Microsoft has blocked all default browser workarounds in Windows 10 and Windows 11

betanews.com ^ | Dec. 16, 2021 | Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson

[newfreep]

I began using Brave ~ 1 year ago - best browser I ever used.

Yesterday I “upgraded” to Win11 - and my apps incl Brave run noticeably faster. Color me shocked.

Bottom line, Win11/Brave works great together.

[Still Thinking]

Yeah I’m currently using Vivaldi as well after Freeper recommendations, and like it. Current versions of both Opera and Vivaldi are Chrome-based.

[PROCON]

I used MS's app to see if my Win 10 'puter is worthy of upgrading to Win 11 and they said no, I need to do this and this and this, sheesh, my computer is only 2 years old.

Is it worth the upgrade?

[Still Thinking]

I just bought a new laptop which came with W11 (no choice), and I tried it but the new UI just sucks. At least WX plays nice with Open Shell to let you have a decent desktop. It will install on W11, but no Quick Launch bar by default, and if you do the workaround, it does work, but on every boot W11 screws the placement up and puts itself to the left of the QL bar so you have to fix it. Again. Every boot. And a bunch of other stupid stuff. Off it came and on went WX Enterprise. WX installed just fine but couldn’t get the M.2 Intel Killer Wifi card to work, even with the WX drivers. Weird. After a couple hours gave up and installed a USB Wifi adapter, WX automatically recognizes and installs, and guess what — Now all of a sudden the Intel adapter is discoverable!! [shrug]

[newfreep]

I was pleasantly surprised with the bump in speed with Win11.

I have an ASUS “Zenbook” laptop with 8GB memory - purchased about 2 years ago.

It does use an Intel I7 (Gen10) processor and the Win11 update went smooth with zero problems.

[Still Thinking]

No it sucks. Avoid it like a mask.

[ducttape45]

Same here, plus I got Linux Mint installed. I use Windows 10 VERY LITTLE, and I will not let my computer incur anymore updates to the O/S.

[Carriage Hill]

I also have Linux Mint v18.3, and shut down all MS Updates the day support ended.

[Blue Highway]

You’re correct. It’s funny, I can recall exactly when that happened as that was when i got my first pc in 1996, ora year or 2 later when the anti trust lawsuit happened and that only seems like a few years ago.

[Ouderkirk]

Why would I care if it is the default browser for MSwin 10-11.

I use brave and it is MY default browser.

[Blue Highway]

I really like Brave and Vivaldi for 99% of browsing. Edge only in private browsing. I used to use Waterfox when i ditched Firefox 10 years ago now. Seems like Waterfox’s popularity has waned. Also used Palemoon but both that and Waterfox have been surpassed by the better Brave and Vivaldi. I used to use Opera but it was always a fringe browser for me and I mainly used it in the early 2000s as an alternative to the bloated Firefox.

[for-q-clinton]

It’s just forcing EDGE when using links from within the MS ecosystem. Like the widgets. No one uses widgets.

Keep using Brave you probably won’t notice anything.

[for-q-clinton]

Ever since I installed “No Script” on Edge I’m using it more and more now. I use Brave a lot but Edge is becoming my go to alternate (and even preferred sometimes) browser.

Key is no script really does help a lot in making things more secure.

[ducttape45]

I use W7 for most of my Internet browsing. W10 for only financial transactions, but I’ll be migrating to Linux Mint 20.1 to do all that soon. The reason W10 will be on my computer is if I absolutely have to use it for some unknown reason. So in effect I have a tri-boot computer, W7, W10 and Linux.

[Blue Highway]

What’s the difference between running no script and just disabling Java script in the browser settings?

[captain_dave]

Remember the old Microsoft saying: “Windows isn’t done until Netscape won’t run”.

[TomGuy]

I’ll be migrating to Linux Mint 20.1

I read some comments that 20.1 was not that good. Mint 20.2 is the current, and it is pretty good. (I use Mint occasionally.) Mint 20.3 is supposed to be released sometime in December.

[for-q-clinton]

No script allows you to enable sites to run it as you need.

The hardest thing to remember is once you start using it and all your regular sites are setup to work. Then you go to a new site and it doesn’t work...you need to remember to look at no script settings and see which sites you want to allow to run.

You can block per site it goes to. You’ll be amazed at how many sites some pages hit just to load.

[arthurus]

I turned off MSFT updates long time ago. I hav no problems of the sort MSFT fixes address.

[Pollard]

According to the techie's comments at the end of the article there are workarounds.

I worked around Windows 15 years ago. Linux>Debian>Ubuntu and current flavor of Ubuntu is Kubuntu.