You install something that at the core is the same as you but with a better interface.
It’s funny how Microsoft just gave up on creating a new web browser and instead just rebranded someone else’s homework.
Edge integrates into M365 far better than Chrome integrates into Google Workspaces. I still use Firefox at work. But its cool for my illiterate users.
It’s what they do best, but it usually involves buying a company.
Edge uses less RAM than Chrome
Someone should make a distro that is just all the annoying stuff in windows.
Just install scoop and install packages in the terminal if you’re bothering with Windows
"It’s already installed… as a Snap package."
unpopular opinion preinstalling any browser is wrong
I think you mistyped “popular”
That’s the lemmy echo chamber. Poll a hundred people on how to get a program onto a computer without a browser and I’d be surprised if five people answered something other than a disk or that it’s impossible
Even saying “with a package manager” it’s much easier to have a browser to make a search to know what you want to enter to install using the package manager!
I’m sure many Linux users would be dead in the water if they were provided a computer with a distro without a browser/GUI package manager and no alternative way to access the internet.
other than a disk
These days, they are probably not even going to answer with that. Optical media is almost dead now.
Thumb drive then
Where the fuck would that be a popular opinion?
Quick! You need to install a program, but you can’t remember the exact name of it. You have no browser installed nor a GUI package manager. What do you do?
There is no situation where you need to install a package while having no Browser installed.
My point is that you should install the browser you want, no have preinstalled programs you may not want or live without a browser.
Okay, how are you going to install a browser if you don’t know what to type? Sure, I know FF is Mozilla.Firefox, but not everyone does. And besides, I actually want Vivaldi(…only as an example) instead, which I don’t know the package name for. Without a pre-existing browser or external help, how am I supposed to install Vivaldi?
I’m not disagreeing there should be options on OS setup, firefox being pre-installed with no input is barely better than Edge being pre-installed, but no browser at all by default is just stupid for most people. If we’re going with the idea of options on setup, the no browser at all option should exist, but only if it’s behind at least 1 but preferably 2 “Are you absolutely sure?” confirmation checks.
If a Distro preinstalls the Torbrowser it is based. Or maybe a Firefox that is actually debloated and hardened, not just having fancy bookmarks and a custom start page (looking at you Fedora)
Found the Arch user.
i think it is very beneficial for the average user to have one of each common software category preinstalled
as long as you can uninstall everything
I think it’s fine if you give the option to uninstall it, many users wouldn’t know where to look to install the browser right away and they need access to the internet to find out (because they’re not familiar with the command line), they probably have a phone to look stuff up, but that’s bad user experience.
Otherwise a first run welcome screen that asks the user which browser they want to install out of a selection (including none) can be a good solutionMhm this reminds me of the time when we had in the EU a choice dialog after first boot where you had a selection of browsers to install from.
I’m kinda hoping they bring this back, then I can move to the EU and be done.
That’s a pretty bad take, people into tech seem to mostly use firefox, people who aren’t probably don’t care, and for the people who know baout it and prefer another, can well, just uninstall it, so why not just have firefox so its simpler for everyone?? Like, on Manjaro and Garuda I could do well with that, but what if I use Ubuntu? The browser I like the most is Vivaldi, witch isn’t on the package manager, meaning that I need to download a browser to download another one instead of just using the one already in it to get it
Edge, especially for work, is fantastic.
Eh. Something makes DevOps sites load slowly when opening from outlook. Like, opening a handful of links takes a minute or so
Devops sites? What does that even mean lol?
I’ve never once had links take any sort of noticeable time to open outside of the scanner link/redirect. Which doesn’t have to do with edge or outlook. You probably are conflating two issues.
Azure DevOps. Another Microsoft product.
No other browser does this, and it only happens when opening the link from outlook. Which does make sense to me because edge has some kind of outlook integration. Probably our incompetent network admin and weird ass network and AD situation does not help, but it’s still a bunch of microsoft products that don’t work properly together.
I’m still convinced you are just noticing the redirect/link checker built into m365/ azure AD.
I was not aware that’s a thing. So you’re saying every link I get on outlook has a redirect link stuck in front of it because of azure AD? But why does that not cause chrome or firefox to load the pages slowly?
In some configurations outlook will replace links with something like this (domain is incorrect, but here’s the gist) outlookvirusscanner.outlook.com?scanredirect=theoriginalink.com
So yes, that WILL slow you down, but there is a valid reason for it. If that’s the reason I have no idea why the others wouldn’t be slow. It might just be a I use x at home vs y at work type deal?
Nope, tried around with different browsers at home and at work precisely because of the issue I mentioned.
why do windows users install chrome?
i don’t get it, edge comes preinstalled on windows and it’s chromium-based.
I used to get it why people install chrome. It had a specific look and feel. It’s no more, all browsers (except some startups making up the rules) look the same. Its a full page window with tabs on the top. Vanilla FF looks the same.
I think lots of people also don’t know how easy it is to migrate all user data between browsers. Also, the added work of changing your phone app is probably too much for the average, comfortable consumer.
If you’re gonna go though the trouble of installing a browser, why switch Microsoft for Google? They’re both evil and Edge actually performs significantly better than Chrome somehow (they’re basically the same I don’t get it).
Install freaking Firefox.
I agree yeah, I’d say in a lot of ways that Edge is much better than Chrome, due to its performance and also very good security, plus some tracking protection (though not a lot) vs. Chrome’s none, etc. Between the 2, I’d probably always pick Edge.
But yeah just never use either tbh, Firefox ftw.
Conversely, if they’re both evil, why use Microsoft over Google?
People have their browser set up the way they want it, and downloading and installing Chrome to have everything sync back and work exactly the way they want things to work takes all of two minutes.
Why use Edge and spend time and effort to import bookmarks, import passwords, change settings, install extensions etc. only to have the exact same end result that downloading Chrome would have given them in the first place, but with the added annoyance of Microsoft leveraging Edge to nudge them into the Microsoft ecosystem?
Point being that installing Chrome isn’t the “trouble” you’re making it out to be, when switching to Edge comes with zero advantage.
But you weren’t asking an open ended question anyway, right?
Conversely, if they’re both evil, why use Microsoft over Google?
You shouldn’t, you should use Firefox.
If you’re gonna go though the trouble of installing a browser, why switch Microsoft for Google?
Exactly I don’t get it, the only explanation I can think of is that they have Chrome on their phone and want to sync it or something?
It’s just momentum. Chrome was THE advised browser for a long time and people are just used to it.
Because most people these days still don’t know Edge is chromium based instead of Garbage based
Honestly i dont think most people do. We’re all in a bubble of atleast somewhat technically minded people, not just on lemmy but im sure most of our friends irl are similar. Ive been in a few officey type areas and out of the vast majority of monitors ive seen, theyve been using edge, sometimes i even see multiple browsers open lmao. Just checked statcounter and edge is the third most used which is fucking nuts when you consider how many options there are.
Force of habit? Plus, if I used Windows, I wouldn’t use Edge out of spite. Fuck their shady ways of pushing users to use it.
it’s not even shady anymore. it’s just clingy and pathetic like an ex who can’t move on.
The same reason people are reluctant to leave the Apple ecosystem, you’d have to set everything up again.
Yeah but sometimes it’s the ESR version which is super slow to get feature updates. Though I suppose that’s fair for distros intended for server or other enterprise applications.
But edge is chrome.
As a former edge user. I now use Firefox.
Edge = Chrome + popup ads for Microsoft services
Edge actually has a few nice features that chrome and Firefox miss.
Like native horizontal tabs and tab groups (chrome might have groups)
I still refuse to use it over Firefox though.
It lost a lot of the super-good touchscreen PDF functionality when it switched to chromium though, which I am still mad about. I hope at one point MS will return the PDF Viewer from the original edge
Firefox has the (officially recommended) Simple Tab Groups addon and a couple different addons for horizontal tabs.
Floorp (A firefox fork) has native horizontal tabs
Chrome does have tab groups, but I don’t find them super useful. Automatic grouping by domain would be nice for my usage since I only use chrome at work.
Edge = Chrome but less ram usage
Yes. Firefox full time, and Edge for anything that requires Chrome.
Which is why I remove it and install Vivaldi instead… and ungoogled Chromium sometimes.
Any benefits in Vivaldi over Firefox?
Customization wise, a lot. Speed wise, none at all (it’s slower any way you slice it). Compatibility wise (with websites), the same as Chrome, everything works.
deleted by creator
What are those features?
It’s somewhat like Firefox used to be, cuztomizable UI and all that… a lot of menus with UI tweaks that just make your browser your own and make your life easier… it brings back what was taken from us when FF made some drastic changes.
Have you heard of our lord and savior, firefoxcss?
Custom CSS is awesome but the lack of any documentation is bogus.
How is it more customizable than Firefox? Last I used Chromium based browsers, stuff like TreeStyle Tab was impossible besides a hacky separate window whereas extensions in Firefox are able to make those drastic changes to the UI.
Vivaldi has this functionality baked in. It’s basically Firefox + custom css + extensions in a refined way
Vivaldi’s vertical tabs are not comparable TreeStyle Tabs, its just a regular tab bar but vertical.
“Baked in” doesn’t really mean anything to me when it’s missing functionality and addons are only a click away.
Vivaldi’s toolbar can be customized just like Firefox, but you additionally also get a bottom bar and a sidebar to place toolbar buttons on.
Vivaldi has a Spotlight-like search bar you can open with F2 to quickly find a page in your history or type any browser command like hiding the UI. You can also string multiple commands together and add them as a toolbar button.
You can add websites to your sidebar too to open them in a slide-out window of sorts (basically the same thing as Opera GX’s sidebar).
You can tile multiple tabs to open them in a split or grid view, which I haven’t found a way to replicate on Firefox so far.
And as someone else already mentioned, I personally find installing CSS and JS mods to be a lot more accessible on Vivaldi.
These features are why I prefer it over firefox, but I am curious about how it will be affectes by Manifest V3, if it losses things like an adblocker and dark reader, witch I doublt, them I will need to use waterfox, but even then, firefox, on phones and specially tablets its way worse
Vivaldi has released a blog post detailing how they’ll handle Manifest v3: https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-webrequest-and-ad-blockers/
TL;DR: They’re confident their built-in adblocker will continue to work despite it.
This meme makes no sense. Why would Windows want that?
Surprisingly I dont get weird popups when installing Firefox
It doesn’t have to make sense as long as it bashes Windows.
Not anymore. Just open PowerShell
winget install whateveryouwant
At least in win11.
Not sure about win10, which didn’t have it installed by default orginally, but could be now? None of my win 10 machines are recent enough fresh installs to confirm, and have winget (and choco) installed because I installed it so I can install stuff easily.
On Windows 10 it was automatically installed as an update using - wait for it - the Microsoft Store.
Yes, the system-wide package manager was distributed as a package in the desktop store. 🤌
No idea about 10 either
deleted by creator
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser # Optional: Needed to run a remote script the first time irm get.scoop.sh | iexMicrosoft doesn’t need to even be involved
Why are you guys doing default installs? Setup you preseeds and get what you want.
not even that
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
Choco > winget imo
I’d argue that it’s not really an opinion, but objective fact.
I find that winget tends to just grab M$ Store packages, essentially becoming just an alternative CLI frontend.
Chocolatey, however, actually grabs the native program. And it isn’t developed by Microsoft.
Even Scoop is good enough, however programs might not work perfectly because it uses portable versions of the program.
Scoop is way better than both of those as it bypasses installing apps completely
But some apps don’t function properly if not installed. So I think that chocolatey is better.
Fuck Winget. It’s a GUI-only person’s idea of what a CLI package manager should be. The only positive value I can think of is that it’s better than not having one at all.
I manage about 500 Windows machines in a university. When teachers started complaining that they are unfamiliar with the paid version of an IDE, and we’d have to install the free community edition, I was delighted to learn that it was available through Winget. But privilege escalation on Windows is a fucking joke, so trying to install it remotely through Ansible/WinRM just popped the UAC anyway. I had to VNC into every single machine to click the fucking button. As an additional middle finger,
winget.exewas not even inPATHwhen I tried WinRMing as the local admin.Winget is the absolute nadir of package managers, and it should be doused in acid, burned, chucked in the dumpster where it belongs, and forgotten. Choco and Scoop all the way.
Use scoop
My work stuff wont work in firefox, yeah that’s a new fun enterprise thing. In any case I use edge on osx for those few sites, firefox for everything else.
Report the sites to webcompat!
Might not do anything, but on the other hand it might!
Will it work if you change the user agent to chrome or edge?
Maybe, but it’s my job and that’s the kind of stuff that gets you in trouble.
