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

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

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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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[–] nek0d3r 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I completely understand where this is coming from, but I'm just a little confused about what the solution would be. For the average consumer and certainly the target users for Windows, shipping with a browser is the expected norm, and none are expected to open a terminal, much less run tools like winget. I guess you could have a setup dialog of major browsers to choose from?

[–] linearchaos 11 points 2 months ago

I can think of some options

Level 1: Allow uninstall of edge. They can have the engine still for store/background processes, but no user icon. You can use edge to install other browsers then remove it.

Level 2: same as level one, but it comes "uninstalled". OOBE asks you to choose a browser.

Level 3: They rip out the deep integration they knew damn well they shouldn't have done because their asses were handed to them in the IE days.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Click 'browse web' Microsoft gives a list of popular and mixed browsers that the user can select. Microsoft then installs selected browser. At least this is the only tangible way I can see.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anyone else remember this badboy?

For the uninitiated, BrowserChoice.eu was a popup and associated website that Microsoft was forced to create by the EU courts becasue of their monopoly in 2010.

Also, an opinion: Edge was a great browser even before they switched to Chromium. I wish they'd kept at it so there was a better variety of rendering engines out there.

[–] noughtnaut 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I'm really confused about this article - isn't what you describe still in effect? Why on earth not? (I haven't used Windows in ages so I personally have never seen that.)

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

Microsoft and the European Commission agreed to an initial period of five years. That ended in 2014, and the measure was not extended mainly for two reasons:

Data showed the selection screen had had essentially no effect on browser market share whatsoever.
This period was basically the height of browser competition, with Chrome, Safari, IE, and Firefox all showing significant market share.

With competition in the browser market seemingly healthy, and the browser ballot not doing much to affect it, it was seen as pointless to keep requiring Microsoft to display it.

[–] noughtnaut 3 points 2 months ago

Thank you for that information.

One might also say, with the dire current state of browser competition, it won't make much of a difference.

I'm just privately hopping that Firefox won't lose its last few percent market share and go the way of the dodo. 🤞🥹

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

One solution could be during PC initial setup, a list of all browsers above a certain user count is given and the person chooses which to install and use as default with the ability to change at a later date.