cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11483626
Here’s the detailed report from Mozilla Research: Over the Edge: How Microsoft’s Design Tactics Compromise Free Browser Choice (PDF, 5MB, 74 pages)
And the announcement post from Mozilla Research referenced in the The Register’s article is here:
Over the Edge: The Use of Design Tactics to Undermine Browser Choice
In order to be able to choose their own browser, people must be free to download it, easily set it to default and to continue using it – all without interference from the operating system. Windows users do not currently enjoy this freedom of choice.
To investigate Microsoft’s tactics and the impact on consumers, Mozilla commissioned Harry Brignull and Cennydd Bowles, independent researchers and experts in harmful design. Today, the researchers have published a report detailing how Microsoft prevents effective browser choice on Windows. In the report, they document how Microsoft places its own browser — Edge — at the center of its operating system and weaponizes Windows’ user interface design to undermine people selecting rival browsers.
In some cases, the use of harmful design tactics is contrary to Microsoft’s own design guidelines. In many cases, it can lead to (and exacerbate) consumer harm and undermine competition from rival browsers. This kind of behavior is particularly concerning for an independent browser like Firefox, which is reliant on the operating systems provided by companies who are also rival browser vendors.
Self-preferencing from operating system/browser providers is an area Mozilla has previously highlighted, for example, in the Five Walled Gardens report. Recently, details of many issues Mozilla experiences competing on major operating systems were published on the Platform Tilt dashboard.
Now, with the implementation of the Digital Markets Act in the European Union marking the start of a wave of global competition regulation, we hoped that the barriers to browser competition would be dismantled. However, even where there is movement in the right direction, improvements have been incomplete and are grudgingly offered only in markets where regulators have forced platform owners to make changes to respect browser choice. For example, Apple’s decision to allow alternative browser engines is only effective in the EU.
Similarly, Microsoft recently pledged to stop some of the actions it takes to force Edge on users who have selected other browsers. Unfortunately, these changes only address a small number of the tactics outlined in this report. And, to make matters worse, they will only be deployed to users in the EEA.
Windows users everywhere, especially in the rest of the world, continue to have their choices inhibited, overridden and undermined by Microsoft’s use of harmful design. Regulatory action around the world is needed to restore browser choice and competition across all of the major platforms.
Member that time when Microsoft got dragged in federal court for ten years before they eventually decided Microsoft was a monopoly for forcing their browser on everyone and then sweet fuck all happened to them for it?
Well the judiciary sure has changed - now they’re way more computer savvy and they . . . checks earpice . . . I’m sorry, that should be: they’re just as fucking clueless as they were thirty years ago if not even more so. We’re screwed, goodnight.
The point where we learned how useless the judiciary is, is when they couldn’t even pin down Zuckerberg. The media made it all sound like “Ohhhh, Mark is getting grilled now! he’s going to face time and penalties!”
And…nothing came of it. Because the judiciary is too dumb to even understand Facebook.
it’s some anomaly that one of the biggest companies in the workd does advertising and not something tangible
deleted by creator
I’m so tired of every major tech company claiming their monopoly is for “security reasons”. It’s fear mongering plain and simple.
Or claiming things happening due to a bug when the result is a clear benefit to them.
Big Ubisoft vibes.
“lol woops we put huge ads in the game our bad”
It’s even cars, dishwashers, cookers, and other white goods now. They can’t open even their APIs “because of security”. Each one has their protocols to their own servers. If you get any access, it’s via their cloud/servers. WHEN they abandon those devices, stop supporting their protocols on their servers, any smarts are crippled. It’s just so short sighted. So vendor locking. So anti repair. So anti digital freedom. It’s plain monopolistic digital serfdom. Purely software, on pure computers, is yesterday’s battle front.
Dear God, not a slamming. Anything but that. Please don’t. Please.
Just for once I want to see a journalist run up and suplex some tech CEO or whoever. Just once.
Bam. “Slammed.” Accurate headline.
Suddenly I’m reminded of an incident in 1999…
Something about a prison room in hell… A mortician? I don’t remember too well.
For me, slamming means you take your slammer down on their stack of pogs.
ALF REFERENCE
Microsoft IN SHAMBLES after being SLAMMED by Internet Article.
- thumbnail of the MS logo with a red curvy arrow pointing to it and a stock photo of a kid crying
you WON’T BELIEVE what MOZILLA said about MICROSOFT 🚨 (watch to the end)
It’s such a forceful word that’s lost all meaning in this day and age. Every time I see the word ‘slam’ in a headline I know literally nothing has been done about the problem.
Like, thanks Mozilla. You pointed a finger. What now?
kimjongunderdog claps back at at media by grilling them over their use of ‘slammed’
Super duper grills kimjongunderdog for grilling an article for slamming a monopoly.
“Slamming” has definitely been enshittified.
The nonprofit software house argues that users, without coercion, manipulation, or deception, should be able to: download and install any alternative, legitimate browser; set that browser as their default; and use their chosen browser on an ongoing basis.
The report defines various manipulative interface patterns like “Confirmshaming”, “Forced Action”, “Visual Interference”, and “Disguised Ads.”
@ForgottenFlux
Meanwhile, trying to use Gmail or Drive from edge, Google keeps popping up “we recommend chrome!”Chrome will kill ublock origin soon, so I’m weaning off it.
Newer windows machines won’t even let you install non-microsoft-store programs without checking a one-time-no-way-back-box of liability. So much for being an end-user…
Edit: And without a tertiary google search, the dialogue window language is designed to make users think “other” programs are not compatible.Straight up due to Microsoft’s methods lately I’ve been shifting everything I can to Linux
My goal is by the time support is dropped for Windows 10 to have seamlessly switched to Linux (I’m feeling Linux Mint TBH)
I switched to Linux years ago, and have never looked back. Every computer in my house except one (my mandatory work laptop) runs some flavor of Linux, and my kids have never been forced to use Windows at all. And if I have my way, they never will.
That’s the spirit
Get them used to FOSS now so that they never have to switch to it later
‘s mode’ is the ‘no way back’ wall you can disable… stupidly requiring a microsoft account to do–in order to install stuff on your pc without needing a damn microsoft account in the first place. ‘s mode’ is becoming more common on higher-end hardware now, too, not just the cheap atom-based crap with emmc and 4gb ram. i’ve seen it on i5 laptops, ffs.
the other is a setting, which is just a scary ‘warning’ about installing programs from outside the garden, that you can change.
You can actually disable it without an account! You have to edit a simple bios setting, something like disabling secure boot.
soon you’d need to root windows laptop in order to install non-store software, not to mention gasp reflashing something else in its place
Oh god I could see that happening.
Then they’ll put a chip in that un-reflashes your firmware so you have to disable THAT before flashing like the HTC G2 did. Loved that phone but that was some bullshit.
Probably a feature of TPM 3
Add to that - Windows 11 requires UEFI boot… Which is heading in the direction of locking the OS to the hardware, for “security”.
Nevermind UEFI has a pre-boot execution capability, “for security” (supposedly to enable location/anti-theft), that’s already been shown to permit a system being hacked.
SUUUPER SLAAAAAMMMM
If only Microsoft relied on making edge a worthy competitor and focused on the UI/UX instead of these dumb head games.
Back when edge wasn’t just a chromium skin it was a neat idea, EdgeHTML was different at the very least and more options are always good compared to chrome monopoly bs. But at this point it’s just Microsoft branded chrome with a (kinda shitty) GPT agent baked in.
MSN.com refuses to allow reader mode. Microsoft answers captures your fucking back button with a redirect loop, like it’s fucking 2000 again. Fuck microsoft.
I feel like that’s solvable at the browser level.
Like if I get redirected without clicking anything, pressing back should take you back to where you last clicked.
it’s not just windows, and not just edge. i just installed firefox mobile on a guy’s android phone because even on msn.com (which he reads for ‘news’ daily. it’s about his only online activity) via chrome they hide the annoying ‘continue reading’ button and have an even more annoying ‘continue reading in the app’ one in its place. added a firefox link directly to that page on his home screen. he’s a happy camper now. the less-annoying one is back and he (for the time being, anyway) is no longer pressured into installing yet another app-that-just-shows-a-fucking-web-page app. also having a ublock-origin enabled browser now is just the icing on the cake.
Are the patterns really dark, when installing windows it HOUNDS me to switch to Edge at every turn, or to sign into MS incessantly, for “security reasons”? Lol.
No, I’m sure there are plenty of dark patterns too, but holy cow, Win10 setup has driven me, more than any other version, to build my own windows automated installer setup (using MS tools).
At least the tools are a lot better than they used to be.
I have a spreadsheet of hundreds of changes a new system needs when first installed.
I really appreciate the devs of tools like Winaero Tweaker, Bulk Crap Uninstaller, O&O Shutup, and PrivacyZilla.
That said, get yourself a copy of Tiny10, available on archive.org.
Yeah, you type “chrome” into Edge, and it’s like YOU DON’T NEED THAT!
I have a folder with notes about what needs to be done. It’s not even 20 things. Can you share your list so I know what I’m missing?
What i have done for the rate occasions i need to install windows. Is made a fully sysprepped image i can deply using IPXE.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mozilla on Thursday accused Microsoft of forcing its Edge browser down the throats of Windows users through “dark patterns” – design elements geared to push people towards certain decisions.
“Windows users everywhere, especially in the rest of the world, continue to have their choices inhibited, overridden and undermined by Microsoft’s use of harmful design,” Mozilla wrote in a post about its report.
The salient regulatory action here is Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a set of rules intended to promote fair competition across the bloc.
Mozilla cites the implementation of the DMA – enforcement is set to begin in March – as a reason to hope that the barriers to browser competition will come down.
“With this message Microsoft is taking advantage of the trust gained by their custodial role as OS provider and using it to misdirect users, implying that compliance is necessary for security reasons,” the report alleges.
In our view, these designs coerce, manipulate, or deceive users and are therefore unjustifiable, with the potential to cause a variety of consumer, society, and market harms.
The original article contains 747 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
deleted by creator
