Chris Matyszczyk
for Technically Incorrect
| November 21, 2021
| Topic: Microsoft
Serene. Beautiful. Now use it or else.
Image: Microsoft
Do you have friends who constantly struggle with their worst habits?
Do they try so very hard to change, yet their old foibles return again and again to annoy and destroy everyone’s mood?
Is one of your friends Microsoft?
I only wonder because I’m becoming increasingly baffled by Redmond’s behavior in one specific area of its business.
It has an excellent product called Edge. Yet it doesn’t advertise it. It doesn’t show customers just how excellent it is. Instead, Microsoft chooses to force it upon them like a cruel school nurse in a 1950s British horror movie.
Which is what the old Microsoft used to do quite a lot.
The latest episode began with Redmond making it harder to set anything other than Edge as your Windows 11 browser.
Now, it involves the company blocking helpful tools like Edge Deflector and Search Deflector. How are they helpful? Well, they allow human Windows 11 users to choose which browser they prefer, rather than have, in the case of certain links, Edge foisted upon them by the fidgety fists of Microsoft.
Did I mention that Edge is a very fine product? Did I mention that Microsoft’s stance feels slightly counterproductive?
Not even Apple, wallbuilders so much more successful than any president I can think of, would dream of forcing Mac users to embrace Safari to the exclusion of every other browser. (Even if Apple occasionally gets upset that you’re using Edge.)
Yet here is Microsoft offering my colleague Mary Jo Foley these words of explanation: “Windows openly enables applications and services on its platform, including various web browsers. At the same time, Windows also offers certain end to end customer experiences in both Windows 10 and Windows 11. The search experience from the taskbar is one such example of an end-to-end experience that is not designed to be redirected. When we become aware of improper redirection, we issue a fix.”
This logic gives piffle a bad name.
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