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Microsoft Edge gets "unfair advantage", browser makers claim (www.techradar.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Some of the top browser makers around have issued a letter to the European Commission (EC) alleging that Microsoft gives the Edge browser an unfair advantage and should be subject to EU tech rules.

A letter seen by Reuters, sent by Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Wavebox, and supported by a group of web developers, also supports Opera’s move to take the EC to court over its decision to exclude Microsoft Edge from being subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice. The letter states that, “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge's unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows. Edge is, moreover, the most important gateway for consumers to download an independent browser on Windows PCs.”

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 months ago (18 children)

As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice.

What's the actual alternative they want here? That users look up download URLs on other devices and download their browser of choice via command line using ~~cURL~~ Invoke-WebRequest? That ISPs provide browser installers on USB sticks?

Also, it's not like MS is cornering the market on browser share here. Even with this "unfair advantage" they've only scraped together a 5% slice of browser usage.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Require Microsoft to distribute competing browsers in the Microsoft store.

I can install Firefox, Chromium etc. from my distro's package manager. I don't open a web browser to install software. You still do that on Windows because Microsoft has a financial incentive to keep competitors out of their store, so their store sucks.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You can install Firefox from Windows’s package manager Winget with the command:

winget install -e --id Mozilla.Firefox

You don’t have to use the Store or Edge.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And how many people in the world will use that? eight?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Exactly this. The point is not that there is no way to do it, the point is that the alternatives are obscure to limit adoption. It's a dark pattern.

This winget thing is worse than just using edge to download an alternative. The problem is not that people are forced to interact with a browser they dont like, it's all the people who don't know enough to understand that there are alternatives, and those people will never use winget.

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