I just got this popup while playing New vegas. I don’t even use chrome, i’ve switched to firefox. How can this be allowed? Also, this is Win10
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If governments actually gave a fuck about antitrust anymore, it would be. 20-ish years ago, they dragged Microsoft to court over simply bundling IE with Windows. It didn’t even constantly nag you to set as default; just the fact that it was bundled at all was enough to make it into the sights of regulators.
Dumb question but how would you get your browser of choice if they didn’t include one from the jump?
At the time, you’d get a disk from a store or order it from a magazine or whatever. I don’t really know what the solution would be now since those aren’t things though. I guess get one from a friend or another device?
If they didn’t bundle safari on a mac or firefox on linux, there are terminal commands to install firefox and chrome on both.
There is a command for windows via their built in package manager apparently, but I can’t confirm that.
Yea, winget is the build in windows package manager.
I started using that pretty frequently and a lot of software is on it, though it does lack some features like version pinning.
There is a website to explore the available packages at winget.run, which makes it a bit easier to use.
I believe it contained multiple browser installers and let you pick one.
Cd or usb
Microsoft clearly uses dark patterns and FUD to lure you into using Bing.
As long as they’re using legal loopholes (or downright do not care because they have enough money to pay any fines) you cannot do anything against it except not using their OS.
I stopped using outlook entirely for this behaviour. Outlook would embed a bing search in your long press menu on android.
What kind of long press menu? I have it installed but don’t have any such menu.
Highlight some text in your browser or an app
Yea I don’t see it
If you press the 3dots does it show in a list?
I don’t have whatever other apps are showing in that list so it was showing up first
This is all I have.
Microsoft rolling out different misfeatures to different users would be some next-level gaslighting. I would not put that past them.
Oh God, that was so annoying! Once I realized which app had added that, I uninstalled it with alacrity. I have to use Outlook for my job, but that doesn’t mean I’ll use the mobile version ever again. And the web-based one actually works fine on mobile devices.
Yeah absolute pisstake. I’ve moved to Proton Mail and forward any left to transfer emails and use the outlook lite app to manage it, it’s actually not that bad.
MS is a spam company and it’s turned me into a daily Linux user.
Ironic, because I used to use Bing (over Google) and all this kind of bullshit - especially aggressively pushing their chat bot - pushed me away (to DDG).
I mean, it depends on your design of the fines. If you ask for a days revenue per day of violation, this stuff will never happen again (since this is no mistake, it is totally fair price). A month of this and their yearly profit is in the government hand.
It’s getting REALLY difficult to tell normal operation and viruses apart.
I think you’re confusing virus and malware. Windows is malware by definition. I think according to gnu philosophy any proprietary software is malware because features are designed to make profits and not to service the end user.
thanks again Richard
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Because in all practical senses, windows is a virus.
Viruses at their core are programs which do things against your will on your own machine. Which is bad.
However, that is exactly what windows does. But like the boiling frog, people for some reason are okay with more bullshit from Microsoft and less control of their own devices with every passing update and year.
Complaining on
redditsocial media does nothing. Switching to Linux gives you back control and will be better for everyone in the long run.Who’s complaining on Reddit?
This isn’t reddit?
We don’t speak of it since the great purge.
Plenty of people, but I’m not sure why they would bring it up here on Technology@lemmy.world of all places.
Is this an attack or a Windows update?
Maybe I’m missing something, but why would this be illegal?
Anti consumer and anti competitive. Using their position as the OS to bug the living shit out of you to use their services
Anti consumer and anti competitive.
I’m not so sure how it’s either of those things. I mean yeah, it’s annoying (especially if it’s popping up while you’re playing a game), but I don’t feel like it’s crossing either of these lines. If you click “Don’t switch”, it goes away, and it’s not changing anything without your permission. I’ve never seen it pop up again on my devices. I forget where in the settings it would be, but I seem to recall there being an option to disable suggestions like this, as well (although an argument could be made that this should be opt-in instead of opt-out).
I know this community has a (largely justified) hate-boner for big tech companies, but not every annoyance is a crime. If anything, I’m just glad to see that they’re at least respecting the user’s consent these days; in the before times, Microsoft would just revert all your shit to what they wanted, whether you liked it or not, permission be damned. I lost track of how many WinXP updates would reinstall that Bing Bar (or MSN or whatever they called it back then) without asking me.
Unless there’s another angle that I’m not seeing, I don’t see how this is that much of a problem. If anything, it’s a good advertisement for Linux, though.
I’m not even remotely a legal expert and I don’t know what type of popup that is but I think the anti-competitive piece is “could Google use the same technique to push the user to switch to google search on Edge or not?”.
If this was an ad from a web page OP had opened or from the game and if clicking “Yes” only directed the user to a site with instructions on how to switch default search engine on Chrome, then yes, obnoxious but probably fair. Google could strike a deal with the game developers to push their search engine to Edge users or buy an ad. Someone writing a new browser or search engine will probably have considerably less money than Google but could reasonably do something similar to try and gain market share.
On the other hand, if that popup comes from Windows itself and especially if clicking “Yes” directly changes Chrome’s settings, then this is Microsoft using their ubiquitous (on desktops) OS to nudge more users to switch a competitor’s browser to their own search engine. Google, or even less a new competitor. would probably not have the same type of OS-level access to switch the settings of a different browser.
Google already does this - and has been for years - use Google Search or Gmail on a non-Google browser and it will “suggest” you use Chrome
Less on edge, but google goes father actually. Google pays Mozilla to make google search the default aearch engine. You could argue thats worse then creating a notification to switch (but doesnt actually do it yet till you allow it to)
Disagree. OS pop-ups are at a much more basic system level than going to a specific site and then it might prompt a pop-up.
In the case of firefox, its not going to a specific site, it would be that way when installed. Its like saying mocrosoft should just outright overwrite the default search engine on amy browser without asking you vs asking you via popup, unless youre saying that the former is better.
Not at all. The difference here is that Google agreed that with Mozilla themselves. They don’t overwrite the browser settings when you open Google. I agree with the sentiment that Google should have less influence and alternative search engines should get more space, but Mozilla itself, Google’s competitor, is who agreed to have their search engine as the default.
It also comes to mind that Microsoft, again, insists on asking you to change to Bing on Edge every update, even if you already picked a different search engine.
I can see many many examples of how bad Microsoft and Google can be. However this one I honestly don’t understand: how’s Google supporting Mozilla’s competing product anti- competitive? Are they forcing Mozilla to do things they don’t want in return?
I am a Firefox uaer and on every install on a new machine (or phone) I switch the default search engine to duckduckgo. But for good or for bad Google is the search engine most people use (and would use on FF too even if it wasn’t the default). I don’t think Google needs to force Firefox 3%-ish market share to use their search engine.
By setting defaults, its the reason why Microsoft was accused for being anti conpetitive by having a default browser installed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp
And why Windows N version exists
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions (look under N/KN in regional variations)
Its why google also for european devices offer a default search engine selection as setting a default is considered anti competiive in EU
https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-google-antitrust-idUSL4N24Y2GY
Using a dominant market position as leverage against competitors, is per definition Anti consumer and anti competitive.
Apart from that, they are basically hijacking a competitors product to show this, which I think if not already illegal, it absolutely should be.
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I think this sentiment come from the long history of Microsoft repeatedly breaking and then failing to address antitrust requests. At this point people just assume bas faith.
I remember maybe a decade ago how it seemed a big deal anytime they used their OS monopoly to fuck with 3rd parties alternatives. But yeah, I don’t think every popup and annoyance is a crime. There’s a fine line they walk to still push their first-party garbage.
It’s about it being annoying or not. Microsoft is in a market position where they can leverage their different departments to heavily upsell you on other services. They have an unfair advantage that shifts the entire market to their favor, thus making it hard for any competitor to keep up or even enter the market.
E.g. they use every service / product they have to integrate Bing, they artificially limit the use of their chat bot to Microsoft Edge, they show Bing advertisements when you visit their competitors sites, they allow you to use Teams for free under certain conditions (if you already bought other products), they use their foot in the door with Microsoft Office / Windows go upsell you on Azure, …, Game Pass, …
I can go on and on. Some of them aren’t necessarily bad on their own. Some are. It paints a pattern of what Microsoft used to be. They actively used their position to try and create market conditions that would break their competitors or make it at least hard for them to even compete. About 15 years ago a lot of folks believed Microsoft had changed and were playing fair (in certain bounds), they invested a lot into open source and were generally a more friendly company. What we are currently witnessing is them going back to their old ways of doing things. Slowly tying everything back together. Probably under the assumption that this time the governments are sleeping and not really regulating it anymore. A lot of that is happening in the somewhat non-regulated cloud market anyways.
Anticompetitive is a matter of antitrust law. Microsoft doesn’t currently have a monopoly on operating systems in the way they did 25 years ago.
Looking online in January they had a 74% share of desktops.
Linux is certainly dominating in the cloud but that doesn’t really make much difference here.
74% market share for desktop OS is actually a lot less than I thought. Guess macOS had a solid comeback
For desktop and laptop computers, Microsoft’s Windows is the most used at 69%, followed by Apple’s macOS at 17%, and Google’s ChromeOS at 3.2% (in the US up to 8.0%), and desktop Linux at 2.9%. In addition, 5% is attributed to “unknown” operating systems - which are likely forms of BSD or obscure varieties of Linux.[4]
From Wikipedia. Not sure when the numbers are from exactly.
Apple has been slowly growing for years. Google took a little with their Chromebooks but they never really took off. Linux continues to grow steadily but is still pretty rare in desktop environments.
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Yeah if you follow the link to the source freebsd is 0.01%
Linux is 3.1 and unknown is 3.7 so in all likelyhood that’s mostly Linux that they couldn’t identify.
Not sure how the data is collected. Often from useragents on websites I think.
Those have to be old. Last I saw chromeOS had overtaken MacOS a few years ago due to Google’s huge push to give chromebooks to schools during the pandemic for remote learning. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56116573
Unless chromeOS just cratered.
It’s hard to find numbers but I did find this:
According to current data from research firm Gartner, ChromeOS’s market share dropped considerably from 2020 to 2022, with just 6.8% of the worldwide PC market in 2022
So seem like it has bombed since that article.
Your article suggest it was a boom due to lockdown. Maybe that’s faded as kids go back to school.
Just way for the year of the Linux desktop baby!Any second now, any second
it’s also notable that Microsoft has no realistic mobile OS of their own, and a huge amount of what used to be done on a desktop OS is now on mobile. Operating an ecommerce site for instance, 65% of the traffic is from mobile phones, even browser vs apps.
According to Rules of the Internet § 12 “if I find something to be annoying, objectionable, or wrong it surely must be illegal.”
MS literally got in trouble for bundling IE with the OS 20 years ago… This is so much worse.
If you cannot understand why people are rightfully upset… LEARN YOUR FUCKING HISTORY.
Those days are long gone. Else we’d see Apple and Google getting in trouble for bundling their own apps for everything on their devices.
People can be pissed that multiple different companies are doing things wrong at the same time. The problem is our government has lost its teeth for regulating large businesses
Things were a little bit different in the late 90s though. Windows had a 97% market share and a massive deal with pretty much every computer maker to only put Windows on their pre-built machines. They had a true monopoly in a way that doesn’t exist today.
They also made IE free and bundled with the OS when every other browser at the time you had to buy. On top of that, they made it so that windows would slow down and malfunction if you uninstalled IE, and made installing any other browser a complicated process.
Today you can freely and easily install pretty much any browser you want. Chrome has the hugely dominant share in the the desktop browser market now, despite Edge being bundled with Windows.
On top of that, Microsoft doesn’t have the massive stranglehold on OS market share that they used to. In the desktop space, MacOS is about 1 in 6 computers with Windows holding 71%, mostly in the enterprise sector.
And this doesn’t even factor in that the majority of web traffic is mobile now, where Windows doesn’t even have a presence anymore.
Basically every point you’re trying to make about how MS was in the 90’s is truer today except for market share.
Why is market share such a critical point when we’re suffering from WORSE problems?
Market share matters because Windows was a functional monopoly back then.
Market share matters a whole lot less than people pretend… Yes, “monopoly” requires it, but in reality, in the real world where real things happen, you do NOT NEED a literal monopoly to start suffering from the same problems!
Jeeze, it’s like you people want to no-true-scotsman yourselves in to a future where corporations literally own you and your time…
upset
Upset != “Illegal”
They had to separate it you numpty. They literally DID get in trouble because it was illegal. How are you seriously missing this detail?
I’ve been a Linux warrior since '98. I’ve hated MS for decades now.
But not everything they do is illegal.
You’re talking about the past. Notice you’re not explaining how this thing in the present is illegal.
Having some something illegal doesn’t mean everything you do is illegal afterwards.
Way to completely and utterly miss the entire point of ethics. Does it HAVE to be illegal for it to be bad when it is WORSE than what they’ve already gotten in trouble for in the past? Why must I have to point at a law in order to say it shouldn’t be?
If you even begin to hate MS, why are you defending them with piss-poor logic?
yes officer, this comment right here.
Because OP is a crybaby.
It’s not, that’s why they’re doing it.
It is illegal - they’ve already been taken to court and lost over similar practices 20 years ago.
It’s just not enforced anymore - and that’s why they’re doing it.
They were taken to court for bundling a previously paid product (a browser) into their OS for free.
Asking if you want to change your search engine is not the same thing.
One of the many reasons why I will never return to Windows.
I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it’s a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
In the same boat. and recently of all the issues that could pop up, Teams has decided to become a buggy mess. Their own software on their own OS just stops working after just one year of using the machine.
Not to speak of all the other slowdowns and child-diseases that the thing has developed.
Meanwhile my desktop install of Linux is nearing its 10th birthday, has all sorts of legacy configs that I never bothered to clean up, has moved drives 3 times and to a different filesystem+partitioning scheme, changed bootloader… Yet still is way less of a pain than Windows at work.
I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it’s a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
What do you use the rest of the time that you prefer? Serious question, because I’ve been looking at Windows alternatives for a while and I like to hear what’s working better for others.
Everything with a GUI runs POP_OS, because I like how much control I have over app windows via the keyboard. When I’m hyperfocused I like not having to take my hands off the keyboard. It has really good tiling too, but I think vanilla Gnome has mostly caught up in that department.
Agreed
I still don’t get how Microsoft got in trouble for bundling internet explorer but now they are completely fine doing this
Anti-trust regulation has gotten very toothless in recent years. The shit many corporations are pulling now is insane when you think back about what happened to ms then.
Because that haven’t cause any harm I guess? Google was punished for pulling the same stunt with Chrome, but they actually succeeded. Meanwhile, few people i know use Edge right now. My cousin used to advocate for Edge until a Windows update wiped his browser clean
Frustratingly, the rulings preventing them from bundling software with an operating system stopped them from building in anti-virus measures. For years when Windows was synonymous with malware, they had their hands tied. 20 years later, they started including Windows defender / Security Essentials. The unnecessary global economic losses caused were immense.
They will be fine doing this for 5 years, then a new antitrust ruling will tell them to stop, and so on.
What company was it that lost an antitrust lawsuit again? It was something like Macrosoft? Microphone? idr
Lost is a strong word. Shure they lost the suit. But in reality they were just forced to start playing the politics game.
I remember them feeling pretty Blue about it.
Microsuck??
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Or you just install Linux and be done with it.
Yes, I am THAT guy. It looks and feels like windows, but prettier, nicer, and better. No more corporate rules bullshit, no more anti virus bullshit, no more bullshit.
Yes, most games do work now.
Yes, most windows software has equal or better alternatives, or run natively through wine.
You don’t have to put up with Microsoft bullshit.
Get rid of office, Hotmail and teams while you’re at it and get working software.
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Because…? I’ve used Linux on desktop for over 20 years now. Yes. I have a multi monitor (3 monitors) setup with a cool looking 3d desktop (bling mostly to show off, make people come for the bling, stay for the awesome computer experience) and I’ve loved every minute of it.
Every single time I see another one of these posts I tell people to come to Linux, we got cookies
Have fun with your digital Stockholm syndrome and corpo mindshare.
Man, people like you are why we have to call it GNU/Linux. You have no core principles.
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You sort of missed the point where Linux gives you freedom. Linux is built for users, windows is built for marketing, and it shows. It makes Linux nice for end users and it makes windows nice for the marketing department, sales and the share holders.
Windows SUCKS in it’s daily use and even after all these years it’s still a Swiss cheese security wise. Yes, people would face issues with Linux too. Of course they will. But it will be a while different class of issues, not caused by a “fuck the user” attitude like Microsoft has it, but issues that will be solved because on Linux people actual care.
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I do.
I help people with Linux wherever I can.
I make companies use Linux. My own company uses Linux everywhere, it was built in from the start.
What you’re saying is a chicken and egg problem. Companies would love to give support go Linux users but then they need Linux users…
No , you just gave up. Stop lying to yourself. You hide behind muh affordability because that’s the convenient excuse to use to not think about this.
The status quo will benefit you for giving up entirely and disparaging those who advocate for freedom.
“Teenage me” sounds like a mask off moment for you being a bitter out of touch person. You endorse the status quo and hide it under emotional rants of being more mature than the rest of us.
“Nothing is pure… Rant about corpo crap”
I’m only commenting to this because I don’t want younger folks or to be caught up in your self hate spiral.
Its GNU/Linux because clowns like you exist and won’t shut up. People deserve better, they don’t deserve someone like you frothing at the mouth at the fact that you don’t believe a better world is possible.
You’re incredibly lucky that a majority of “Linux”/tech communities tolerate you.
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Church
And then again, next update. Cat. And. Mouse.
Meaning? That you need to update software? Of course you do. Even on Linux. But when you do you don’t have to reboot, for example. Minor difference caused by a smart filesystem versus whatever the fuck windows uses these days.
They mean Microsoft will keep sneaking things like this into updates. We can stop them installing misfeatures if we know they’re coming but Microsoft can at any time just roll out a new update with different adverts in. Unless we stop updating there’s no way for us to select between legit updates and unwanted ads.
Yeah. Install Linux, problem solved.
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The internet needs more people like you.
Excellent instructions, nice clear and to the point.
Nah it doesn’t. He is being a dick. You probably can Google that. He missed the point of the entire topic. Nobody was positing how to remove it because this topic wasn’t about that. If someone would have asked about it in the first place people would probably have provided solutions.
Why wouldn’t it be legal? You are using their product and they put out a notification on it asking if you want to use one of their products. Why would that be illegal!?
Like I understand people not liking it, but illegal?
I am pretty sure they are insinuating that it is antitrust violation. It probably is but our current governance seems unwilling to do anything about anti-competitive practices.
Creating a monopoly with a competitive advantage is illegal in Europe.
These posts are just getting insane at this point.
It is illegal in Europe.
What is illegal? Asking you if you want to change your default search engine? That doesn’t sound illegal to me so I wonder what law is causing it to be illegal.
It’s shit like this that will eventually drive me away from windows. I was baffled when it appeared.
As someone who was recently driven, leave it. It’s never going to get better, only worse. And linux is only going to get better the more you understand it.
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Idk man I’m pretty busy… With… Something less tedious than installing an operating system lol
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Once upon a time I dual booted every computer I had. Not sure why I fell out of the habit really.
Something less tedious than installing an operating system lol
Jeez. I remember 25 years ago when we reinstalled Windows every 6 months to a year or so as a matter of course. It was literally recommended to do so because of the buildup of cruft and garbage. These days, people can’t be bothered to download an iso and press a few “next” buttons.
I’m not going to try and argue that I’m not being lazy, but the actual process of installing the OS is the least onerous part. Software beats it by a mile.
You’d be surprised. Ubuntu is basically download it for free onto USB drive, plug in USB drive, start computer, choose to start Ubuntu from drive, try it out, if you like it click install, and you’re done.
+1 on this recommendation. Live distros are definitely the best way to dip your toe in the Linux desktop world without accidentally wrecking your system.
They got in trouble for setting internet explorer as the default and had to pop a prompt when you installed windows a while ago.
I don’t think asking if you want to is illegal though. But it could be as they are using their ownership of the operating system to push you towards their other products.
It is because you agreed to to the terms and conditions of the Windows operating system
Those are likely mostly unenforceable.
“I will make it legal.”
-Darth CEOus
Run a debloat script for windows from christitustech. And if you want to start from fresh install w10/11 ltsb/ltsc and run the debloat script, that is the safest option, if you don’t want to swap to Linux.
I especially love that it was blurry. I shit you not, a blurry popup telling me to switch the search engine like some 2010 malware.
Everything is legal in the US if you can lobby enough
Not quite. You can also break the law, pay a fraction of what you grifted, say sorry and then continue.
