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.
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.
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.
I use Kagi, and so far, it seems to casually switch it back with that message about once a month.
Yeah that’s why you can’t give your computer to Fucking m$
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?
Posts like these reveal how many reads the article.
This is a good thing done by Microsoft. They make sure that 3rd party software can’t change the default browser without the user knowing.
They will get prompted with the choice screen showing all installed browsers. And when they make their choice, even Edge wouldn’t be able to prey people into clicking a button that makes it the default instead.
In principal, the change is good for reasons you mentioned. However microsoft has :
- bypassed any default screens in the past, allowing edge to be set default without user input.
- has added very annoying screens when changing default applications asking the user multiple times if they are sure.
- has added special protocols for applications and set edge as default browser to bypass default application settings in all office applications ( outlook, teams, word, … ).
They just can not be trusted with this, they have proven this in the past…
No, they can’t be trusted. That’s why they are forced to do it by the EU to comply to the DMA.
This may only be released in the EU, also.
Posts like this reveal how many people believe every word a megacorp PR dept announces
More like how many believe their own stupid head-canon without reading or confirming shit.
It’s literally to comply with the EU. Microsoft doesn’t do this to be nice.
No, somebody speculated it’s to comply with the EU. The rest of us are speculating that it’s to push up their market share.
Hahahahahaha, right, right. Hahahaha
And I did read the article. No, this is MS continually pushing users into Edge.
“Kolbicz believes this change may be to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA)” (emphasis mine).
“BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft about the lockdown of these Registry keys in March, but they said they had nothing to share at this time.”
The dma only speaks about easily changing the default application. It has nothing to do with this.
What the dma did allow was the “complete” uninstall of edge in windows 11.
The only thing that is left behind i noticed is the edge webview component for webview & webview2
Considering that Edge makes itself the default browser and even PDF reader on its own every few weeks, I don’t trust Microsoft to keep Edge from taking over as default without user input.
They’d have to. They don’t make the change so they can be nice. It’s probably also only for EU users, when it releases.
Nope the article state
However, this new driver has also rolled out to Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices in the USA that do not have to comply with the DMA act, shedding doubt on this theory.
No they don’t. At most they just have to detect automatic changes and ask the user to confirm. They have no reason for forcing the user to dig into menus and then also repeatedly override that same choice.
The “choose the default app” modal has special code that makes it say “HEY BTW EDGE EXISTS CLICK HERE” If the modal is for choosing your default browser. It is absolutely about control.
So many headline readers. To be honest, 99% of these problems that folks rage about could be resolved with a group policy (local or domain). The problem is, Windows is like 73% of worldwide OS usage, so like it or not, there is a lot of trying to protect the user from themselves. Team Linux can’t fathom that because they come from the perspective that they can build thier experience from the ground up to be exactly as they like. The VAST majority of people don’t want that, they want something that works and they don’t really care what happens behind the curtains. I would wager that 90% of users could care less what browser they use (or would even notice if it changed!) as long as they still had access to their bookmarks.
I would like to share a positive experience from this new driver the article is about. I use notepad++ and setting it as the default was kind of a pain in the butt. It would work sometimes, but not consistently, and often depended on a registry hack or symlink to work. Now with the new interface for default apps, as long as I have the new Windows Notepad app installed when I change the defaults for “open with”, it just works! For all the file extensions, all the time. Honestly it’s a much better experience and it’s ACCESSIBLE to the lay person.
Luckily I’ve changed my default OS to Linux
Lol … you can bypass the Windows restriction by deleting the System32 folder
Microsoft hates this one simple trick
Classic
Instructions unclea—
This is the way
Lin…ux?
Yep, I just switched yesterday.
Literally switched two days ago. Trying mint for now
Haha, me too. I tried opensuse first but switched to mint.
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.
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.
PopOS uses the same core stuff as mint and is good at graphics drivers, does em automatically.
If you want to keep your computer, yeah.
Might be rough, but, like… Windows7 isnt supported anymore.
Linux Linux?
Okay so KDE was okay 5-10 years ago. Ultimately crawled back to Windoze. What’s in vogue in 2024?
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.
I am glad someone likes it.
It frustrates me to no end.
Okay, you sold it to me (given for free) Should try to approach Gnome again. Currently a KDE user.
Removed by mod
I use paperwm, and I think its the greatest user interface ever. Actually makes my odyssey super ultrawide useful
I’m a big fan of Pop OS personally.
- 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?
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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
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.
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.
Awesome tool, that one. Not often we use it (and usually inside a virtual application environment), but it’s great to rely on…
Why aren’t you using group policy?
How long til that’s deoricated, would you bet?
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 VMware Instant Clone using SetUserFTA via Dynamic Environment Manager.
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.
I’m not sure that a protection against changing the default browser with third party programs (maybe without the user knowing) via the registry is the evil thing being depicted here.
The way I read this article is that this is a move for compliance with the new digital markets act and I’m not seeing the maliciousness.
Willing to be wrong, I haven’t used Windows regularly for like 20 years.
That’s one take, except even the article notes that’s a weak argument.
You kidding? That means First party is now a protected method which will absolutely result in the expected outcome like they have done with every “feature” update blocking work arounds.
Incomprehensibly stupid, because all they have to do is ask the user to confirm. Forcing through their own default instead of asking is malicious.
We know. You keep telling us.
Don’t worry, someone will port it to Linux some day.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
they ported ms edge to linux already
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
edge is on linux at least as a beta as I write this
At least not in the EU, there Windows should even allow you to uninstall EDGE. MS in the EU is way different, less restrictive and more private than MS US.
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 yo use uBO, Cookie Autodelete or similar.
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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.
Presumably one can still set default in settings. I’m not giving up Firefox yet.
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Nowhere in the article does MS say that. It’s presented as an argument, while MS said “no comment”.
Nowhere does MS claim that.
“Kolbicz believes this change may be to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA)” (emphasis mine).
“BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft about the lockdown of these Registry keys in March, but they said they had nothing to share at this time.”
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They say that, but I’ll believe it when I see the implementation.
But why? Is administrators forcing their company’s laptop to use certain browser actually a significant problem before?
They aren’t talking about system administrators. They are talking about 3rd party software presenting a privilege escalation prompt (administrator access) and changing your default browser without you knowing about it
Its more a issue in China where every browser (read malware) would make itself the default and it’s a pain to change it back.
Then just ask the user instead of assuming
Still doable for corporate-managed devices through GPOs, MS Intune, MECM, etc
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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”.
it stops malware from doing it
There are many different ways to prevent that apart from straight up removing the functionality. Another tactic Microsoft uses is trying to convince you there is only ever one way to secure the system and they “have no choice” if they want to keep their users safe.
It’s like saying the only way to keep a plane from being hi-jacked is to handcuff every passenger to their chair. It’s bullshit.
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 install wizard of Firefox/Chrome/etc. presumably counts towards “3rd-party software” here…
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
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.
Other browsers can still point to the settings panel (
ms-settings:defaultapps) where you see your default program association, you just need to change it yourself.This is a good change security-wise. All other modern OSes do it, Microsoft is simply catching up.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Windows isn’t ready for the desktop. Just use Linux.
I mean, Windows is just such a weird proprietary distro.
It doesn’t use the latest Linux kernel, or even a mainstream POSIX-compliant alternative like BSD. Instead, you have a strange CP/M-like monolithic kernel — I think they used to call it DOS — that’s been extended to behave more like VAX and MP/M.
It also doesn’t use either X11 or Wayland as a display manager. Instead, you have an incredibly unintuitive overblown WINE-like subsystem handling the display.
Because it doesn’t use Linux, Wayland, or X11, you are limited in the desktop environment that you can use. There’s really limited support for KDE, despite the best efforts of volunteers.
Instead, there’s a buggy and error-prone proprietary window manager that ships with it by default. A bit like how Canonical tried to ship Unity as it’s default desktop environment with Ubuntu.
And confusingly, they’ve named that window manager Windows as well!
That window manager lacks many of the features an everyday Gnome or KDE user would expect out of the box.
It also doesn’t ship with a standard package manager, and most of the packages ship as x86 binaries, so installing software works differently to how an everyday Linux user would expect.
There’s also only one company maintaining all of these projects. It insists on closed source, and it has a long history of abandoning its projects.
And sure, if you’re a nerd who’s into alternative operating systems, toying with Windows can be fun.
But if your grandpa is used to Linux, frankly he’ll be utterly bamboozled by the Windows experience.
I’m sorry to be glib, because Windows does have some nice ideas.
But.
Windows on the desktop just isn’t ready for your average, everyday Linux user.
@ajsadauskas @Naich @ardi60 And if you thought that was confusing, the same company also makes a “Windows Subsystem for Linux” but appears to have got the name backwards — it’s not FOR Linux, at all!
I agree with every single bit of this but felt like I was being attacked the whole time I read it. Maybe it’s PTSD from asking questions in Linux forums as a kid and getting ripped into with long replies. Does anybody else feel that way?
Shocking. Never expected this behavior from such a helpful and heart warming company like Micro~.sft /s
