Over The Edge With Edge
Microsoft really wants you to use its web browser. Since the days of Internet Explorer 6 when they dominated the browser market, Microsoft’s slice of the pie has been cut down considerably. From trying to make their own rendering engine (that was different from IE’s) a thing with the initial version of Edge to throwing in the towel and joining the cadre of browser-makers who just use Chromium, Microsoft hasn’t had the best of luck with getting users to switch from their current browser to Edge. As of the time of this writing, StatCounter has the desktop marketshare for Edge sitting at 9%.
Microsoft’s apparent solution is to now start forcing Edge on Windows users if they won’t use it willingly. It began with the Edge URI scheme, which forces web pages to open in Edge regardless of what the default web browser is configured to be when clicking links from things like the search results in the Start menu. Given that users were as unhappy about that as most reasonable people would expect, workarounds were created; some were standalone apps while others were baked into browsers like Firefox to allow them to handle Edge URIs. Microsoft has now doubled-down by saying they’ll break those workarounds going forward, as was reported by How-To Geek, The Register, and Computerworld. This will force people to either 1.) use Edge at least some of the time or 2.) make sure they don’t use anything in Windows that leverages an Edge URI… all because Microsoft doesn’t want to respect the default browser people opt to use.
I had written previously when beta builds of the Chromium-version of Edge first released that it actually wasn’t a bad browser; I’d certainly rather use it than Chrome itself and empower Google to spy on my browsing habits — not that I don’t think Microsoft is doing the same, but to me they seem like the lesser of two evils. However, the idea that forcing people to use something will make them realize that it’s not a bad product is honestly just laughable. Users who don’t know any better were likely already using Edge regardless since it’s the default browser in Windows. Users who do know better are going to just be angry; no one is going to be forced into using software they don’t want and look at it objectively.
What really exacerbates the situation, though, is that Microsoft has taken the decent browser they had and made it worse in the years since my original post. While today you could still do worse than Edge, I’d certainly argue that you’d be better off with something like Brave or Firefox. That’s especially true considering some of the features bloatware that has recently been added. That includes price checking and a “buy now, pay later” function. They’re things most people likely don’t want enabled by default and likely don’t even want as part of their browser; I know I certainly don’t. That only makes it all the more frustrating that this is the experience Microsoft is trying to force upon users.
As it stands, I’m currently still debating what to do with my Windows laptop; I’m not sure if I want to just avoid all of the functionality leveraging Edge URIs or if I want to just avoid the hassle entirely and throw something like Pop! OS on it. As it stands, my Star Lite has been getting more use than anything else lately.
Originally published at https://looped.network on November 24, 2021.
