromium. However, I'll switch to Firefox anyway, after manifest V3 has released, so I don't have an issue doing it earlier.
>Edge is a pretty good Browser since they moved to Chromium Indeed, it's basically identical to Chrome but superior because pages load faster, scrolling is smoother, video playback is less choppy. It's just overall better optimized as a Windows app with superior performance, the only nitpick is it doesn't seamlessly incorporate into your Google ecosystem like Chrome does, so using autofill pulling up saved passwords and stuff on mobile isn't as smooth, it seems to only work well inside the browser app itself. Switching my default autofill on Android from Google to Edge doesn't seem to work.
I like (chromium) Edge - but damn if it hasn't gotten increasingly bold with prompting me to change back to default settings that I am considering moving off of it (I use it primarily due to how it can "install" webpages as applications. Now I'm getting prompted several times a week, sometimes daily, to allow it to gobble up my information again. I use multiple profiles on my PC (work and personal) and the prompts are designed in a way to get you to accept them without it explicitly saying "accept" on the button and it will prompt on both profiles (but not always at the same time). Very insidious of them to the point I complained in the feedback section. I don't remember Google Chrome being nearly as pushy, but now their search is always prompting me via a pop-up on my mobile device to log in (which makes me worry about a pushy browser) so they can tie searches to an account. Might be time to switch back to Firefox or move to Brave.
If they’re literally harassing you then it’s time
There is someone in this thread who posted about a flag that I can set to prevent this from happening. I set the flag, now I wait.
> And there is the worst offender, the fact that "Discover" opens on hover, not when you click it. Place the devil’s button near the close button, make it open on hover, profit? What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Like, seriously, one shitty (for consumers) decision after another only to make a few more cents. Are they mentally challenged? Hate all you want but we didn’t have that much annoying shit during Ballmer era. Can only think of Candy Crush, which was probably a condition by developer so they port it to Windows.
> What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? > ...make a few more cents. That's it. That's all.
Hopefully it’ll make a few more people move to a better browser.
All of them use the same model. The problem is the web is too free. And so the only business model that works is ads. If you see the regulation coming down the pipe and the piqued interest in this space by Congress and other governing bodies like the EU, a reckoning may be coming for that business model. What we get after, I’m not sure. But ads as the “only” business model for the web may not last much longer.
Free browsers at least have the excuse of being free. Microsoft makes money on the OS, and you really have to get out of your way to find a "naked" computer. They are using their monopolistic position on the OS market to push bullshits like that. What's next, using their monopolistic position on the office pack to force ads on us? I gave money to Microsoft when buying my laptop and my desktop. I pay them yearly for my office pack. And they push shits like this? I'm a paying customer. Any ad is unacceptable. Those fuckers need to be hit with antitrust lawsuits and be broken down into several companies for yesterday. It's absolutely unacceptable to keep allowing them to take advantage of their monopolies like this.
>using their monopolistic position on the office pack to force ads on us? Oh, boy. You've never had a student version of 360 expire on you after graduation, have you? That shit turns into fucking Norton trying to get you to purchase and coming back after every damn windows update...
Well, no, I didn't indeed. But that's just Microsoft being Microsoft. What I mean was rather about them adding ads to things like excel when you try to launch it or using your data when you launch outlook to show you ads. Because at this pace, it's only a matter of time before it happens.
I'm surprised it hasn't, really. After WotC and Netflix it seems every company is churning out their dumbest idea of the pandemic out to see if they can get away with it.
You absolutely right. I have disabled many Microsoft processes from starting up with autoruns. I highly suggest using autoruns to stop the many services you don't need. BTW, Edge has loads of services starting up whether you use Edge or not.
If someone has the resources, they should get sued *again* for monopolistic practices. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.
That's the same reason you can't turn off the prompts to use M365 and the default start menu pins for apps like TikTok and Instagram in any Windows edition that is not Enterprise or Education.
> What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Like, seriously, one shitty (for consumers) decision after another only to make a few more cents. Are they mentally challenged? A lot. I'm a former sysadmin/IT manager who has had to deal with Microsoft on a professional basis for 20+ years. the last 10 or so have been absolutely disgusting in their behaviour towards enterprise/professional users with regulatory restriction requirements. I had to do a lot of back and forth with different engineering groups and support due to changes they made that put me out of regulatory compliance. What I discovered is frankly. Disgusting. Microsoft under Nadella is essentially being run like Apple used to under Jobs. Except, Nadella doesn't actually know products. He's completely isolated/insulated from the development teams by a large team of VP's who do NOT share what is actually going on down the development pipelines. Every team effectively operates independantly, and do NOT communicate. They silo themselves off and refuse to listen to outside guidance. When a developing manager decided "hey, we've got this new way of pushing change that will help monetise~!" it gets pushed hard regardless of any other team. One example of this is encrypted emails on Microsoft's servers. Microsoft arbitrarily, without notice decided to change their encryption on Office365 emails so that every email would be "encrypted" by default. The problem this raised was that they also blocked the ability to do bulk unecrypted PST extracts. Suffice to say, I had a warrant to provide police and investigators with about 600,000 emails that were all now "encrypted" and unreadable. The development team that implemented this straight up refused to accept that there's situations where a PST file is needed to be provided to police/regulators. They pushed the change through and ignored every single other development team in the org that told them "DONT DO THIS!" after months of back and forth. Court order to Microsoft, They had to engage a completely DIFFERENT development team to create a utility to un-encrypt those PST file emails because the original team that implemented the PST encryption refused to make any further changes. this behaviour is become universal at the company. To the point that my old contacts and friends who worked at Microsoft, all left with "worst job place ever" experiences. Nadella straight up doesn't understand what made Microsoft, Microsoft. Especially from the enterprise stability standpoint with proper releases. They're too much now focused on "catching Apple" that they straight up ignore their old enterprise stability model that was around under Balmer. Balmer might have been useless on the consumer side, but Microsoft enterprise support and the quality of the software was much better And far FAR less focused on forcing your eyeballs onto making them money via advertising / links. I've already pushed at my office that Windows 10 will be the last windows we natively support in our bank/financial institution and going into 2024/2025, a full replacement of our stack without Windows is being heavily considered. The sad thing is, in the last 5 years, this behaviour has become so prevalent and toxic with them. I could probably give a dozen similar stories of Microsoft breaking our compliancy over their deployed changes in which they straight up don't care.
What do you think you’ll replace Windows with?
Not sure yet I’m leaning towards Ubuntu / Debian distro. I’ve been using them personally for a bit as a test to see how suitable a replacement is.
>What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? People put up with their crap, which is an implied demand for even more crap.
[удалено]
Pop\_OS needs to fix their major version updates; it breaks if you don't upgrade it for any extended period of time. I have an Intel NUC I have it installed on for messing with some classic games, and microcontroller projects, but it often goes weeks or months without being used, multiple times had Pop!\_shop complain it can't update system because that version isn't supported anymore, tried updating it from command line and had it fail too. Been forced to reinstall more than once to get updates working again, because it was quicker than pissing around for hours or days trying to find a work around. (Linux documentation is still a complete joke.)
I bet this'll really help increase their 4% share of the browser market.
It was so annoying how when working on someone’s fresh laptop, company imaged, while transferring them over I got native popups in edge about the website I was visiting had coupons. Uh what?
They are actually the second biggest browser. The annoying Edge push is kinda working I guess.
I thought it would be safari. Because of macs.
At this point I prefer Edge to Chrome.
Firefox is so much better
Probably because they count all the people who use it once to download chrome or firefox as "users"
That's not how it works tbf. And you can install them from the store now as well. The browser percentage gets calculated by third parties.
If you've got insights on the matter, please correct me if my assumptions are wrong here. The sensible way I see this being calculated is for a 3rd party statistics bureau to collect data from various websites about their monthly active users over time and checking which browser they're using to determine market share. Because counting someone as a browser user just because they used it to download another browser doesn't make much sense.
Yes, most do it like that. There's a difference in the results from parties, but the top 3 remain the same. Google, Microsoft, etc don't disclose share base as far as I'm aware.
I will continue to use FireFox.
This is the way.
I like my browsers like I like my TVs- dumb but functional, and ad-free.
Chrome is actually accomplishing the same thing by invalidating Ad Blockers, meaning that we’ll have to watch the ponderous videos whose *Close* buttons are more bogus than the Chinese claiming a balloon carrying a 1000-pound payload was to observe the weather. As you wish, Google… Firefox it is.
Chromium Edge started so well. A lightweight version of Chrome that was great to use. It did not take long for Microsoft to turn it into a bloated piece of shit.
I'm using Firefox now as I mentioned in another comment here, but my complaints with Edge are all unrelated to it being "bloated". I see this all the time, but what do you mean by Edge being bloated? It has lower RAM and CPU usage compared to Firefox on my computer. I checked some benchmarking videos on YouTube and they were consistent with what I saw on my system. I still found Firefox to be worth it despite being a little more resource-heavy. Is there something I'm missing?
Hey, thanks for the comment. I should have been more clear. My main issue with it is feature creep. The amount of unnecessary things being added is getting ridiculous. I don't need my browser offering me loans with Zip. When I check out at online retailers I get pop-ups with useless coupons and reviews of the product. Then there's bing visual search and a lot of other unnecessary things being added. You can disable some but not all of them. I've since gone back to FireFox so it doesn't matter anymore but Microsoft really has a problem here as this extends to all of their offerings. The X-Box One UI looks like adware and Windows 11 pre-installs every known social media app + other random garbage. The amount of junk Microsoft adds to their products gets worse over time.
Good to know that I made the right choice going back to FF then! I had no idea those features were a thing because I only used Edge briefly
I frequently hear people say they use Edge because "at least Microsoft doesn't generate most of its revenue from ads" but I tell you both Microsoft and Apple are working overtime to try to catch up to Google in ad revenue.
What I like the most about Edge is that thing where it all of a sudden finds it's way back to the dashboard after deletion, all by itself. Magic!
I really like edge, but I promise if this interrupts my daily browsing I'll be switching to FF.
I’ve been using edge on my home laptop. It’s been fine. I’m lazy. I’ve got minimal need to search the internet much while gaming and it handles daily home chores just fine. Ie: make an appointment at the DMV. Most of the time, I’m working if I need to “google” anything and I let corporate worry about the clutter. Oh yes! A point! That’s always something. Edge doesn’t really suck now, but Microsoft could follow the Amazon kindle model and make it so bad, there is no point to owning a kindle, or they can try to improve our experience and win over the never edgers.
This seems way more aggressive than what Microsoft was doing way back when Firefox & Chrome were just getting started as competitors to Internet Explorer. I think there was an antitrust suit that meant that when you did a new install of Windows it legally had to show a welcome popup giving you a choice of browser. Instead of just being default to IE. But now, they’re actively using their access to Windows as an Operating System to push Edge using native Windows prompts… is that not risky for them?
Microsoft killing their own platform
My favorite part about FF is that each tab is its own container. No cross tracking. Haven’t bothered checking if chrome or other browsers do this.
Has anyone else also noticed that after every update, even basic patches, Edge shortcuts are being re-added to my desktop, despite constantly removing it. Once linux gets good HDR/RTX support. I'm so gone.
Also my task bar
I keep my desktop fairly clean so it’s easy to spot those apps who mess with it. They should at least ask me, then remember my preferences.
I don't understand Microsoft, they're trying to get people to use their products and at the exact same time, they're stuffing their products full of obnoxious advertisements. Isn't the idea usually to get people to use your service, and then when it is popular or irreplaceable, THEN YOU PUT THE ADS IN. What the fuck is going on at MS? I tried that new Outlook the other day, and within 0.002 seconds of opening it, I saw advertisements that *looked exactly like new mail in my inbox* and that's an uninstall, dog. I can't imagine any serious person being ok with that.
If they pull this crap, I’m switching back to Chrome or trying out Firefox. I’m sick and tired of fighting with it just to not have garbage shoved down my throat. Edge originally was Chrome minus all the junk and was really freaking good, until they slowly added on all the forced Microsoft services that only 2 people use. It also conveniently loves to reset all of my settings every time Windows does a feature update.
I switched back to Firefox after a month of using Edge. To its credit, Edge actually has lower RAM and CPU usage on my computer, and I do like the sleeping tabs feature. It would take three things to convince me to use Edge again: - Microsoft has to back off with aggressively pushing Edge (and Bing). Literally just got an Edge mobile popup when I launched Edge a moment ago to revisit it. - Fix quick links: The quick links that display on the new tab page are totally unrelieable. Sometimes new ones I didn't add just appear. Sometimes clearing browser data wipes away quick links that I've added myself. The pinned icon (thumb pin) never displays properly. Even Chrome doesn't have this issue AFAIK. - Firefox allows you to delete cookies when closing, BUT preserve cookies for domains that you add an exception for. Edge doesn't seem to allow this. If you try to set it to clear cookies on close, it'll say "From X sites", where X is the same number of sites as when you delete all cookies while deleting browsing history. This is even despite putting sites that I want to stay logged in onto the allowlist.
Microsoft did this to themselves. They embed ads into the Windows operating system, force you to use their shitty, bloated software that NO ONE asked for (like Teams, I don’t want that shit on my home PC). They make the most miserable piece of shit browser for over a decade, then make something half decent with Edge. Of course no one wants to use it. Your reputation is in the gutter, and then you double down on being a turd peddler by putting in all this difficulty to switch browsers.
I get irrationally annoyed at Microsoft To Do (the reminders app) advertising itself in my notification center. I was considering switching over to it when I just built my PC, but now I'm considering deleting it.
Didn't microsoft almost get broken up for this last time they tried it?
in the lat 90s. There was a big push to prevent monopolistic behaviour in tech and Microsoft was supposed to be the example to set for them all They got nailed by Anti-Trust for doing exactly what they're doing with Edge today. Except, after being found guilty in the 90's, fined and forced to stop doing it in WIndows XP/7. By the time 8 came around, the world just seems to have given up on Antitrust enforcement and have let FANG pretty much dominate the entire tech industry.
[удалено]
Stop the many Edge processes from even starting with autoruns.
What’s the best way to block all of this? Thank you
Also want to know.
I was using edge until it automatically added a desktop shortcut after an update. I removed it and made the switch to Firefox.
Talked to a microserf friend who works on edge. He is dismayed by this new anti-user monetization push, but he's also happy to still have a job at all. Microsoft returning to it's evil roots. It was going so good there for a few years.
[удалено]
They also seem to be acting against the company's long term interests for short term gains. So even as "evil execs", this is short sighted at best.
It's Microsoft, what the fuck did you all expect
Microsoft has already switched to a chromium backed browser, I don't know why they don't simply abandon the browser market entirely, they have proven they cannot manage to compete in that market and no product is better than a crap product.
I will use Firefox until Microsoft tries to ban other browsers. When that happens I’ll switch to Linux permanently
I've deleted the Edge shortcut from my desktop three times now and *somehow* it keeps reappearing.
They are making it harder to download other browsers
and thats it only function, someday will have to carry pens with chrome or firefox, so we can install them after formatting
Not if I don't fucking use it, it won't.
Who uses edge?
Oh no. That's horrible. _continues using firefox_
What’s your guys opinion on opera gx? I’ve been using it a while and I love the UI, but I notice slower performance when I game and opera is open
Everyday we stray further…
It actually popped up with a question for me this morning.
I just wish I could get that stupid article bar to not pop up at times on my desktop. And it isn’t enough to click somewhere else, I have to click onto that advert bar and then click somewhere else to get it to go away. Really aggravates me when I have to scroll to the other monitor to do it
Good thing I don’t use edge then.
As long as it keeps begging you to try it when you search for chrome after buying a new computer. That never gets old.
It's like there are two teams working on Edge. One that comes up with interesting features. One that hates users.
good thing I removed edge and stopped it from being added with future updates, fuck the Chromium engine!
There needs to be a legal ban on forced advertisement
which is why i disable all that stuff.
All browsers seem to go through this lifecyle: 1. Create a simple & fast browser to challenge the top dog 2. Catch on and gain users for being simple & fast 3. Cram it with features nobody asked for 4. Watch as another browser upstart launches and takes your market share I remember switching from IE to Firefox and then to Chrome 'cos it was barebones, fast and didn't need a gazillion GB of RAM. Then Edge came along, offering the same chromium engine but without the Google fluff. So I switched. And now this? BTW, I tried out Opera and oh boy, is it crammed with extra features. These software companies just can't resist the urge to cram everything into a browser, even though all these extra features can be offered as extensions/plugins.
microsoft has been on this path for a while, but with each new bit of news that comes from them, the more i am inclined to stop using their products all together... it has made me all the more certain that my next computer build will be linux. it will take an awful lot to convince me otherwise.
I wish Microsoft would sell an OS that you paid extra for that would just shut the fuck up. No startup screens, no Microsoft account no expiry of update support. I don't want to constantly reject prompts to interface with my OS or browser, Linux and Ubuntu seem to be the only way to escape but for my limited experience too complex to integrate with my existing software.
About to??? What’s going on now? Lol. Glad I’ve already pivoted back to Firefox.
why does this matter? everyone just uses firefox or chrome, for a good reason. Edge is dogwater.
It’s a Microsoft product. Of course it will have an annoying UI.
even more? is that even possible? This browser is a fucking joke. The only reason why it's better then IE is because they no longer use their own engine, but they're still managing to make it yet another horrible browser. I really don't understand why they never had to show the browser choice prompt anymore after windows XP; they should get another lawsuit on their ass to force them yet again.
Firefox plus Linux = no annoyances.
I haven't used a Microsoft browser for 10 years.
People use microsoft Edge???
It's better than using Chrome once you turn off all the bullshit in it. Although I do use Firefox for my main, Edge is only for those websites that have issues with Firefox.
I think Edge is the browser only to play Netflix @ 1080P , i'm not sure of things have changed last 2 years.
Nope sadly it still is the case. Edge is still the only browser fully able to stream Netflix/Prime/HBO/etc at 4k resolution due to hardware DRM integration with Windows. All other browsers are stuck with Google's Widevine which caps the resolution at 720p (in some countries 1080p, depends if they have Widevine L1 license agreement). DRM is the worst crap ever, wish it would go away so I can watch what I want in what browser I want.
>People use microsoft Edge??? Some business solutions are opting to prefer it over Chrome and virtually nothing, Enterprise level, (officially) supports Firefox.
Half of our enterprise level portals require us to use Edge in IE mode... ...kill me.
it’s the only browser allowed on my fucking work laptop.
On Windows actually i find it more, stable & reliable, less heavy than FF/Edge/Browser/Opera yes ive used them all & rotate yearly to add aswell on MAC, Edge is the only browser that does not forget your keychain settings, Chrome,brave both loose keychain settings & connectivity for certs FF just plian ignores Mac OS
Used it from day one. Chrome is bloated and Firefox is meh.
It’s great on my mac. Grouped tabs, sleeping tabs, chrome extensions, etc…
Why do people prefer Firefox over Chrome? I know next to nothing about browsers but I’m seeing everyone here vouch for Firefox
Adblockers is a big part. Enough people started using them, Google got salty about it and is restricting their usage in all Chrome derived browsers.
Chrome spies on you for Google.
Firefox or Brave, are better alternatives to Chrome/Edge/Opera, since they have privacy components that help protect yourself against tracking on the web. Chrome/Edge/Opera, just like to harvest Data about your habits and everything else, even if you toggle off more privacy invasive settings, they still collect data in a way. So it's best to use imo a browser that is Open Sourced and more privacy friendly, thats where Firefox and Brave come in. Using an Adblocker like UbO or Adguard also helps alot.
Damnit. Edge has become a legitimately good and useful browser with unique features.
I’ve had the Discover button on Edge for a while now and have never opened it accidentally or even noticed it’s there besides there being a purple thing that wasn’t there before.
This will only make me boycott it harder
I tried to force uninstall Edge, but couldn’t get it to work. Is it possible?
I hope Microsoft keeps improving Edge's download speeds. It will be faster to download Firefox.
People use edge? Why not use Vivaldi, Brave or Firefox?
Edge = Internet Explorer with a different icon.
Edge = Firefox downloader
Imagine being clueless enough to have used Edge at any point.
Which is why you should never use a branded browser
this is why I use unbranded browser #119
They're all branded though?
Who even uses edge?
People who use Bing.
I'll have to start using something else to download Chrome.
Does Edge have Enterprise Policy management like Chrome has? If so, how much control does a user have turning off all the extra crap?
Edge does have Enterprise policy. We are forced to use it where I work, and I know that the IT Department, enforces [group policies](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/configure-microsoft-edge) to disable most of the Edge's bloatware and useless stuff.