Meanwhile, if you use Microsoft Teams & Outlook with the Teams add-on installed … and you are wondering why your email links are suddenly opening in Edge instead of your default browser, disable the Teams add-on in Outlook and rage for a moment at the stupidity.
Teams is forcing Edge browser to open links in new Teams and by extension, in Outlook. Setting the default browser to open links within Outlook settings just leads to un-clickable links. The only way to fix it is to disable the Teams Outlook add-on.
Yes, same old Microsoft. Anyone who thinks they have changed in any way since the days of forcing Internet Explorer as the default are sadly and woefully mistaken.
You can change the default Browser to open links in Teams. I had no problems opening links in Teams or Outlook since I changed it.
I see your TLD is “.de” so maybe there it works, not in America. Home of the “free”.
Changing the setting in Teams and Outlook to Default Browser resulted in links that did not work at all. Removed Teams add-on was the only solution.
We know. You keep telling us.
Don’t worry, someone will port it to Linux some day.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
they ported ms edge to linux already
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
edge is on linux at least as a beta as I write this
Didn’t they already lose a court case about doing that?
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Presumably one can still set default in settings. I’m not giving up Firefox yet.
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But why? Is administrators forcing their company’s laptop to use certain browser actually a significant problem before?
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Still doable for corporate-managed devices through GPOs, MS Intune, MECM, etc
They aren’t talking about system administrators. They are talking about 3rd party software presenting a privilege escalation prompt (administrator access) and changing your default browser without you knowing about it
Its more a issue in China where every browser (read malware) would make itself the default and it’s a pain to change it back.
Then just ask the user instead of assuming
Nowhere in the article does MS say that. It’s presented as an argument, while MS said “no comment”.
Nowhere does MS claim that.
“Kolbicz believes this change may be to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA)” (emphasis mine).
“BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft about the lockdown of these Registry keys in March, but they said they had nothing to share at this time.”
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They say that, but I’ll believe it when I see the implementation.
Luckily I’ve changed my default OS to Linux
This is the way
Lol … you can bypass the Windows restriction by deleting the System32 folder
Classic
Microsoft hates this one simple trick
Instructions unclea—
I did a fresh install on a family member’s PC yesterday. Tried to change the region in the registry so I could uninstall Edge and it wouldn’t let me. I assume this is related.
But I also dual-booted Linux so they could try it at any time 🙃
Man I hate Microsoft pre installing Edge on these laptops to push their browser. Anyways here is your laptop bro, also I pre installed Linux so I can push it to you.
Difference is I don’t profit off of installing Linux. Just encouraging other people to help themselves.
Careful with that. Microsoft loves to periodically push updates that overwrite the boot sector to disable that dual boot configuration.
its bc ms thinks it owns your computer
Been doing it for many years and never had a problem but thanks
(only tangentially related) what does ‘driver’ mean in windows lingo? I thought it was hardware-related stuff but I’m probably wrong.
It’s pretty much a program running in OS kernel space to handle specific function calls which need low level system access. Most hardware needs custom drivers to work because they need to interact with those low level OS components, so that’s why they’re mostly associated with hardware.
A lot of antiviruses use custom drivers to intercept and inspect program behavior to look for viruses, etc
Just a low-level filter that inspects and vetos things (think anti virus)
Google gets to do this on Android. Apple gets to do this on iOS.
The unfortunate reality is that MS is catching up to the bad apples in bad behaviour.
sdfasdfadsf
Microsoft is the OG. The other two are just imitators. The only reason Microsoft happens to step carefully. Was a little thing that happened in the late 1990s. That all penalties were largely waived for. But still it frightened them enough to behave better for a short while.
Google has long since surpassed anything MS dreamed of doing.
Edit: to be clear, this article is that they’re blocking programs other than the control panel from changing the default browser.
Meanwhile, in Android, I’ve set Newpipe as the default app for YouTube videos. I have every single url for YouTube set to open in Newpipe. Still opens all YouTube video links in the YouTube app.
So Google is selling license for code and technologies. They’ve shown no ownership of in a competitor’s product? Google is actively funding litigious troll shell corporations who shown no actual harm to harass and drain competitors resources? Google is creating and using secret apis for themselves. Breaking the ones for third parties in order to hold them back?
I’m not saying Google’s good Or anything. Not defending them in any way. But they’ve got a long way to go before they reach Microsoft level. Microsoft is literally the reason why before going public. Google had the motto of don’t be evil.
I understand that software directly and silently changing the default software can be a security issue. But it’s only because it happens silently. Does Windows allow for showing a system prompt that confirms the change to the user? If not, then that’s just plain ol’ anti-competitive. Especially with how pushy Edge and Bing can be.
I don’t think the goal is to lock you into their browser, since you still can change it through the GUI. It seems to be part of the recent push to block software which changes hidden settings. The end goal being to lock down the OS and prevent users from disabling features MS wants to push onto them.
Lin…ux?
Okay so KDE was okay 5-10 years ago. Ultimately crawled back to Windoze. What’s in vogue in 2024?
- Budgie for minimalist KDE-like experience
- Cinnamon for good old Windows 7 vibes
- XFCE for going all XP
- KDE itself is really good nowadays, and probably the most popular option
There is plenty of choices, those are just some of the major ones.
KDE 6 just dropped. Cinnamon is up there as well. And if you think iOS is too cluttered and functional, give Gnome a try.
Can’t endorse Gnome enough. I feel like something about it is anti ADHD for me. It optimizes screen size usage. And, the division of tasks into workspaces is glorious. It honestly bothers me a little that it helps me be productive despite myself.
Okay, you sold it to me (given for free) Should try to approach Gnome again. Currently a KDE user.
The extension ecosystem is absolutely amazing. I really love it!
I use paperwm, and I think its the greatest user interface ever. Actually makes my odyssey super ultrawide useful
I am glad someone likes it.
It frustrates me to no end.
I’m a big fan of Pop OS personally.
Yep, I just switched yesterday.
Literally switched two days ago. Trying mint for now
Haha, me too. I tried opensuse first but switched to mint.
Manjaro is amazing, but might have a little steep learning curve should you use it for something very advanced. Also, no .deb’s and .rpm’s for you, but AUR is arguably even more based (don’t rely on it too much though, troubleshooting issues with AUR-sourced apps is an advanced task indeed!)
Other than that, an insanely snappy (thanks, Arch!), beautiful (thank you, presets for various DEs!), almost bleeding-edge and very novice-friendly distribution.
Mint gang rise up!
Switched just a couple of months ago.
I switched to mint in November, almost everything just works (I mainly use my desktop for gaming). And everything that doesn’t, works after visiting the mint forum or is just a minor inconvenience.
I dunno; ive had trouble trying to internally rewhatsit outgoing broadcast UDP packets to multicast UDP (or even TCP and then back on the other side) packets for use with some 25 year old windows software. So clearly Linux sucks.
PopOS uses the same core stuff as mint and is good at graphics drivers, does em automatically.
Linux Linux?
If you want to keep your computer, yeah.
Might be rough, but, like… Windows7 isnt supported anymore.
So the fix is to manually set your default browser. No more can programs do it for you.
I mean, it’s not hard, and it stops most malware from doing it.
It’s still going to artificially inflate Edge’s numbers from tech illiterate users that don’t know how to change it. There’s a significant number of users out there that will put up with Microsoft shitting down their throat before bothering to expend the few minutes it would take to learn how to change the settings themselves. The few that do try to figure it out will find Edge directing them to Bing which will make every effort to convince them not to do it. Meanwhile, Edge will steal all their bookmarks and tabs from Chrome, in order to further encourage users to just give up and use Edge.
It’s all calculated “dark patterns” shit, and it works. Microsoft counts on these people being so easy to corral.
And you can bet your ass after they implement this, they will push an update that “accidentally” resets the default back to Edge for everyone. Just to “clear the board”.
it stops malware from doing it
There are many different ways to prevent that apart from straight up removing the functionality. Another tactic Microsoft uses is trying to convince you there is only ever one way to secure the system and they “have no choice” if they want to keep their users safe.
It’s like saying the only way to keep a plane from being hi-jacked is to handcuff every passenger to their chair. It’s bullshit.
Are tech illiterate people intentionally using 3rd party software to change their default browser? Genuinely asking because I have always manually set my default on a new device.
No they’re not. And the tech literate people that will see that they can disable this protection and continue as normal.
Microsoft doesn’t always do good things, but I think this is fine. If you open firefox it’ll ask you if you want to set your default browser, and it won’t regedit for you. It will open up the proper windows menu that lets you set firefox as the default.
Not letting malware change your settings by default is a GOOD thing. It is also a good thing that advanced users can disable the feature.
The only bad thing about the story is the lack of transparency. Having to find out about it by breaking tools is bad. It would be better if they had a changelog for these updates that say what they do so admins can see if their tools will be affected.
The install wizard of Firefox/Chrome/etc. presumably counts towards “3rd-party software” here…
The web browser would offer to do it for you. Know it can’t. The Unser knows has to navigate through the settings.
I won’t be surprised if Microsoft still makes it possible for edge to change the default without the user going into the settings.
Not necessary, the browser can offer you to change it and link to
ms-settings:defaultappsto get the user at the exact menu where they can make the change.Where they now have to click on the right combination of 8+ browser choice menus (and Microsoft keeps adding more by splitting out various custom protocol handlers) and select the correct browser in all of them.
And then they’ll still wonder where their bookmarks and saved passwords and shit went and get mad that it “looks different” when Edge inevitably opens up again randomly when they click something else, and then they click that popup to make Edge the default to make that popup go away (because Edge is allowed to make itself default with one click, but nothing else is), and then they call support and yell
Source: I’ve taken those calls in support
Other browsers can still point to the settings panel (
ms-settings:defaultapps) where you see your default program association, you just need to change it yourself.This is a good change security-wise. All other modern OSes do it, Microsoft is simply catching up.
a) this is a good thing because users installing extensions and programs that stealthily change defaults is pretty common b) businesses are going to use group policies so it won’t affect them.
Shocking. Never expected this behavior from such a helpful and heart warming company like Micro~.sft /s
Posts like these reveal how many reads the article.
This is a good thing done by Microsoft. They make sure that 3rd party software can’t change the default browser without the user knowing.
They will get prompted with the choice screen showing all installed browsers. And when they make their choice, even Edge wouldn’t be able to prey people into clicking a button that makes it the default instead.
Posts like this reveal how many people believe every word a megacorp PR dept announces
It’s literally to comply with the EU. Microsoft doesn’t do this to be nice.
No, somebody speculated it’s to comply with the EU. The rest of us are speculating that it’s to push up their market share.
More like how many believe their own stupid head-canon without reading or confirming shit.
So many headline readers. To be honest, 99% of these problems that folks rage about could be resolved with a group policy (local or domain). The problem is, Windows is like 73% of worldwide OS usage, so like it or not, there is a lot of trying to protect the user from themselves. Team Linux can’t fathom that because they come from the perspective that they can build thier experience from the ground up to be exactly as they like. The VAST majority of people don’t want that, they want something that works and they don’t really care what happens behind the curtains. I would wager that 90% of users could care less what browser they use (or would even notice if it changed!) as long as they still had access to their bookmarks.
I would like to share a positive experience from this new driver the article is about. I use notepad++ and setting it as the default was kind of a pain in the butt. It would work sometimes, but not consistently, and often depended on a registry hack or symlink to work. Now with the new interface for default apps, as long as I have the new Windows Notepad app installed when I change the defaults for “open with”, it just works! For all the file extensions, all the time. Honestly it’s a much better experience and it’s ACCESSIBLE to the lay person.
Considering that Edge makes itself the default browser and even PDF reader on its own every few weeks, I don’t trust Microsoft to keep Edge from taking over as default without user input.
They’d have to. They don’t make the change so they can be nice. It’s probably also only for EU users, when it releases.
No they don’t. At most they just have to detect automatic changes and ask the user to confirm. They have no reason for forcing the user to dig into menus and then also repeatedly override that same choice.
Nope the article state
However, this new driver has also rolled out to Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices in the USA that do not have to comply with the DMA act, shedding doubt on this theory.
In principal, the change is good for reasons you mentioned. However microsoft has :
- bypassed any default screens in the past, allowing edge to be set default without user input.
- has added very annoying screens when changing default applications asking the user multiple times if they are sure.
- has added special protocols for applications and set edge as default browser to bypass default application settings in all office applications ( outlook, teams, word, … ).
They just can not be trusted with this, they have proven this in the past…
No, they can’t be trusted. That’s why they are forced to do it by the EU to comply to the DMA.
This may only be released in the EU, also.
Hahahahahaha, right, right. Hahahaha
And I did read the article. No, this is MS continually pushing users into Edge.
“Kolbicz believes this change may be to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA)” (emphasis mine).
“BleepingComputer contacted Microsoft about the lockdown of these Registry keys in March, but they said they had nothing to share at this time.”
The dma only speaks about easily changing the default application. It has nothing to do with this.
What the dma did allow was the “complete” uninstall of edge in windows 11.
The only thing that is left behind i noticed is the edge webview component for webview & webview2
The “choose the default app” modal has special code that makes it say “HEY BTW EDGE EXISTS CLICK HERE” If the modal is for choosing your default browser. It is absolutely about control.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Windows isn’t ready for the desktop. Just use Linux.
I mean, Windows is just such a weird proprietary distro.
It doesn’t use the latest Linux kernel, or even a mainstream POSIX-compliant alternative like BSD. Instead, you have a strange CP/M-like monolithic kernel — I think they used to call it DOS — that’s been extended to behave more like VAX and MP/M.
It also doesn’t use either X11 or Wayland as a display manager. Instead, you have an incredibly unintuitive overblown WINE-like subsystem handling the display.
Because it doesn’t use Linux, Wayland, or X11, you are limited in the desktop environment that you can use. There’s really limited support for KDE, despite the best efforts of volunteers.
Instead, there’s a buggy and error-prone proprietary window manager that ships with it by default. A bit like how Canonical tried to ship Unity as it’s default desktop environment with Ubuntu.
And confusingly, they’ve named that window manager Windows as well!
That window manager lacks many of the features an everyday Gnome or KDE user would expect out of the box.
It also doesn’t ship with a standard package manager, and most of the packages ship as x86 binaries, so installing software works differently to how an everyday Linux user would expect.
There’s also only one company maintaining all of these projects. It insists on closed source, and it has a long history of abandoning its projects.
And sure, if you’re a nerd who’s into alternative operating systems, toying with Windows can be fun.
But if your grandpa is used to Linux, frankly he’ll be utterly bamboozled by the Windows experience.
I’m sorry to be glib, because Windows does have some nice ideas.
But.
Windows on the desktop just isn’t ready for your average, everyday Linux user.
I agree with every single bit of this but felt like I was being attacked the whole time I read it. Maybe it’s PTSD from asking questions in Linux forums as a kid and getting ripped into with long replies. Does anybody else feel that way?
@ajsadauskas @Naich @ardi60 And if you thought that was confusing, the same company also makes a “Windows Subsystem for Linux” but appears to have got the name backwards — it’s not FOR Linux, at all!
