1y ago

Outlook suddenly started opening links in Edge, disregarding my default browser settings

www.theverge.com Microsoft is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge, and IT admins are angry

Microsoft is ignoring browser choice again

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.

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336 comments

Edge/IE doing what they do make me want to swap to Linux. Edge is a resource hog and also tries to run in the background during startup. I thought I paid for a computer. Why can't I uninstall this bloatwear easily?
- Today is a good day to start dual booting or at least look at it via a live usb boot. I would recommend Linux Mint for starter, If you don't like how it looks, no problem you will be able to install another Desktop later, just start getting familiar with it. https://linuxmint.com/
  
  If it wasn't for nVidias drivers still being shite I would've moved over permanently a long time ago. Either AMD catch up in performance / features or nVidia / nouveau drivers become comparable to Windows counterparts. The day I am forced off of W10 LTS IOT I will be leaving windows instantly, I am never going to use an OS that forces me to log in using their account system.
  
  Out of curiosity, what problems are you having with the drivers? I have a GTX 1070ti graphics card and the drivers for it have been ok on Linux, the integration hasn't been as smooth as Windows but I haven't had any problems.
  
  Loads of issues, majority of their features are completely missing and since nvidia are asshats that keep things proprietary a lot of it lacks equivalents that are of the same quality as their features.
  The absolute biggest issue for me is Wayland support being complete crap on nvidia.
- Edge is a resource hog
  Is it a hog or an opportunist? My understanding is browsers will take all the resources they can to make you 40 tabs flow smoothly as possible, but they should also release those resources when other programs demand it. How those priorities are ranked, I don't know. You don't check your Task Manager until everything is already slow, right? That's when browsers look like the culprits with the biggest RAM usage. But are they really? If you start changing tabs and finding they're blank and need to releaod, that's an indicator the browser gave up some resources
  
  How many people out there are shitting on Edge (in many ways rightfully so) while using Chrome, which does the exact same crap.
  
  I think the issue here is not which browser is better, but companies not respecting your preferences and use scummy methods to make you switch. This might be a Microsoft issue now, but I can see it becoming a slippery slope and have more companies in the future do the same. Lets say that Microsoft succeed here: whats stopping Google to do the exact same with Android. Then you end up to keep in sync your favorites in 3 different browsers (Safari, Edge, Chrome. Firefox gets shafted since even if you use it as default each company will force its own browser) depending on the OS you are using.
  
  Oh. I'm not arguing. They all have scummy methods to try and enforce their app over someone else's. Microsoft is kinda the worst about it tho.
  I was just commenting on how cyclic it all is. Firefox was bloated and IE just overall sucked. Chrome came around touting how blazing fast it was with it's V8 javascript engine but once they had market share the bloat crept in. Then msft came out with Edge, which was lean and mean and actually a nice browser. But the bloat didn't even creep this time, it just poured in.
  I'm hoping since Firefox isn't part of the FAANG that the bloat will be kept at bay.
- You did pay for a computer. But not just with your money, you pay by being forced into using the services of the company that subsidized the price of your product. Be it Android bloatware that you can't get rid of, a free version that keeps reminding you about the premium features or simply ads.
  Back in the day, the products you bought didn't keep trying to sell you other products. However, we tend to take for granted the amount and quality and value of services that companies just give for free. Back when free mailbox used to be limited to 6MB, encyclopedias and map services used to cost a lot of money. The sheer amount of things we can do today online without giving a payment method is astonishing. And it is not just because of the advancement in technology. Personally I prefer this model of giving a product for free and using it to promote the paid product as long as it "polite". Those who would like to get a premium experience will pay.
  You could use Linux to avoid paying for software while avoiding the bloatware. Linux had massively improved over the recent years in being noob-friendly. However, you still pay for it with your time as still there are things that are not supported and you have to come up with workarounds. Personally I use Linux, but it took me a while to get comfortable with it. Unlike Windows, I can configure it nearly any way I like. But I can't recommend this to everyone.
  
  The main problem of linux is that 90% of the downloadable software out there is written for Windows. And so are 90% of the games.
  So it depends on what you use your PC for.
  
  It is a lot better than it used to be. Emulation tools got much better over the last couple of years, and there are many things that required applications in the past and now just work from the browser. You can edit documents, send emails, play games and videos, configure devices, edit images. All from the browser - over windows or Linux.
  Making the shift to Linux is easier now than it has ever been. Linux caught up, Windows got bloated, emulation and platform agnostic web services gave a lot more options for counteracting Windows main advantage - which is software compatibility. And as Linux gains popularity that is changing for the better as well.

336 comments