- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
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Google gets to do this on Android. Apple gets to do this on iOS.
The unfortunate reality is that MS is catching up to the bad apples in bad behaviour.
Microsoft is the OG. The other two are just imitators. The only reason Microsoft happens to step carefully. Was a little thing that happened in the late 1990s. That all penalties were largely waived for. But still it frightened them enough to behave better for a short while.
Google has long since surpassed anything MS dreamed of doing.
Edit: to be clear, this article is that they’re blocking programs other than the control panel from changing the default browser.
Meanwhile, in Android, I’ve set Newpipe as the default app for YouTube videos. I have every single url for YouTube set to open in Newpipe. Still opens all YouTube video links in the YouTube app.
So Google is selling license for code and technologies. They’ve shown no ownership of in a competitor’s product? Google is actively funding litigious troll shell corporations who shown no actual harm to harass and drain competitors resources? Google is creating and using secret apis for themselves. Breaking the ones for third parties in order to hold them back?
I’m not saying Google’s good Or anything. Not defending them in any way. But they’ve got a long way to go before they reach Microsoft level. Microsoft is literally the reason why before going public. Google had the motto of don’t be evil.
But this isn’t a bad thing
Lin…ux?
Linux Linux?
If you want to keep your computer, yeah.
Might be rough, but, like… Windows7 isnt supported anymore.
Yep, I just switched yesterday.
Literally switched two days ago. Trying mint for now
PopOS uses the same core stuff as mint and is good at graphics drivers, does em automatically.
Haha, me too. I tried opensuse first but switched to mint.
Manjaro is amazing, but might have a little steep learning curve should you use it for something very advanced. Also, no .deb’s and .rpm’s for you, but AUR is arguably even more based (don’t rely on it too much though, troubleshooting issues with AUR-sourced apps is an advanced task indeed!)
Other than that, an insanely snappy (thanks, Arch!), beautiful (thank you, presets for various DEs!), almost bleeding-edge and very novice-friendly distribution.
Mint gang rise up!
Switched just a couple of months ago.
I switched to mint in November, almost everything just works (I mainly use my desktop for gaming). And everything that doesn’t, works after visiting the mint forum or is just a minor inconvenience.
I dunno; ive had trouble trying to internally rewhatsit outgoing broadcast UDP packets to multicast UDP (or even TCP and then back on the other side) packets for use with some 25 year old windows software. So clearly Linux sucks.
Okay so KDE was okay 5-10 years ago. Ultimately crawled back to Windoze. What’s in vogue in 2024?
I’m a big fan of Pop OS personally.
KDE 6 just dropped. Cinnamon is up there as well. And if you think iOS is too cluttered and functional, give Gnome a try.
Can’t endorse Gnome enough. I feel like something about it is anti ADHD for me. It optimizes screen size usage. And, the division of tasks into workspaces is glorious. It honestly bothers me a little that it helps me be productive despite myself.
Okay, you sold it to me (given for free) Should try to approach Gnome again. Currently a KDE user.
The extension ecosystem is absolutely amazing. I really love it!
I am glad someone likes it.
It frustrates me to no end.
- Budgie for minimalist KDE-like experience
- Cinnamon for good old Windows 7 vibes
- XFCE for going all XP
- KDE itself is really good nowadays, and probably the most popular option
There is plenty of choices, those are just some of the major ones.
Didn’t they already lose a court case about doing that?
This is horrible. I run several different environments of VMware Instant Clone VDIs and use the SetUserFTA to help a users default browser and other file extension defaults to persist for a user from session to session on a non-persistent VDI. Now it’s broken.
Thanks a lot Microsoft. 😤
I said literally like two days ago “fine then; keep using windows until they take a feature you rely on and all your data is either gone, or trapped in an impenetrably useless shell”
Theres no practical value to being right, but fsmn does it feel good.
Uh, sorry about your shit. If you want to still have your computer in a year; switch to linux
How do you know if someone is a bisexual vegan economics major who uses Linux? They’ve already told you.
How do you know if someone has never eaten a vegetable? They won’t shut the fuck up about vegans. Same for windows fanboys, etc.
We have 80,000 people that work for my company. That’s not going to happen. Now we have 10,000 VMs running a combination of Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, and Centos. But our employees choose the OS they want to run on their own work devices whether it be Linux, MacOS, or Windows and no way is everyone is going to Linux, even if that is my own OS of choice. Especially the C-Level and board member types.
Well, back up all their shit and have a compatible open source alternative on the table, for the day it suddenly dies.
Why aren’t you using group policy?
We are using Instant Clones. It’s a non-persistent Virtual Desktop.
We want to give our users the choice and then be able to persist those choices. Not force them to use just one option with a GPO that defines what they have to use.
SetUserFTA and Dynamic Environment Manager allowed it until the last Windows CU came along…
Okay so why not give them the choice to use whatever browser?
We do: Firefox, Chrome, or Edge. That’s not the problem.
The problem is with Microsofts new driver we can’t allow users to set the default browser in their VMwaee Instant Clone using SetUserFTA via Dynamic Environment Manager.
How long til that’s deoricated, would you bet?
Awesome tool, that one. Not often we use it (and usually inside a virtual application environment), but it’s great to rely on…
Does that mean Teams will finally stop opening links in Edge when that’s not my default browser?
a) this is a good thing because users installing extensions and programs that stealthily change defaults is pretty common b) businesses are going to use group policies so it won’t affect them.
To anyone saying “just use GPOs”, here’s a quote from the SetUserFTA page:
Microsoft offers a solution with GPO, but it is Computer-based and not User-based – and rather complicated. this means, you can not associate your Users on the same Server/Client with different file types. for example:
you have a PDF viewer and a PDF editing software on your XenApp server. Now you want that a certain group opens their PDF’s in the editor and the others only in the viewer (for licensing reasons for example). this is NOT possible anymore and Microsoft states “it is by design” and “this is a security measure”.
Said solution:
- Set up a reference computer
- Install applications
- Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs and configure default apps associations.
- Export/import the custom default app association with dism.exe
[…]
As some recommended applications can manage more extensions with each new Windows 10 version available, it’s a good practice to refresh your XML. For example, in Windows 10 1703, Microsoft Edge registers the epub extension. If you’re using an XML file from Windows 10 1607, epub is missing. As a result, you will get an app reset notification for epub.
[…]
Configure a policy for your domain-joined computer: file association will be configured at each logon. User will be able to change file association, but at the next logon file association will be configured using XML file. This policy works only for domain-joined computer.
This is just about the most convoluted, annoying way they could come up with for doing this, doesn’t help people whose machines aren’t part of AD and isn’t scriptable. If they were mainly concerned about security they’d have an option for not allowing the user to change these preferences even temporarily on domain-joined machines.
I understand that software directly and silently changing the default software can be a security issue. But it’s only because it happens silently. Does Windows allow for showing a system prompt that confirms the change to the user? If not, then that’s just plain ol’ anti-competitive. Especially with how pushy Edge and Bing can be.
I don’t think the goal is to lock you into their browser, since you still can change it through the GUI. It seems to be part of the recent push to block software which changes hidden settings. The end goal being to lock down the OS and prevent users from disabling features MS wants to push onto them.
Meanwhile, if you use Microsoft Teams & Outlook with the Teams add-on installed … and you are wondering why your email links are suddenly opening in Edge instead of your default browser, disable the Teams add-on in Outlook and rage for a moment at the stupidity.
Teams is forcing Edge browser to open links in new Teams and by extension, in Outlook. Setting the default browser to open links within Outlook settings just leads to un-clickable links. The only way to fix it is to disable the Teams Outlook add-on.
Yes, same old Microsoft. Anyone who thinks they have changed in any way since the days of forcing Internet Explorer as the default are sadly and woefully mistaken.
You can change the default Browser to open links in Teams. I had no problems opening links in Teams or Outlook since I changed it.
I see your TLD is “.de” so maybe there it works, not in America. Home of the “free”.
Changing the setting in Teams and Outlook to Default Browser resulted in links that did not work at all. Removed Teams add-on was the only solution.
Some people are saying this is good, but Microsoft recently changed my default search engine to bing “In case it was accidentally changed or changed by another program”. I have zero faith they won’t abuse this, they are becoming ever increasingly pushy about using edge and switching to bing.
BS like this has made it impossible to maintain a consistent experience for my parents who aren’t super tech savvy. It’s so frustrating helping them over the phone for hours only to realise that windows just on a whim changed major settings without any user interactions. Changed theirs OS to Debian now. Much better.
Seriously. Windows has become garbage enough that 20 years ago Linux is the better OS. Even though 20 years ago windows (well, let’s say 15) was better than modern Linux is.
Yeah that’s why you can’t give your computer to Fucking m$
I use Kagi, and so far, it seems to casually switch it back with that message about once a month.
It doesn’t seem like your computer, does it? It’s like you’re a user in their enterprise.
Haven’t they recently renamed “My Computer” to “This Computer” on the desktop?
“Our Computer”
“The Computer”
“The Nintendo” points at Xbox 360
Like the USSR, but somehow shittier, and expensive. And Theres human piss and shit on the streets because we don’t let the poor sleep in abandoned buildings.
Set it via group policy (local or domain) and forget about it.
How long til that’s deprecated though?
I would guess probably not soon. Windows still needs to be able to comply with many industries needs for compliance (ITAR, HIPAA, Financial, etc etc.) If they remove the ability to control this, they cut themselves out of their largest profit area (corporate licensing).
I think if they just unilaterally make the move, or charge extra for the feature, no regulator is going to crack down; their market share is too big.
Nah, won’t happen.
Microsoft is generally very reasonable when it comes to GPOs
no regulator is going to crack down; their market share is too big.
The bigger a company’s market share is the more likely regulation is. Hell, the EU has already done this but for internet explorer.
Microsoft won’t depreciate GPOs in many many years, at least.
Has anyone else noticed that MS switched their search engine? I have never heard of that. Sounds like a bug or something.
“Won’t happen. Can’t flood. Hey does anybody else hear water?”
I genuinely can’t tell if this was intentional but its hilarious either way.
What water are you hearing?
At least not in the EU, there Windows should even allow you to uninstall EDGE
Maybe it’s because websites should ask user before enabling cookies?
MS US not only use cookies, it logs even your keystrokes and mouse movements, apart to pass your data to Towerdata and Facebook. Cookies are not the problem if yoy use uBO, Cookie Autodelete ar similar.
Luckily I’ve changed my default OS to Linux
This is the way
Lol … you can bypass the Windows restriction by deleting the System32 folder
Instructions unclea—
Classic
Microsoft hates this one simple trick
(only tangentially related) what does ‘driver’ mean in windows lingo? I thought it was hardware-related stuff but I’m probably wrong.
It’s pretty much a program running in OS kernel space to handle specific function calls which need low level system access. Most hardware needs custom drivers to work because they need to interact with those low level OS components, so that’s why they’re mostly associated with hardware.
A lot of antiviruses use custom drivers to intercept and inspect program behavior to look for viruses, etc
Just a low-level filter that inspects and vetos things (think anti virus)
I did a fresh install on a family member’s PC yesterday. Tried to change the region in the registry so I could uninstall Edge and it wouldn’t let me. I assume this is related.
But I also dual-booted Linux so they could try it at any time 🙃
Man I hate Microsoft pre installing Edge on these laptops to push their browser. Anyways here is your laptop bro, also I pre installed Linux so I can push it to you.
Difference is I don’t profit off of installing Linux. Just encouraging other people to help themselves.
Careful with that. Microsoft loves to periodically push updates that overwrite the boot sector to disable that dual boot configuration.
Been doing it for many years and never had a problem but thanks
So the fix is to manually set your default browser. No more can programs do it for you.
I mean, it’s not hard, and it stops most malware from doing it.
It’s still going to artificially inflate Edge’s numbers from tech illiterate users that don’t know how to change it. There’s a significant number of users out there that will put up with Microsoft shitting down their throat before bothering to expend the few minutes it would take to learn how to change the settings themselves. The few that do try to figure it out will find Edge directing them to Bing which will make every effort to convince them not to do it. Meanwhile, Edge will steal all their bookmarks and tabs from Chrome, in order to further encourage users to just give up and use Edge.
It’s all calculated “dark patterns” shit, and it works. Microsoft counts on these people being so easy to corral.
And you can bet your ass after they implement this, they will push an update that “accidentally” resets the default back to Edge for everyone. Just to “clear the board”.
Other browsers can still point to the settings panel where you see your default program association, you just need to change it yourself.
This is a good change security-wise.
Are tech illiterate people intentionally using 3rd party software to change their default browser? Genuinely asking because I have always manually set my default on a new device.
The web browser would offer to do it for you. Know it can’t. The Unser knows has to navigate through the settings.
I won’t be surprised if Microsoft still makes it possible for edge to change the default without the user going into the settings.
Not necessary, the browser can offer you to change it and link to
ms-settings:defaultappsto get the user at the exact menu where they can make the change.Where they now have to click on the right combination of 8+ browser choice menus (and Microsoft keeps adding more by splitting out various custom protocol handlers) and select the correct browser in all of them.
And then they’ll still wonder where their bookmarks and saved passwords and shit went and get mad that it “looks different” when Edge inevitably opens up again randomly when they click something else, and then they click that popup to make Edge the default to make that popup go away (because Edge is allowed to make itself default with one click, but nothing else is), and then they call support and yell
Source: I’ve taken those calls in support
The install wizard of Firefox/Chrome/etc. presumably counts towards “3rd-party software” here…
No they’re not. And the tech literate people that will see that they can disable this protection and continue as normal.
Microsoft doesn’t always do good things, but I think this is fine. If you open firefox it’ll ask you if you want to set your default browser, and it won’t regedit for you. It will open up the proper windows menu that lets you set firefox as the default.
Not letting malware change your settings by default is a GOOD thing. It is also a good thing that advanced users can disable the feature.
The only bad thing about the story is the lack of transparency. Having to find out about it by breaking tools is bad. It would be better if they had a changelog for these updates that say what they do so admins can see if their tools will be affected.
