I know it's cool to hate on it, but Edge is legit my favorite browser. All the tools and functionality of chrome and it's extensions, with all the office and student tools that come in Edge.
Stuff like the Immersive Reader, Cite Tools, Collections, and a bunch of other stuff make it my favorite browser for now.
Nothing against people liking Edge, but not being able to uninstall it by normal means made me dump Windows entirely. I mean, wtf? Not being able to uninstall a browser? Like, what?
You dumped an OS over not being able to uninstall the default browser? Wat
In the same vein, I change roms on my phone when I can't remove default preinstalled apps.
Yes. Because I don't want that software so why can't I uninstall it. Same goes for basically every default program on windows. It's like not being able remove the ugly lights from the previous owner in your flat even though you got some new nice ones.
For Edge, it's probably at least partially because Microsoft doesn't want you to end up in a situation where you have no browsers on your computer. You can't expect the average user to not be stupid enough to uninstall Edge without having another browser installed, nor can you expect them to figure out how to install a browser without one.
The same goes for things like an image viewer or video player; you can install alternatives, but Microsoft doesn't want you to end up in a situation where you lose core functionality on your computer. They have no guarantees that whatever alternative you install has the same capabilities as what's bundled by default.
I'm pretty sure you could install edge through the windows store, which is another thing they seem to push a lot lately.
While this is valid from a user-friendliness standpoint, if someone is to uninstall Edge, even if they are an average user who just doesn't want edge, they have a risk of breaking the system in its entirety just by uninstalling it. It doesn't even matter if the person has something like firefox or even google chrome. Causing this much breakage over something as simple as a browser that can easily be replaced shouldn't be the norm
To me it's about the direction Microsoft is going. Having that much away and bias over edge and OneDrive. And getting increasingly more aggressive at cloud computing while wanting you to pay more money too them. All that makes for a really sour experience especially with windows 11. I've dumped windows too
You can't uninstall Safari from Mac either, but I haven't seen a single cry for that.
Forcefully setting Edge as default browser is definitely a bad behaviour by Microsoft,, but thankfully there are one-click solution for that.
You don't hear people complain about Apple (anymore) because it's accepted that you are buying into a walled-garden ecosystem when you buy Apple. That's kinda its whole thing.
There are a few issues with Edge on Windows, one being set as the default out of the box, another being it's inability to be uninstalled, another being it's the only option when using windows built-on search, and yet another being it's anything-but-one-click solution depending on the version of Windows in question. In some versions, you have to still go into default apps, find the browser you want, set it as default, click around the popup begging you to try Edge anyway, then go down the list of file extensions and select your browser for all the ones it doesn't change on its own when you make it the default, some of which may popup again begging you to try Edge first. And when that's done, you still can't uninstall it or make it not open when using windows search.
For a product marketed as the opposite of a walled garden, it really is frustrating. Especially considering older versions of Windows had a built-in browser that could be uninstalled and could set another browser as default with one click from inside the new browser.
Edge has gotten light years better. I still hate some of things Microsoft tries to throw in my face but I agree it’s getting higher up on my list.
I used to like Edge but as each version releases its becoming more and more annoying. It's constantly trying to set itself as the default browser. It imported stuff over from my main browser without asking. It pushes Bing hard! Outlook also has now been set to open URLs in edge completely ignoring the default browser option. You have to reconfigure Outlook.
Fuck off Microsoft
Lol not even, I just keep FF installer on USB. No Edge, ever.
Windows is next 👎🏻
Github has a lot of stuff meant to be run after a Windows install that removes as much of the bloat and spyware Microsoft puts on it as in can and downloads and installs programs you want.
Got any links to repos you recommend?
IIRC I used this one with some of the community scripts. winutil is the one that downloads and installs.
winget install -e --id Mozilla.Firefox.ESR
No need for Edge
BUT HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT EDGE THE SUPER OR BROWSWR WE PROMISE NOT TO COLLECT DATA AND STEAL YOUR LIVER
----MICROSOFT
One might say regarding use cases, this is an Edge case.
I’ll see myself out.
winget install firefox?
It's the only browser we can use in my office, so have gotten pretty used to it. It's honestly not that bad, they've come a long way since the IE days.
It's not my home-use browser, but it's absolutely serviceable.
This is just a recycled IE meme. Edge is much better than IE, but not as good as FF.
i always just sudo apt install firefox
I install wine, so I can install IE6, so I can download Firefox. And then run it in VMWare in a docker container on my Commodore 64.
Don't diss my porn browser like that.
A lot of people don't know this, but you can edge yourself while watching porn on any browser.
Aaah, just like the old days of IE6 to get firefox. Nice to see firefox overtake chrome again for the day.
Open powershell and run:
(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest&os=win64&lang=en-US', "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\FirefoxSetup.exe"); Start-Process -Wait -FilePath "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\FirefoxSetup.exe"
No
winget install firefoxNo
sudo pacman -Sy firefoxWe get it you like PacMan waka wala waka waka get them dots
Invoke-Webrequest "https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/" -Outfile c:\temp\firefoxinstaller.exe
Literally first thing after installing windows (yes I know, I use AutoCAD and I'm stuck) on my new build was nuke edge off my PC.
Can someone explain what is the benefit to Microsoft for having their own browser?
I use winget and don’t have to touch edge
It was the only way I could annotate PDFs without paying money using a Wacom One Tablet and a stylus in MacOS. That was one useful use.