Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome

https://www.theverge.com/23930960/microsoft-edge-google-chrome-poll-why-try-another-browser

by redbell • 3 years ago

157 139 3 years ago

JadeNB5• 3 years ago

Hijacking my browsing experience to try to direct me away from my goal definitely shows me the added value of "the trust of Microsoft." (Also, I think that I understand its meaning, but 'thirstily' seems like a weird adverb here … and, while I'm on language, does Microsoft really misspell "its" in "Make Microsoft Edge work it's best"?)

queuebert2• 3 years ago

I'm visualizing Microsoft busting into my browsing experience like the Kool-Aid Man through a wall.

irrational• 3 years ago

I don't have a Windows machine to test with, but does it do the same thing if you try to download Firefox?

onion2k• 3 years ago

It didn't for me when I tried from my reasonably-locked-down-Windows-dev laptop. I still wouldn't rule it out for consumers though.

darklycan51• 3 years ago

I'll be honest, I don't have a problem with this while Google is and was allowed to insert their own on pages such as Google.com

Everyone and their mothers thinks Google is the default internet, no different than people "forced" to use windows cause they don't know what Linux is.

If so then I have no problem with Edge taking market share away from Chrome.

If you want to criticize this then ban ALL advertisement for web browsers anywhere else it is in the real world, not fair and will just maintain Google's monopoly. And based on the recent years and trends of Google completely destroying the open web, is anyone really pro Chrome domination anymore?

Firefox and other competing smaller player who depend on Google money aren't looking to compete either, it is beyond obvious, so.

JadeNB5• 3 years ago

I'll be honest, I don't have a problem with this while Google is and was allowed to insert their own on pages such as Google.com

I think that there's a big difference between a company putting ads on a page they own, and a company hijacking an app that they own. For better or worse, the expectation on the web is that wherever you browse to might try to pull all kinds of shady tricks on you, and we more or less learn to tune it out (and hopefully also to run some sort of appropriate protection). I think that the expectation, especially from a reputable software maker, is that the browser itself will not get in your way. Maybe things are moving in the direction that that's not the expectation, either, but, if so, then I think it's good to make that process as high-friction as possible.

Also, even if there's not a difference, "I'm OK with Microsoft pulling user-hostile tricks because Google does" may be a decent rebuttal of "Microsoft is worse than Google", which is not a claim I saw here, but it is not much of a rebuttal of "Microsoft is doing some shady tricks."

ToucanLoucan2• 3 years ago

I'll be honest, I don't have a problem with this while Google is and was allowed to insert their own on pages such as Google.com

You're going to get DV'd to hell but you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, Microsoft injecting ads for Edge when it detects you're downloading another popular browser is literally no different than Google advertising Chrome on damn near every website they run.

Google has somehow managed to maintain this image as this scrappy underdog entity and it's absolutely ridiculous the mental gymnastics some people will engage in to excuse all their anti-competitive behaviors.

Edit: I suppose it's technically different because they are injecting content into a website that wouldn't otherwise be there, and one can make the argument that a web browser should only render what is served. But also I have literally a dozen extensions that all alter content in the browser (many of which are for Google owned websites!) not the least of which is an adblocker. I have a hard time saying Microsoft adding a blurb about Edge being good to search results for Chrome or Firefox is the end of the free internet.

JadeNB5• 3 years ago

Google has somehow managed to maintain this image as this scrappy underdog entity and it's absolutely ridiculous the mental gymnastics some people will engage in to excuse all their anti-competitive behaviors.

But nothing about this story is about Google, except that the nastiness that Microsoft is doing involves a Google product. What Microsoft is doing is wrong because it's wrong, not because they're doing it to a Google product, and my moral position on Google (also untrustworthy and shady) doesn't come into it.

brucethemoose26• 3 years ago

Eh, I used to think this, and even used Edge in linux a little.

But Edge is super junky now. Its turning into Internet Explorer all over again, as if Microsoft just can't help themselves.

Chrome is secretly junky, but at least it keeps the user facing UIs clean.

binkHN• 3 years ago

But Edge is super junky now.

Agreed. I enjoyed it more during its earlier years, when it was just a browser, but now its becoming an annoying monstrosity, like Windows itself.

CobrastanJorji2• 3 years ago

Your argument, to me, feels like this one: "Target puts a lot of pro-Target advertising inside Target stores, therefore it's fine that Walmart decided to put a lot of pro-Walmart advertising inside Target stores."

SpaceManNabs2• 3 years ago

Every day I am happy that I switched to Ubuntu and Firefox 24/7, except for work computer...

amlib• 3 years ago

I'm glad my employer lets me install any system I want on my work machine. I really can't stand dealing with windows outside of a VM.

queuebert2• 3 years ago

Find a new job?

Only slightly kidding. I do most of my work on a System76 laptop, and I loathe every minute I'm forced by my employer to check my email through Outlook. The day they shut down my Alpine connection to my work email was the beginning of a long slide downward for the quality of this place.

LtWorf• 3 years ago

kmail and thunderbird work with outlook's web popup authentication thing.

SpaceManNabs2• 3 years ago

I dont mind Mac and chrome.

chaps3• 3 years ago

When an old employer required us to use windows, I just built a Linux VM that was always set to fullsceen. Surprisingly they were okay with it, so maybe you'll have the same luck?

kadoban2• 3 years ago

If nothing else, WSL is part of windows now, so it's trivial to get that set up and hard to argue against most places. You still get stuck with your UI being largely windows, but the guts all being over on linux is enough for me personally.

thomastjeffery5• 3 years ago

The primary reasons I prefer to use Linux over Windows:

* No intrusive notifications or ads from the OS. For example, by using Linux, I no am no longer interrupted with a notification that Windows Defender just finished an entirely purposeless virus scan; containing a "see less of this" button that takes me to the settings page where I am informed that Group Policy is configured by my employer such that I am not allowed to disable this notification.

* No purposeless automatic virus scan wasting my laptop battery in the first place.

* The ability to use a lightweight tiling window manager

* The ability to mount filesystems other than NTFS and FAT, logical volumes, and soft RAID arrays.

* No mandatory updates interrupting my ability to shutdown and halt the system.

---

None of these is resolved by running Linux in a VM.

omginternets2• 3 years ago

I'm considering the same, especially as Apple has gotten quite heavy-handed in their push towards iCloud. Question: what kind of mobile phone do you use, and how's the OS integration? I am expecting it to be markedly worse than Apple's, but also curious what kind of integration does exist.

noidesto• 3 years ago

I recently jumped ship from Apple to Android after being a diehard apple user for 10+ years. So far I am enjoying no longer being constrained by Apple's ecosystem and way of doing things. Worth noting Android and OS integrations are significantly less polished, but any technical user would be able to recreate the same features. I'm now using a S23Ultra + Tab S9 Ultra.

albert_e• 3 years ago

one of the options in that poll should be ... "THIS!"

brucethemoose26• 3 years ago

In other words, Microsoft nags you use their user tracking adware instead of Google's user tracking adware...

I am indifferent to this.

For what its worth, it doesn't seem to recognize Chromium derivatives like Cromite or Firefox derivatives like Mercury.

JadeNB5• 3 years ago

I am indifferent to this.

Why? "The browser inserts itself into the browsing experience in a user-hostile way" is a bad slope to start down, even if the browser starts by inserting itself between one untrustworthy product and another.

brucethemoose26• 3 years ago

bad slope to start down

Windows is a bobsled on a long track, built on a mountain of anti-competitive, facing another mountain of anti-competitive we call Google. This feels like a drop in the bucket to me.

zeroCalories• 3 years ago

Google does this too, constantly harassing you to switch to Chrome if you use any Google product. Apple is constantly trying to show off their cool new music app if you use a Mac. Not saying it's good or bad, but we're way past that point.

verdverm• 3 years ago

They also ignore your default browser settings, opening Edge for any link in the windows settings system, so annoying...

freyes• 3 years ago

This is two gang bands fighting on the street, there is no good guy here. Google is so annoying trying constantly to push you to use Chrome when you visit their websites

glimshe• 3 years ago

Try deleting Google cookies on every session, like I do, and you'll see how often Google nags you.

dubcanada• 3 years ago

Does Google Chrome tell you not to download Microsoft Edge?

tripdout• 3 years ago

Yes.

RobotToaster• 3 years ago

"Thirstily"?

whoisthemachine• 3 years ago

A weird synonym for "Desperately".

3seashells• 3 years ago

Bulging browsers, throbbing with Spyware, thirsty for your data. Hot single browsers near you?

zengid2• 3 years ago

The Verge has a long running joke that Bing is very horny.

hotnfresh3• 3 years ago

It’s gen z for horny.

JohnFen4• 3 years ago

That meaning of it predates gen Z by a long way.

Spivak• 3 years ago

You can really feel the frustration of the Edge devs refusing to admit that Google got a culture victory when they spec'd into the science tree.

Edge being a better browser isn't going to sway anyone anymore. Every browser is good enough and so you need not just differentiating features but a differentiating ethos and Google/MS are the same now. Firefox gets users because they're inde, foss, and built up a lot of community goodwill via their other community projects.

jsnell• 3 years ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38008100

daft_pink• 3 years ago

The real reason, your browser seems like spyware and is full of ads, is not listed.

zengid2• 3 years ago

Off topic but I love how the Verge sticks to their bit that Bing is super horny.

spullara• 3 years ago

Google constantly nags you to install Chrome whenever you first visit their properties. All of it is super annoying but I see Google doing it more than Microsoft.

Liquix2• 3 years ago

Yeah, but google owns that domain and you chose to navigate to it, so they have every right to do so. Imagine if navigating to apple.com in Chrome displayed a hardcoded survey asking why you're not buying an Android phone. Over the line

donmcronald2• 3 years ago

Imagine if navigating to apple.com in Chrome displayed a hardcoded survey asking why you're not buying an Android phone.

Plus, where's the limit in Windows? If they get away with this for Edge and it works, why not do the same for Dropbox vs OneDrive? Or how about getting Edge to nag you about Office when you go to Google Docs? Google could do the same with Chrome when you visit office.com.

There must be a point where having these massive companies delivering features that are objectively bad for users that are trapped in the ecosystem needs to be recognized as something that requires antitrust enforcement.

All 3 major platform owners should be broken up into dozens of smaller companies; Microsoft, Google, Apple.

darthrupert• 3 years ago

"Why didn't you switch to the obviously superior Firefox?"

api• 3 years ago

The year of the Linux desktop could come not through the Linux desktop getting better but just by waiting for MS to get bad enough that it starts repelling people.

Of course you also probably hear some chuckling coming from Cupertino...

hiramfromthechi• 3 years ago

If I was Microsoft, I'd wanna know too. After all, it's a race for every single one of our data points, and then some.

Either way, you gotta admit it's ironically funny that Microsoft wants to keep/poach Chrome users into their own... wait for it... Chromium-based browser.

ExoticPearTree2• 3 years ago

I mean, the fact that they had to use Chromium as the underlying framework for a browser, considering how much resources MS has... feels like a monumental failure at being able to make a decent browser.

donmcronald2• 3 years ago

I'm sure they don't see any value in maintaining a browser. The attitude nowadays seems to be that good software is simply a means to deliver ads and paid up-sells while sucking up as much personal information as possible.

Why bother building something when you can just slap some lipstick on an existing pig and get to the same level of user exploitation with far less effort?

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

[Dupe]

Lots of discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38008100

marricks3• 3 years ago

With how much Chrome "Oops"ed Firefox[1] I am fully in the "kick back and eat popcorn" mindset of this fight.

If only Chrome could do the same thing to Edge than people might be clamoring back for Firefox.

That said, Firefox would have the least ability to stop this... if it gets to all out mudslinging the only option that would be "safe" is Safari on MacOS using duckduckgo or something. As any other config someone can and would inject "nudges" to the other.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...

MSFT_Edging4• 3 years ago

Its honestly amazing how much worse google maps runs on Firefox as opposed to Chrome. It wasn't always like that and I feel like across my devices between windows and Linux, google maps is barely usable in Firefox anymore. If I need to do any real map searching, I need to break out chrome if I have any respect for my time.

I'd be interested in reading a writeup by someone knowledgeable in web tech that would explain what on earth is happening between these two browsers when both are serving maps.google.com.

marricks3• 3 years ago

I'd be interested to hear what it was like on the dev team. I'm sure they don't super care about throwing elbows at Firefox now that that fight is won, so maybe the issues are just holdover from past decisions.

But 10 years ago... was it just "don't test on firefox"?

Or "heeey, we just made a brand new feature [that no one else uses] go ahead and use it in mail and maps!"

Or more openly nefarious?

SlackingOff123• 3 years ago

It's not just Google Maps. It's any webapp from Google. Youtube and Gmail run very poorly in Firefox compared to Chromium browsers. I don't use Google docs, but I'm willing to bet it has the same issues. It's not very noticeable if you have a beefy PC, but on the mini PC I'm currently using, the difference is quite significant.

redbell• 3 years ago

Apparently, MS didn't learn from its IE antitrust experience in the 90s. The FTC should take action now..

I have Chrome installed on my Windows machine but haven't launched it in months. I also have Edge installed and set as the default browser, but guess what? The other day, I needed to test some work related to web-sev on Chrome, and the moment I clicked its icon in the taskbar, windows showed up a pop-up notification that read something like: "use Edge instead, a fast, secure.. bla bla browser".

Edit: I definitely agree that Google is behaving the same, in a way or another but what pains me in the Microsoft’s case is that I already paid for my Windows license, so I expect some level of freedom unlike using Google for free.

omginternets2• 3 years ago

Is there a way to file a complaint online?

whalesalad• 3 years ago

I’m surprised by their candor with all of this too. It’s ingrained in their culture.

darknavi• 3 years ago

I work in games at Microsoft and FWIW it really isn't, at least not any where near our team.

toddmorey• 3 years ago

It’s not a switch campaign but Google just begged me to login before showing me my search results. Both of you, stop. It’s a desperate look.

I live in constant fear that the Arc team (my beloved browser) will start chasing revenue with these privacy invasive services. Can I please have the option to just pay for the software? I’m so tired of being the product.

chankstein385• 3 years ago

I feel the same about Brave. I'm just using it until it inevitably becomes another privacy invader one day.

diggan2• 3 years ago

Isn't the company behind Arc VC funded + the browser itself proprietary?

Both of those things together basically guarantees they'll try to squeeze out as money as possible from their users as soon as the "growth" phase has been completed.

jrmg• 3 years ago

You need an Arc account to use Arc too, don’t you?

distract8901• 3 years ago

GitHub has started showing me a persistent login pop-out on certain pages. Literally no way to dismiss it, so I just uBlocked the element. I don't really want to log in to GitHub in the first place. If I'm there its to check out a public repo. I haven't pushed anything in years, I use my own server now.

marricks3• 3 years ago

Chrome and Google search have their own nudges right? I get many notifications from gmail telling me to install their mail app, or from google search telling me Chrome is better.

What's the legal argument that could apply to one but not the other? Chrome has a better case of being called a monopoly in the browser space.

yjftsjthsd-h3• 3 years ago

And Windows has a better case of being called a monopoly in the desktop space. Preferably both of these should be met with antitrust suits.

alistairSH• 3 years ago

As far as I remember, I only see "Install the Gmail app!" nudges when I'm using Gmail web. Same for Yahoo mail and other "free" services.

Searching in Chrome for "Microsoft Edge download" results in no nudges to keep using Chrome (on my MBP). Same for Safari - no nudges to keep using it when I search "Firefox download" or "Chrome download".

So, MS is using their dominance in the desktop OS market to drive use of their browser. And then adding friction (via nudges and surveys) to retain that browser marketshare.

tarboreus• 3 years ago

They're doing this because they know regulators have been asleep at the wheel for decades. If they do wake up and make a fuss, they can roll it back and pay a small fine.

chankstein385• 3 years ago

Chrome's nudges aren't built into the product that we paid a lot of money for?

okasaki• 3 years ago

The 7 tech companies are keeping the US economy afloat. They're also gigantic national and international surveillance operations. You're probably more likely to get suicided by the CIA for complaining than any kind of action being taken against Microsoft.

mikrotikker3• 3 years ago

I laughed out loud even though it's so sad. Sad but true.

killingtime74• 3 years ago

They did learn. They learned they could do it and it would take a long time before any action was taken and whatever fine came at the end would be an acceptable cost.

matthewfelgate2• 3 years ago

Microsoft learnt form the 90s that it could get away with it with a small slap on the wrist.

66yatman• 3 years ago

This is supposed to be the reaction from the beginning. So bad it's won't much appealing in the moment.

secondcoming• 3 years ago

Speaking of injecting things... every time I, when using Chrome to read GMail emails, switch email accounts, iPadOS prompts me to use Apple's Mail app. I can't turn it off. I will never use their app.

How does it know I'm switching email accounts?

tsycho• 3 years ago

It's unfortunate how any discussion around Google/Apple/Meta in particular just devolves to the same repeated talking points :(

For the "Google does it too on google.com" commenters, imagine if Microsoft did this when you are downloading Firefox. Would you still find that okay?

mordae2• 3 years ago

No, but I laugh at closed source browser vendors waging a war against each other.

chankstein385• 3 years ago

All trying to get you to use the same damned browser. Edge says it itself, "Edge is Chromium!" then why should I use yours instead of the one I'm familiar with?

ExoticPearTree2• 3 years ago

“Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft.” - this begs the question: who actually trusts MS? and for what.

yjftsjthsd-h3• 3 years ago

A person could coherently argue that if you're trusting Microsoft with the operating system you might as well trust them with the browser and not add another party to trust in the form of Google. (I'm not saying I hold that view, but I can see how a person could argue that.)

Mr_Modulo• 3 years ago

Believe it or not this article does not cover everything. When you try to set Chrome (or any alternate browser) as default on Windows 10/11 a pop up appears suggesting you use Edge[1].

[1] https://www.techrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Figu...

CSMastermind• 3 years ago

If Microsoft wants to handicap Google they should give you the option to block ads at the OS level.

manuelabeledo• 3 years ago

Who would want to shoot someone in the head, while being right next to him?

Microsoft has riddled Windows with ads.

chankstein385• 3 years ago

"My reason isn't listed" Because I'd rather use a different browser and that should be sufficient information. I don't care about their numbers or their desire to have people use their browser, I want to use the browser I want to use on the thing I paid a bunch of money for.

sleepybrett• 3 years ago

That's just sad. That said no one should be using chrome.

TheRealDunkirk• 3 years ago

I use Windows (personally) only to play one game, which I hear runs under Proton. One day soon, I'm going to try setting it up.

When I was in 4th grade, I didn't understand the line in Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grasp, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Now I do.

alephxyz• 3 years ago

They also added a search box to my task bar after the last Windows update (albeit with a "do you want to keep it?" prompt). Guess what browser the search results open in? Hint: it's not my default browser

bogwog2• 3 years ago

Regardless of who wins this battle, we all lose in the end anyways.

matthewfelgate2• 3 years ago

Microsoft abusing it's monopoly.

Will get a lot less publicity here than the anti-Google haters.

Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome

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