Microsoft will forcibly open some websites in Edge instead of Internet Explorer

ZDNet ^ | October 26, 2020 | Catalin Cimpanu

[DesertRhino]

“They are doing automatically what you would have to do manually .”

yeah, just don’t drink too much and pass out around Bill Gates. He might just “automatically do what you would have to do manually”.

Microsoft... making date rape of your OS into a “feature”.

[Starcitizen]

VS Code? No decent plug-in support. I use visual assist.
Unreal for Linux: runs like crap
Unity3D for Linux: unsupported crapware
CryEngine/ Lumberyard: non-existent

No native 3DSMax (an absolute requirement) and no decent alternative
No native Adobe Photoshop support (an absolute requirement) and no decent alternative
No Avid ProTools support (an absolute requirement) and no decent alternative
No Substance Designer/Painter support (an absolute requirement) and no decent alternative

wine is crapware. Crossover office likewise.
Steam Library: 1/100th of games available for Windows
No DirectX support (an absolute requirement)

I’m sticking to MacOS and Parallels for most things. Bootcamp for those things requiring Windows hardware acceleration

[Phillyred]

The new Edge Chromium is great. Faster than chrome in my experience so far.

[Taxman]

CCleaner browser: https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/browser

[MayflowerMadam]

I hate Edge.

[a fool in paradise]

I’ve seen this happen within the past 30 days.

[Delta 21]

I have been looking at Linux Mint or Cinnamon.

Mmmmm, Cinnamon.

[Openurmind]

Lol, same here. Isn’t it nice to have forgotten all those MS issues?

[PAR35]

Microsoft promised for years that after January 14, 2020, they’d leave me and my Win7 alone.

They lied.

A few months after the ‘support end date’, they pushed out an un-asked for copy of Edge to my computer, installed it without my consent, and put it in the task bar to rub their misconduct in my face.

My current browsers on this computer, in order of use are
Brave
Firefox
Chrome
IE
Seamonkey (2.9.1) (not the current 2.53.4)

I don’t use the spyware called Edge on this machine.

[Rurudyne]

I feel the same about Microsquish in general.

[PAR35]

I’m still using IE. I have an old XP machine I’d like to get working again.

[crazycat]

Once you experience it, you’ll never go back....as solid as rock and so fast .

[DEPcom]

"VS Code? No decent plug-in support."

Check out the extenstions: Extension Market Place

I know a lot of Mac and Linux users using VS Code in my field. Never heard of Visual Assist IDE: the only Visual Assist I know of is an extension for Visual Studio. The new version of Visual Studio (2019) and VS code makes plugins like Visual Assist and ReSharper obsolete.

I did not know Wine was still around. The last time I heard of Wine was around 1999 and it did not work well.

[Openurmind]

The cinnamon is same the mint base but is a fuller boxed set of needed app software and features. What I found is to just go for the full cinnamon package, because even if you go for a “lighter” mint package with less apps you will end up needing to download them all later anyhow. May as well just get the fully loaded package in one install from the get go. :)

Yep, mint cinnamon package is the way to go. I’m going on almost four years now and have never even needed to update it once. Umloke MS, with linux once you know all the hardware is working fine just turn off updates because they are not needed.

If any app new installs require any extra dependencies you do not already have it will go grab those also at the same time. That alone is pretty cool.

[Weirdad]

<rant>

Surprisingly, given the bad start it had, fully updated Vista 64 late in its run was better than XP, 7, 8, and 10. Many people made their minds up early when Vista had issues, so never got to see how well it worked later. It was a faster, more secure, more capable version of XP for practical purposes.

I realize am in a minority saying that, but I went from not liking Vista, to loving it; and to being mad I had to move on from it.

I used all these OSs extensively at the same time on different machines, and progressively updated hardware on my favorite Vista system for years (nothing left but the OS which was even on new hard drives with entirely new motherboards and processors and video "cards." I never would have moved on to Windows 7 / 8 / 10 except for Vista being orphaned to the point of being an increased security risk, plus of course the eventual lack of compatibility on new devices, etc. I did not want to re-install all my very complicated end extensively customized software. If you keep a clean system and it is running well it is a myth that you have to re-install a clean version periodically. Reinstalling 100 programs and re-customizing them all if just too hard to do right if it is not necessary.

Microsoft's dumbing down and the "Metro" thing to make Windows (and Mac OS also) look like a phone, where, for example, they...

• minimize the use of overlapping windows, AND
• instead use full-screen dialog boxes that cover all context, and break up related choices into separate screens,
• removal controls that worked well and provided context, like scroll bars that show you where you are easily and don't disappear for fake esthetics, AND
• cease following interface guidelines, like consistent use of checkboxes, radio buttons, push-buttons, etc, all of which provided context and "the big picture" before changes are made, with the ability to completely cancel complex selections of options before they are saved -- now you basically have to "screen shot" an options dialog before you change it if you might need to reset them, because there is no OK and Cancel usually now -- selection change immediately for each little feature every time you select something -- try that on a nuclear control system!

This was all part of the new dysfunctional dumbing down that started with Windows 7 and accelerated with 8 and 10, paralleling the same dysfunctional trend on the Mac OS. In fact I blame Apple for leading the way on this stupid trend and Microsoft wanted to be one of the cool kids too.

These changes are terrible and getting worse, although recently I was slightly heartened to read that "the ribbon" in MS Office is finally being reversed (partially at least) back toward the same type of menu-based user interface we lost with MS Office 2003. People read words in a list to choose from (a "menu") aligned from top to bottom very well! Complex menus of changing icons left to right are dumb! English is not a pictoral language. The one and only purpose that really drove their use of "The Ribbon" everywhere (even too much in Windows 10 itself) is that "users" would not "discover" deeper features if they were hidden in menus, although I think "the ribbon" hides them even more! Therefore everyone has to have a bad interface in their face all the time just so that some lazy people can find lesser used features that they might or might never use. Now they put that in so many programs and the entire effect on computing is bad, Windows 3.1 on modern hardware would be a better interface.

I still use Office 2003 on Windows 10, it still works when installed right, and is SO much better to work with than the Offices from 2007 and up. I bought about 5 new copies from a Goodwill computer store as sloon as that ribbon came out back in the day, so glad I did.

And "Metro Sucks" ought to be a bumper sticker.

I also really liked Windows 2000 (which was Windows NT imnproved). It was so small and clean and so devoid of crapware, if they has gone on with that NT line it could have been really great, but the public wanted something cuter and dumber. So they mixed too much Windows ME line and not enough Windows NT line together and got Windows XP as a result. I was not happy they did not carry on with 2000.

</rant>

[PAR35]

I used to be a Puppy fan. Boot from a CD, and ready to run. But that was close to a decade ago - at some point they changed package management. Looks like it’s still among the best for playing with on old systems.

Most of the modern Linux builds are as bloated as something you’d get from Microsoft.

[zaxtres]

Why is this new news? They do this now. If you have ever tried to find helpful information through their OS bar, the browser opens the site in Edge. They have been doing this for years. They have a habit of doing this. Their browser shipped with their Operating System. When opening a website then it would open on Explorer. There was a browser that went by the wayside because of this tactic called Netscape. Netscape won the anti-trust lawsuit but lost the browser war.

[catnipman]

it’s always just one kludge over the line, sweet Jaysus, with Microsoft ...

[catnipman]

“Why anyone would be running a microsoft browser of any sort is beyond me..”

exactly ... making microsoft browser kludges moot ...

[daniel1212]

And MS makes it harder to set files to open with the app you choose.