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.

  • Clutch
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    1311 year ago

    Ran into this about two weeks ago. It can be turned off.

    Here’s the setting to change. It’s under File -> Options -> Advanced

    • @[email protected]
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      801 year ago

      God I hate Windows and their dance with monopolistic behaviour. They’ll bring out a “feature” that changes how a program works so you have to change it back, in the hopes that most people don’t do it. They keep doing it with browsers because they siphon away enough users each time that it’s worth it for them.

      Windows should have a default browser choice in settings, and any program you use should automatically use it no matter what, unless you physically change it yourself. It shouldn’t even be possible for them to do. I really need to learn how to use Linux. I’ve got a spare SSD. Fuck it

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        Linux is not even difficult to use and there is no telemetry slowing down the hardware you paid for and feeding some greedy org with your user data. Ubuntu desktop is perfectly fine as a daily driver as long as you don’t use it for gaming or windows apps through Wine. Thats when it becomes more complicated and error prone.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          When Windows 10 hits EOL we might actually arrive at the year of Linux. I’ve been daily driving Arch (obligatory, I use arch btw) for the past 7 months and aside from a few hiccups where I tried to tweak absolutely everything and NVIDIA shenanigans, neither of which was the fault of the underlying kernel or OS, it has been dreamy. Never going back.

            • @[email protected]
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              21 year ago

              They have a point. After the Win10 EOL, the only secure option for hardware that doesn’t meet Win11 requirements will be Linux.

        • @[email protected]
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          101 year ago

          Gaming works surprisingly well. The last few years have made it a one-click affair for thousands of games with the efforts of the Proton team.

        • @[email protected]
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          81 year ago

          Even then, with the effort Steam has put in, there is a lot more support for games on Linux, one way or the other, than there was before, and not necessarily as difficult, either. All of my admittedly small collection of frequently played games should work on Linux. I need to refresh my Windows, maybe it’s time to try Linux out for my gaming machine.

        • xXemokidforeverXx
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          71 year ago

          The day I can play all my games on Linux and know the games i want to play will come to it, I will rejoice. I want so badly not to be stuck on Windows.

      • AtHeartEngineer
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        61 year ago

        It’s not that hard to use and it’s worth the transition. Gaming on Linux is pretty reasonable at this point, most stuff is in the browser or has a Linux app now too.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        Do it brother, try out a “just works” distro like ubuntu or mint. I switched to linux 1,5 years ago, im never looking back again.

    • AtHeartEngineer
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      231 year ago

      That is a terrible dark pattern. “Let me just change the defaults away from the option that literally is the default setting (default browser) to the thing I want users to use instead”.

      Straight up maliciously ignoring “default browser”.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Good to see. And if there’s a setting, there’s probably a registry key behind it storing the value…it’s about 30 seconds in group policy to set it back to “Default Browser” for everyone at my company once I know which one it is.

      Had to do the same thing to uncheck the “Also set up outlook on mobile device” box when Outlook initially adds the mail account last year…

      MS’s main goal nowadays seems to be to find new ways to annoy users by advertising their own crap instead of producing a useful product that gets our of your way and just works.

    • Mog Spawn
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      1 year ago

      wow… this is hot garbage, windows products should auto-register the default programs… why!!!