Current-era Microsoft continuing to push the boundaries of consent.
Microsoft Edge is a good browser but for some reason Microsoft keeps trying to shove it down everyone’s throat and make it more difficult to use rivals like Chrome or Firefox. Microsoft has now started notifying IT admins that it will force Outlook and Teams to ignore the default web browser on Windows and open links in Microsoft Edge instead.
That sounds illegal, especially since they already lost an anti-trust lawsuit for Internet Explorer browser two decades ago. I guess they have enough power now that they don’t have to worry about silly things like laws.
That whole antitrust thing was just the US gov’t gaining leverage over MS. Once they got that, MS was forced to enable surveillance on their customers by the gov’t. Now that they’ve “played ball” for all this time, they are being allowed to resume their previous activities.
So true. You’d think they’d have learned a lesson for their BS with Internet Explorer. I’m sure we’re all aware, but here’s the Wikipedia link from that case for those that need a refresher.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.
Yeah what the hell is going on?
There was a lawsuit and in Windows 7 Microsoft was forced to offer a browser choice program that allowed users to pick different ones.
Nowadays everyone just forgot about that?
Browser lock in is worse than it ever has been since the 2000s and is approaching levels of monopolistic behavior we haven’t seen since the internet explorer vs Netscape debacle, if not already worse than that.
Every ecosystem forces their own browser and the only way to circumvent it is with hacks.
To access certain one drive elements on android in the browser with Firefox, it tells you to open the page in chrome to proceed. If you do that, the Microsoft login page then asks specifically for using edge to sign in.
It’s insane that nobody cares. I went back to Firefox as soon as manifest v3 was announcers, but nobody cares.
It’s alarming and once people realize what happened it’s too late.