Microsoft has now started to show text ad for its new Chromium-based Edge in the all apps list. The ad, which shows up under ‘Suggested’ listing for Start menu, recommends using the new version of Microsoft Edge.
Surprisingly, the ad is targeting Firefox users. If you have Firefox as your default browser, you might see the advertisement or suggestion in the Start menu. Depending on whether you’re actively using Firefox or other browsers, the recommendation may or may not show up.
“Still using Firefox? Microsoft Edge is here,” the ad label reads and it includes a link to download Chromium-based browser.
Don’t use operating systems like Windows or iOS which are nothing but bait-and-switch vessels for ads.
Dammit. Couldn’t they have gone after Chrome’s market share instead? There’s plenty of that to go around.
ssokolow,
Attacking mozilla has few consequences for microsoft. Google, through it’s search monopoly, has a lot of teeth with which to bite microsoft.
Then again if microsoft’s chrome browser hijacking extension gets pushed to enough users via windows update and overwrites the google search provider with bing, it could change marketshare very quickly.
It’s very easy for a monopoly to abuse a market when there are no rules or enforcement.
It’s funny (in a really depressing way) that microsoft, who used it’s desktop monopoly to kill off netscape two decades ago, is now attempting to use it’s desktop monopoly to kill off mozilla, son of netscape.
I think the only reason microsoft couldn’t “finish the job” sooner is because of the DOJ and antitrust suit. But now they must be feeling more confident that the DOJ isn’t on the ball. The trump whitehouse including attorney general barr is more focused on empowering the republican party than making enemies of powerful corporations.
Why iOS?
Android is ok then? (LOL)
phti,
The reason IOS was outed by Thom may be due to the fact that apple controls everything users can install and bans competing technologies like browsers. Apple only allows wrappers around it’s own browser. Than can be detrimental to competing technologies. For instance apple banned open video codecs from safari on IOS and users were prohibited by apple from installing any browsers with open video codecs.
Some versions of windows do/did something similar (prohibit alternative browsers or changing the search engine), but so far the standard version of windows 10 doesn’t go this far. It only shows ads for microsoft’s browser when windows telemetry recorded that the user uses firefox. Some people don’t see the harm in this model (looking at you avgalen 🙂 ) but after microsoft is done testing the waters with firefox, it sets a strong precedent for microsoft to step all over any competing software company by showing their users nagware.
Using a monopoly in one industry to grow marketshare in another is (normally) shunned by antitrust law, we’ll have to see how this plays out and if there will be any legal consequences to microsoft.
I very much agree with the browser engine issue, it would be nice to see alternatives (even if I don’t know how useful it would be for 99% of the users). I was referring to the “bait-and-switch vessels for ads” bit which is a thing that I don’t see in iOS though.
I think the “bait-and-switch vessels for ads” shows by the inability to make other apps default, but also by the included apps that often cannot even be uninstalled. iOS is full of Apple services (Maps, Music, TV, News, Games, Mail, Cloud, etc) that are trying to make you use/buy Apple Services. Of course the integration with other Apple Hardware and Services (Apple Card, Apple Care) and “Apple Only” features like iMessage, sidecar, airdrop can all be considered as a push deeper inside the Apple EcoSystem…which is basically the purpose of ads as well
But that’s no more an ad than any off the shelf, upgradable PC is one.
The option to buy more utility (be it for hardware or software) is not an ad.
Thom’s inclusion of iOS was disingenuous.
Well, if you are looking at me I have to reply don’t I 😉
Your argument doesn’t make sense. Let me pick it apart:
1) First you mention that Microsoft did something worse in the past
2) Then you mention that they don’t do it anymore
3) Then you mention that this is them testing the waters
4) And then you make a giant leap into them stepping over all their competitors basically reverting back to their old behavior and pointing out their old legal troubles with antitrust.
Keep in mind that this is literally an option that you enable/disable during setup and that you can toggle on/off in a matter of seconds: “Show suggestions occasionally in Start”. If you are going to make a giant leap you have to provide better arguments otherwise you are not arguing but just fear mongering
There is no harm in this for users. They can find/install/use FireFox just like before, they can ignore the ad, they can even prevent all such ads from showing. The worst that could happen is that they try the New Edge, don’t like it and waste a bit of time.
There is a potential for harm in this for a competitor. If the FireFox user actually installs the new Edge, likes it and stops/reduces using FireFox and this happens on a large scale then Mozilla might get hurt by that in the long run. I would argue that people using a product that they prefer is a good thing
I was bothered by popups that I remember happening in the past. When you tried to install FireFox/Chrome. The regular install progress was interrupted by putting a “You already have a good browser, are you sure you want to continue” popup on the screen. That was shoddy!
avgalen,
I’m referring to s-mode, and windows rt as evidence of microsoft testing the waters with regards to what kind of restrictions it can get away with. These have not been popular with consumers, therefor microsoft has to pick a different strategy, however I do believe these are indicative of what microsoft is aiming for in it’s long game of incremental changes. And make no mistake microsoft is playing the long game with windows 10.
A giant leap? This is a case of a monopoly using its dominant position in one market to promote itself in another. If anything pointing out past behavior should indicate that it’s not a giant leap at all. This is stuff microsoft has under it’s belt and microsoft in particular has thrived through monopoly abuses. The only thing stopping microsoft from doing it again is the risk of antitrust enforcement, but like it or not corporations are getting strong results with their lobbying efforts to deregulate business and slash government oversight. Lax enforcement & increasing corruption at the DOJ has real world consequences and if we’re not careful this could easily cause a resurgence in monopoly behaviors. I think there’s good reason to be worried.
For what it’s worth, I do understand why many people don’t care about what will happen until after the fact. Alas, this type of non-proactive mentality is what leads to the erosion of our rights and control over time.
What you think about microsoft’s search engine hijacking extension for chrome?
Thanks for clarifying that you were talking about Windows 10 in S mode (and RT) when you mentioned versions. Microsoft has a weird vocabulary that makes things overly complicated.
Versions are 95-98-ME-NT4-XP-Vista-7-8-8.1-10
Windows 10 S used to be a SKU/Edition (just like Home/Pro), not a version. Later it became Windows 10 in S mode.
Windows RT used to be a SKU/Edition of Windows 8 (or was it 8.1…anyway, nobody cares about 8/8.1/RT)
If you read the second comment at https://www.osnews.com/story/131231/microsoft-will-force-users-to-use-bing-in-chrome/ you can easily find out what I think about “microsoft’s search engine hijacking extension for chrome?”
I don’t have time now to comment on other things and I am afraid that we are going to run out of “nested replies or something like that” in this thread. I still really dislike how the current commenting system works
avgalen,
Yea, I have a lot of gripes with it too. It actually surprises me that wordpress isn’t better than it is given it’s dominance for blogging. WordPress uses an inefficient database schema, which practically necessitates page caching. And you can frequently see stale pages right here on osnews because the host hasn’t implimented cache invalidation correctly. Ugh. IMHO the previous custom osnews site handled threaded comments much better. I hate that we lost the ability to search comments and it’s very difficult to find lookup old comments now. When osnews migrated they said they were interested in improving things, but it all got shelved. I’m guessing there weren’t enough resources.
At the time I offered to write javascripts to provide client side comment sorting, but osnews never installed them. I’ve linked an example below, take a very close look at the new sort button on comments to toggle between threaded & chronological mode while keeping the selected comment in focus. I wrote this with the old version in mind with a client side implimentation. I thought this was subtle, yet effective.
http://vocabit.com/osnews/sort_comments_2.html
Here was a wildly experimental version I tried.
http://vocabit.com/osnews/sort_comments_1.html
I gotta let it go, haha.
Given that this is listed under “Suggested” and that there is literally an option “Show suggestions occasionally in Start” (WinKey+I, Personalization, Start) that you can simply toggle off I really don’t see any harm in this. It is not like this option would uninstall FireFox, it would just update the browser people already have on their machines to the more recent Chromium based version.
Do I like ads in Windows…nope. Do I have these ads in Windows…nope. Is this a reason to switch operating systems…are you kidding me?
When I browse to Google.com to search something I get an ad to “Switch to Chrome for Windows. Built for Windows. Hide annoying ads and protect against malware on the web.” How is this any different? And when I browse to mozilla.com I get redirected to the /firefox part of mozilla.org. and mozilla.org has 2 “Download FireFox buttons” on 1 page! And FireFox also puts ads for another of their products (Pocket) into their product. My point is that browsermakers are trying to do a lot to get people to install their products and as long as those products are this good, free, play nice with each other and are basically non-intrusive to users I am not too bothered by this.
(happy user of the new Edge, Chrome and sometimes FireFox)
It’s not. That’s wrong too.
ssokolow it would only be “wrong” (in the Thom definition) only if it was required that you ALSO pay for it.
People get FREE Google software and PAY for it with ads.
People BUY Microsoft software AND ALSO PAY for it with ads.
People Buy iOS software/hardware and are not presented any ads.
Tell me… which one is wrong?
haus,
It doesn’t make sense for apple to advertise a browser it already forces IOS device owners to use. All of these corporations are acting out of greed, but objectively what apple is doing by force is worse than what others are trying to do through nagging & ads. Alas, you’ve created your entire identify around defending apple 100% and being critical of others. The thing is your bias can be so egregious at times that it seems like you are just astroturfing. Are you able to come up with anything critical of apple at all? As a real user, what is your least favorite thing about apple?
Alfman,
You’re right. Apple isn’t guilty of the ad practice Thom accused them of which makes me an Apple shill.
Why are you even bringing up browser wrappers at all?
haus,
See you’re being sneaky by trying to swapping what I said “objectively what apple is doing by force is worse than what others are trying to do through nagging & ads” for what Thom said, and then thinking that’s enough to sarcastically dispel the notion that you are astroturfing for apple. But I’m smart enough to see through that. You’ve never been able to speak critically of apple, I want to hear something from you that would dispel the notion that you are astroturfing for apple. You have a history of defending apple in every single instance. All real consumers can find faults even when it comes to their favorite companies, What are some of the negatives you’ve experienced with apple? No company or product is all pros & no cons, that’s not real. Refusing to answer this question only reinforces the observation that you are completely biased. The way you can show fault with this characterization of your total bias is by admitting something genuinely negative about apple, and I think you know that. But if you have an undisclosed affiliation with apple, then I can see how you are in a tough spot and all you can do is avoid the question.
correcting you and thom is astroturfing for apple. I see.
Do you seek flaw equality for all companies or do you reserve this practice just to Apple?
haus,
So far you haven’t responded to anything that I’ve said other than to confuse me for Thom in your responses. I am not Thom, I don’t speak for Thom. If you take issue with what Thom said bring it up with him, not me.
If you want to point out my biases, go ahead, but don’t think that avoiding the question (again) will make you look like less of an apple shill.
Stop ignoring the question….you’ve created your entire identity around defending apple 100% and being critical of others. The thing is your bias can be so egregious at times that it seems like you are just astroturfing. Are you able to come up with anything critical of apple at all? As a real user, what is your least favorite thing about apple?
Just admit something to prove me wrong and prove that you aren’t 100% biased.
I haven’t responded to your tangents because they’re off-topic. They amount to little more than propping up an unrelated new Apple negative because thom’s negative was completely false.
That I don’t participate in this practice with you doesn’t mean I’m a shill or that I don’t even agree with you though it DOES shine light an an apparent agenda of yours.
This was a story that was about a bad marketing practice that Microsoft was guilty of. Thom was mistaken to include Apple in that. I pointed that out. Why is your natural response to find something else negative about Apple? Do you seek flaw equality for all companies or do you reserve this practice just to Apple?
haus,
Ok, but you keep complaining about what Thom says over and over again in your replies to me. I get that you disagree with Thom, but why do you think that’s my problem? That has nothing to do with me!
My point is that what apple is doing through restrictions is objectively worse than what microsoft is doing through ads. You have yet to address this point, and I think it’s because you don’t have a good answer for it.
Do you really think that I’m not critical of others? Well challenge accepted then! Throw out the name of a company you think I’m biased for and I’ll criticize them.
There’s really nothing special about my ability to do this, anyone who is a real consumer has the ability to find pros and cons with any company or product. Yet this is what makes you special, your clear inability to find flaw with anything apple does is unnatural for a consumer. This is much more in line for someone who is astroturfing.
I wouldn’t be making a big deal of it except that your history shows that you are 100% committed to defending apple from any and all criticism. We both know how easy it would be for you to disprove me by saying anything genuinely critical of apple. So do it and I’ll stop accusing you of being an apple shill, but if you can’t admit there’s anything negative about the company or it’s products then it only reinforces the bias.
The 90’s called they want their Microsoft back. They’re making things I want to use, and things I don’t want and putting them in the same package. I’m not sure if that’s better than the 00′ Microsoft that just made things I didn’t want to use ( well ok c# was ok )
Bill Shooter of Bul,
+1
Users can take it or leave it, but this is microsoft’s new business model.
Unless if Chrome Edge supports all my extensions (uBlock Origins, Clear URLs, Privacy Possum, Tree Style Tab, PhartShield, LastPass, etc.) then I’m sticking with Firefox.
“Still” using Firefox? I recently moved to the thing after Chrome banned Video Downloadhelper from YouTube.
BTW Thom needs to stop recommending us to “get out of Windows” as if it’s something simple. Windows has a rich ecosystem of drivers and applications that no other desktop OS can match. Sure, you can kinda-sorta get by with Desktop Linux, but you will have problems like inferior GPU drivers, Dolby Audio filtering for laptop speakers missing from your sound drivers, touchpad settings missing, or your applications not running correctly under Wine. And then there is the horrible Desktop Linux power management.
Unless Microsoft does something that makes the OS unusable, I am not leaving Windows (although currently on 8.1).
And anyway, this experiment with “services” will be over in a while. Microsoft is slowly realizing this whole “services” thing is not quite working for them. It worked for Google because the OS was there to protect the already-popular Google services from Apple and carriers possibly erecting a barrier between the Google services and the users, not force any services down any throats.
PS: Remember how quickly Microsoft abandoned .NET Framework and Silverlight?
So, you mean if I enable to option have Windows show me recommendations in the start menu, it *GASP* shows me recommendations in the start menu, exactly as it says it will?
STOP THE PRESSES!
Drumhellar,
I see your point, and appreciate your dramatization 🙂
But I have difficulty trusting microsoft to not incrementally make things worse. Do you remember when microsoft intentionally pushed out increasingly aggressive windows 10 upgrade prompts over time that obscured the decline option and even changed the purpose of the dialog “X” button to agree to the changes? Microsoft knew what it was doing, it was challenging its UI designers to find ways to disregard user choice. I don’t believe microsoft has learned it’s lesson. Once users accept these local os ads as normal I think microsoft will start moving onto more aggressive tactics with time. Where do you draw the line?
IMHO the key to pushing unwanted changes is by playing the long game: break up changes into smaller, only marginally objectionable pieces, and then deploy them sequentially and waiting for the ruckus to fade away before continuing.