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.”
Ooo what about safari on mac? Isn’t it the same thing but just not as hated?
Forget mac, it’s even worse on iOS/iPadOS, where all third-party browsers must use Safari’s rendering engine too.
Haven’t they been told they’ve got to stop doing that now?
I thought the European commission had forced them to allow other browsers to actually use their own render engines
I’m not 100% but I do vaguely seem to recall reading something about that being the case.
I think it’s only for the EU, and the other browsers don’t have a solution ready - porting their engines for iOS is a lot of work, which takes time, and might not even be worth it when they still need to maintain the safari-based version for the rest of the world.
It would be if Mac’s held the dominant market position for computers, yes.
An out of the box OS should include a browser. Microsoft takes a ham-fisted approach, however, Apple makes it entirely possible to uninstall Safari. You do have to jump through the hoop of disabling System Integrity Protection to remove it, but it’s simple as trashing the app and deleting the data. I speak from experience. Very easy to do.
Seriously, showing a pop up confirmation if the user tries to uninstall the last browser on the device is all that is needed.
The issue is with how aggressive Microsoft is about it.
Trying to download chrome? “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to try Edge?”.
Changing default browser? “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to try Edge?”.
Windows update… “We’ve done you a solid, because we know you want to use Edge”.
I’m sure at one point, it was a warning in the security center that you aren’t using Edge.
Also Teams (in sure there are others) will open links in Edge, despite what default browser you have set.
Yes, but they’ve got the advantage of having done it for longer, and not stirred the pot.
I honestly don’t think it would have been an issue for Microsoft if they just decided to sit on Internet Explorer instead of trying to push everyone into using Edge.