> Microsoft leverages its immensely powerful position as the supplier of the ubiquitous Windows PC operating system, as well as many productivity and other must-have apps, to push users towards its first-party browser, Edge, through tactics that restrict, distort and subvert user choice.
Heh. This could have been written 25 years ago.
Though at least back then, Microsoft was winning. Since then, the market share of IE/Edge has become so irrelevant that most people have stopped caring so much about these tactics.
At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."
As someone who was NTSE certified in the late '90s, you are absolutely correct.
I stopped supporting the platform when they:
- Mandated WGA even for licensed partners that got "Teh Crate" of every release every month which mandated multiple hosts for every version in lieu of simple multi-boot
- Allowed arbitrary code in the Registry
- Embedded IE making multi-browser testing a nightmare
- Developer API support went from detailed direct emails and MSDN articles from actual people to "search MSN on Google".
Just let Windows "die on the vine". There's zero point to continue propping up this dead platform outside of...edge ;) cases for industrial, embedded, military, and govt., use that are (mostly) already effectively version-locked anyways.
It needs to be said that this article was written by the Browser Choice Alliance, which is funded by another convicted monopolist, namely Google.
So this is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, and the conflict of interest is obvious; Google paid for this article because they want to preserve their own anti-competitive monopoly position.
It's unfortunate that this is where we are with American business in 2026, basically one mafia taking shots at another, but that's what you get when the government gives up on enforcing the law.
'At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."'
Among people who aren't nerds it is working. You'll see this in e.g. the public sector and at the top of corporations.
They also do things that force certain people to use Edge under Windows, like bulk downloads from 365 through their compliance portal. This requires a particular type of browser plugin that will only function under those conditions. I perceived this as despicable rather than adorable when I had to work around it to provide services to lawyers.
I don't know what the situation is on Microsoft Windows, but these requests that are being asked are mostly already applied on iOS:
We call on Microsoft to respect its users and implement the following changes immediately and on a worldwide basis:
-Allow browser suppliers to compete for preinstallation and default deals with Windows PC manufacturers.
-End dark patterns targeted at users seeking to download and effectively use other browsers (including as system level default).
-Bring back the ability for users to make switching default browsers simple and transparent with a “single click” change for all relevant file types and apps (including PDFs).
-Open all web links in users’ selected system-level browser of choice.
-Eliminate manipulative Microsoft-exclusive banners pushing Edge in Windows, including when users are searching for other browsers.
-Stop using operating system updates to push users back to Edge.
-Remove the restrictive configurations of existing S mode devices that block usage of third-party browsers
Yup has been like that for a while. Mobile-first design has been a thing for forever now and at work we often times doubt that its still worth it to even have a non mobile design.
I have a message for microsoft. I don't work for you. You don't mandate me to do a {$profanity} thing. You can "strongly suggest", "highly recommend", beg. I don't care if you lock me out of my github account. I will not be told what to do by your company. I'm certainly not installing any app from your company nor linking a personal device just to access github.
Controversial thought: Browsers will become a niche and fall into obscurity like IRC nowadays, based on what I observed working in South East Asia, where people don't even know what browsers are and "the internet" are walled social networks and apps.
It's not controversial, I've heard the same for about 10 years now. I still thinking they're wrong - people who need control cant really on social network apps. People who are just "consumers", sure, but those already don't know what a browser is, so it's not really a prediction about the future it's a statement about the present.
Google is also pushing Chrome on all their other apps. Google Maps keeps asksing me in what browser to open a link; putting Chrome first: I don’t have Chrome installed.
And that on top of the EEE-steps with all the non-standards they keep implementing.
It doesn't. Apple has its share of anticompetitive behaviors, but Microsoft is uniquely bad. I recently went through both experiences and, at least for the US region, the number of weird pop-ups and nags you get on Windows as you try to change the search engine and install Chrome is absolutely bonkers. It almost feels like some sort of a malware situation.
I'm no MS fanboy here, but I think Apple is worse.
Firstly Windows is arguably the most unrestrictive OS (certainly among the commercial options). You can install pretty much anything you like, from anywhere you like. Contrast to say Android or iOS it's a wild-west.
If one wants to get on the "browser freedom" train, Windows is a strange choice over say iOS.
I guess the browser change process is not universal even on Windows. I recently installed a new W11 laptop and both Chrome and FF installed fine with no drama. Sure Edge wants to be default, so does Chrome, so does FF. All nag a bit in the beginning.
Describing a browser change as "nearly impossible" seems a tad hyperbolic to me. It's really easy.
It's also a one-and-done task. Not really something to get all wound up about.
Really? I Never got a weird message from Apple about other browsers being bad or potentially dangerous, and I tried Vivaldi, DDG, Brave, Firefox, Firefox Focus, and I currently have DDG set as my main browser.
And of course I can delete Safari from my iphone if I wanted to.
You don't get that message from Apple, but the people who would otherwise offer you a meaningful choice of browsers do. They can only do what Apple permits them to do, which isn't much.
The browser might be the definitive problem with Microsoft, but really their shitty office tools is a bigger drain on the world economy. Teams is fundamentally incapable of handling something as simple as showing the correct alerts (activity? or who the hell knows since nothing has anything to do with new messages to the user) and there's hardly a B2B company in the world that will risk not losing business by running a different tool than other people running this trash.
It's really jarring to still be pinning this on Microsoft, when Google and Apple have been doing the same for free, for years, in iOS, Android and ChromeOS.
If there's any pinning needing to be done it would be on lax antitrust laws or enforcement in the U.S. In the E.U., all of these companies consistently get slapped on the wrist about all of these things, but there's only so much the E.U. can do, if these companies get a safe haven in the U.S. and if the E.U. wants to continue to trade with the U.S. relatively freely. The U.S. is taking a stance that it benefits them more to be the domicile of evil monopolistic global megacorps than to police the necessary preconditions for the existence of free markets (which would imply that other nations could compete more freely with the U.S.) The E.U. has no such conflict of interests, so it's easy for them to take the "moral" high ground (although it's not moral to be precise; more like an appeal to free market values, which, they themselves, are also happy to violate on a case-by-case basis pretty much as it suits them).
Microsoft is effectively a monopoly, to say it's anything else and that other browsers are available is a nonsense for reasons that everyone knows.
Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).
I remember Google had a slogan “don’t do evil” (dropped since then). On the top of the list of companies that do evil, I have Microsoft and Adobe. They coerce users and they destroy everything they acquire.
Internet Explorer all over again...they never learn.
Edge was the last thing that pushed me away from Microsoft. The constant new - privacy invading - features, frickin' widgets and ad-filled home-screen-tab-thing.
You are not forced to use microsoft, in fact you have consiously paid them to be your OS. You can only beg them to consider this or move to macOS or linux in general.
You absolutely are. That's precisely why they were forced to make the browser not a core part of their OS.
The entire strategy of Microsoft has been since its inception to force people to use their solutions! They got the OS on the computer itself, not something to install after with a conscious choice. Once they do this they bundle writer, spreadsheet, etc suite as one-way interoperable, then browser then online suite, then cloud, then AI... and it doesn't start with with your CTO or CIO, no it starts in school, giving licenses for poor students who can now "afford" the tool and be trained for life.
Microsoft a single uninterrupted chain of bundling despite being an illegal practice. Of course none of that would work on merit itself so they do the lobbying to insure it's used in institutions and everywhere else they can to insure that their tools are basically required.
Why are people still using Windows?
OMG, what is wrong with people? Just use Linux. Literally any major Linux distro is superior nowadays.
You don't like it, stop using it!
You hate it, boycott it!
Don't expect change. They care so little about you and your opinions; demanding change from a multi-trillion dollar company is almost cringe-worthy at this point. Like a cockroach begging for mercy as your shoe is coming down onto it at full speed.
It's so frustrating how people nowadays complain about systems that they can easily change (or substitute, in this case) and nobody seems to complain about those systems which they cannot change nor substitute.
If you complain to abstract entities which don't care about you, about problems which you can easily solve yourself, you're the problem!
You're the reason why everything is shit and stays shit.
Heh. This could have been written 25 years ago.
Though at least back then, Microsoft was winning. Since then, the market share of IE/Edge has become so irrelevant that most people have stopped caring so much about these tactics.
At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."
I stopped supporting the platform when they:
- Mandated WGA even for licensed partners that got "Teh Crate" of every release every month which mandated multiple hosts for every version in lieu of simple multi-boot
- Allowed arbitrary code in the Registry
- Embedded IE making multi-browser testing a nightmare
- Developer API support went from detailed direct emails and MSDN articles from actual people to "search MSN on Google".
Just let Windows "die on the vine". There's zero point to continue propping up this dead platform outside of...edge ;) cases for industrial, embedded, military, and govt., use that are (mostly) already effectively version-locked anyways.
EU-specific measures: https://windowsforum.com/threads/windows-11s-browser-choice-...
Indeed, I can't believe we're still having the same conversation decades later.
And now with Google effectively dictating how you interact with the web, the industry has gotten worse, not better.
So this is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, and the conflict of interest is obvious; Google paid for this article because they want to preserve their own anti-competitive monopoly position.
It's unfortunate that this is where we are with American business in 2026, basically one mafia taking shots at another, but that's what you get when the government gives up on enforcing the law.
I am reading this wondering if I got pranked and its a historical article.
Until I got to "Edge"
Among people who aren't nerds it is working. You'll see this in e.g. the public sector and at the top of corporations.
They also do things that force certain people to use Edge under Windows, like bulk downloads from 365 through their compliance portal. This requires a particular type of browser plugin that will only function under those conditions. I perceived this as despicable rather than adorable when I had to work around it to provide services to lawyers.
From this article [0]
> Smartphones have become the dominant gateway to the internet.
> Mobile Share of Web Requests (Dec 2024) - 63%
IMHO, this is far more pernicious and insidious.
[0]: https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/device-usage-trends/
We call on Microsoft to respect its users and implement the following changes immediately and on a worldwide basis:
-Allow browser suppliers to compete for preinstallation and default deals with Windows PC manufacturers.
-End dark patterns targeted at users seeking to download and effectively use other browsers (including as system level default).
-Bring back the ability for users to make switching default browsers simple and transparent with a “single click” change for all relevant file types and apps (including PDFs).
-Open all web links in users’ selected system-level browser of choice.
-Eliminate manipulative Microsoft-exclusive banners pushing Edge in Windows, including when users are searching for other browsers.
-Stop using operating system updates to push users back to Edge.
-Remove the restrictive configurations of existing S mode devices that block usage of third-party browsers
I might be years out of the loop if I missed that changing lol
Heck, using safari to do a google search has google using half the screen begging me to use their browser or their use the google full ai experience.
And that on top of the EEE-steps with all the non-standards they keep implementing.
Firstly Windows is arguably the most unrestrictive OS (certainly among the commercial options). You can install pretty much anything you like, from anywhere you like. Contrast to say Android or iOS it's a wild-west.
If one wants to get on the "browser freedom" train, Windows is a strange choice over say iOS.
I guess the browser change process is not universal even on Windows. I recently installed a new W11 laptop and both Chrome and FF installed fine with no drama. Sure Edge wants to be default, so does Chrome, so does FF. All nag a bit in the beginning.
Describing a browser change as "nearly impossible" seems a tad hyperbolic to me. It's really easy.
It's also a one-and-done task. Not really something to get all wound up about.
And of course I can delete Safari from my iphone if I wanted to.
Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil
Who is the "Browser Choice Alliance" I thought to myself. One web search later:
> Our members: Midori, Opera, Vivaldi, Wavebox, Browserworks, and, ... wait for it ...
> Chrome.
You absolutely are. That's precisely why they were forced to make the browser not a core part of their OS.
The entire strategy of Microsoft has been since its inception to force people to use their solutions! They got the OS on the computer itself, not something to install after with a conscious choice. Once they do this they bundle writer, spreadsheet, etc suite as one-way interoperable, then browser then online suite, then cloud, then AI... and it doesn't start with with your CTO or CIO, no it starts in school, giving licenses for poor students who can now "afford" the tool and be trained for life.
Microsoft a single uninterrupted chain of bundling despite being an illegal practice. Of course none of that would work on merit itself so they do the lobbying to insure it's used in institutions and everywhere else they can to insure that their tools are basically required.
You don't like it, stop using it! You hate it, boycott it! Don't expect change. They care so little about you and your opinions; demanding change from a multi-trillion dollar company is almost cringe-worthy at this point. Like a cockroach begging for mercy as your shoe is coming down onto it at full speed.
It's so frustrating how people nowadays complain about systems that they can easily change (or substitute, in this case) and nobody seems to complain about those systems which they cannot change nor substitute.
If you complain to abstract entities which don't care about you, about problems which you can easily solve yourself, you're the problem!
You're the reason why everything is shit and stays shit.