Microsoft Fall 2020 Windows 10 Update will Make the New Edge Browser the Default Option

[lexluthermiester]

it's a good browser

Sure, IF you don't care about your privacy...

This is Microsoft again showing for all to see that they are complete butt-nuggets...

Luckily, those of us running LTSB/LTSC don't have to deal with this crap..

 

[AsRock]

Wouldn't they just go with the first option, since they don't know any better?

Maybe a bunch are shown at the same time just like the privacy options when the OS has just been installed, hell with it skip all these BS apps they like installing all the time and give the users a option and add the option to auto install other browsers.

They keep on banging on about safety.

 

[Dave65]

Pretty good browser tho, but I am sticking with Firefox.

 

[newtekie1]

I don't understand why people are freaking out.

Do you all think that Windows will change your default browser if you have something other than Edge set as the default? Because that's not what is happening. What is happening is the new Edge browser will be the default on fresh installs. The are finally replacing the old Edge with the new Edge. So where the old Edge was the default on new installs of Windows, it will now be the new Edge. They will not be changing what you have set as your default browser. If you had Edge set as your default browser, the new Edge will take its place. If you had Chrome or Firefox or whatever else set as your default browser, then it will continue to be your default after the update(though the old Edge will be replaced on the system with the new Edge if you haven't already updated to it).

 

[Vayra86]

This is actually a GOOD thing... Chromium Edge is fantastic, standard Edge(the current default) is soooooooo BAD! They should have pushed this with the 1H20 update. I've been using Chromium Edge for about 6 months now just for the heck of tried it out switching from Firefox, Chrome before that and it has been fantastic. It's been so good, I haven't bothered to switch to anything else yet...

Edit: Let me clarify, I don't think an update should be able to change your default browser to Edge Chromium! I just feel that when you do a fresh Windows install having Edge Chromium as the default is way better than having old Edge as the default or IE(any flavor) for that matter.

So far it seems you're the only one who gets it. But... I'm reading on page 2 now. Who knows.

Wouldn't they just go with the first option, since they don't know any better?

Careful, you're making way too much sense now

 

[Caring1]

Every time I read that headline it seems to say Microsoft Fail

 

[Chrispy_]

Some people still think MS is evil and Google is not? Have you not realized that "do no evil" days are long past?
So much noise over OS shipping with a browser, it's incredible. At this day and age, the browser is a necessary utility and lack of it would be blasphemous, not including it. If you don't like that default, just install another. Nobody is pushing you to use it.
Complaining about "make default" suggestions? That's plain standard in browser world. Install any browser, it will ask to be default until you shut it down in settings. Plus, how about Google pushing its Chrome whenever I visit Google.com or Gmail.com??

I think you're missing the point with the latest Edge Chromium update. I don't think anyone really has an issue with a Microsoft browser shipping with a fresh OS install; even if someone doesn't want to use it, it's better to have something and not need it than to be needing a browser and not having one. Arguing which company is good or evil is irrelevant, they all have their business models and regardless of how you feel about any company, the global population each have their own preference of browser and an overwhelming majority of those people don't want to use Edge (or Bing, for that matter).

The real issue is that millions of PCs around the world were running non-Edge browsers. The users of those PCs had already been through the default apps peekabo game of "are you sure? try it anyway, it's recommended for Windows 10!" and those millions of people had explicitly chosen not to use Edge.

Those users will soon, if they have not already, have their choice deleted, their app defaults hijacked, and some in-your-face marketing as Edge loads up without being asked on first login after the update, advertising it's new features. Forcing users to go back into default apps once more and play the extra-steps of "switch anyway".

As if that willful ignorance of user choice wasn't bad enough, Edge got itself another unwanted advert masquerading as a notification in the notification center, it pinned itself to your start menu without consent, it created a desktop icon without consent, and it pinned itself to the taskbar without consent. None of this is okay, but it gets worse. The taskbar icon that nobody using other browsers wanted or asked for gets a unique-to-this-new-version banner tooltip telling you to check it out (more nagging).

Not every update W10 update hijacks your app defaults and deleted the users existing choice, but on average over the last five years of windows 10 I think it's fair to say that at least twice a year microsoft try to ram Edge, Bing, or a microsoft account down everyone's throat, no matter how many times the user has already said no.

 

[R-T-B]

Heh all these theories why they got sued...EU needed some cash from them and that's all.

It was the US that sued them way back then, IIRC. We are talking Windows 95 days.

 

[newtekie1]

The real issue is that millions of PCs around the world were running non-Edge browsers. The users of those PCs had already been through the default apps peekabo game of "are you sure? try it anyway, it's recommended for Windows 10!" and those millions of people had explicitly chosen not to use Edge.

Those users will soon, if they have not already, have their choice deleted, their app defaults hijacked, and some in-your-face marketing as Edge loads up without being asked on first login after the update, advertising it's new features. Forcing users to go back into default apps once more and play the extra-steps of "switch anyway".

Yeah, not what's happening here. It isn't changing the default back to Edge if you've already changed it to something other than Edge. I think the title of the news article is where people are getting confused.

The real news is that the new chromium based Edge will be fully replacing the old Edge moving forward.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yeah, not what's happening here. It isn't changing the default back to Edge if you've already changed it to something other than Edge. I think the title of the news article is where people are getting confused.

The real news is that the new chromium based Edge will be fully replacing the old Edge moving forward.

That is exactly what's happening here. I was talking about my own experience as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices with this exact behaviour. Thankfully only around 20 of them are on the fast ring to pick up on stupid stuff so that I can defer it in group policy or write a powershell script to undo the damage.

 

[newtekie1]

That is exactly what's happening here. I was talking about my own experience as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices with this exact behaviour. Thankfully only around 20 of them are on the fast ring to pick up on stupid stuff so that I can defer it in group policy or write a powershell script to undo the damage.

So you are already running 20H2, which doesn't get released until September, on over 500 devices?! Impressive.

 

[windwhirl]

So you are already running 20H2, which doesn't get released until September, on over 500 devices?! Impressive.

I... don't think that's the case.

Thankfully only around 20 of them are on the fast ring to pick up on stupid stuff so that I can defer it in group policy or write a powershell script to undo the damage.

Anyway, I think the update, although arriving rather silently if you're not expecting it, doesn't really touch anything. My older rig received it a few days ago and there was no change in default apps. You may get a banner at login announcing the new Edge and stuff, though, but you can close it without much trouble.

Also, if you're handling that many devices, you're probably already using WSUS. Edge's update package should show up, letting you block the update entirely from reaching the rest of the systems.

It was the US that sued them way back then, IIRC. We are talking Windows 95 days.

Yeah, starting with Microsoft packaging Internet Explorer with Windows 95 OSR releases and Plus! 95.

United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

 

[Chrispy_]

So you are already running 20H2, which doesn't get released until September, on over 500 devices?! Impressive.

I am just going to take your reading comprehension failure as trolling.

The behaviour I'm describing is not an opinion, or a guess, it's observation. If you haven't personally observed it, then I guess your particular build/license/edition/region/update method wasn't targeted by Microsoft the same way. Perhaps you're already using a Microsoft account, or you're not domain joined, or you're domain joined to an AzureAD domain, or you're on LTSB, N or K editions. You don't get to gaslight observations.

Also, if you're handling that many devices, you're probably already using WSUS. Edge's update package should show up, letting you block the update entirely from reaching the rest of the systems.

Yeah, I'm not keen on blocking updates in WSUS - The actual updates are eventually required and often mandatory at some point, it's better to just deal with the mess they make with group policies/VBscripts so that users aren't impacted. With so many people WFH right now a lot of users are getting updates direct from MS and not from the WSUS server anyway.

 

[newtekie1]

I am just going to take your reading comprehension failure as trolling.

The behaviour I'm describing is not an opinion, or a guess, it's observation. If you haven't personally observed it, then I guess your particular build/license/edition/region/update method wasn't targeted by Microsoft the same way. Perhaps you're already using a Microsoft account, or you're not domain joined, or you're domain joined to an AzureAD domain, or you're on LTSB, N or K editions. You don't get to gaslight observations.

Ok, so lets talk about reading comprehension.

The "behavior" is only part of 20H2. Your statement was that you administrate 500+ devices that have exhibited this experience. I'll quote you:

I was talking about my own experience as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices with this exact behaviour.

That's an entire statement that says you have 500+ devices with this exact behavior. That is what the structure of that sentence says. Therefor, you must have 500+ devices running 20H2. Which is impressive since it has only been out to Insiders for 5 days and doesn't get rolled out to regular users until September.

I mean, I wouldn't roll out insider builds to any of the several hundred production machines I administer, but hey, you do you. I have however rolled it out to several test machines and guess what, not a one had their default browser changed from Chrome back to Edge. None of them use Microsoft accounts, they all are either local or domain accounts.

You then went on to say 20 of those machines were on the fast ring. You did not say those machines were experiencing the behavior, see because that was in a different sentence.

So gathering by the context and follow up post, the way you should have written it was:

" I was talking about my own experience as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices; around 20 of them are on the fast ring with this exact behavior."

However, I speak from experience from upgrading a few machines to 20H2 that the default browser does not reset to the new Edge. However, the new Edge is the default browser on fresh installs of 20H2. Also, even Microsoft says fast ring behavior is very often not what will be in the end product going out to customers. It's weekly builds of the software that changes often. You shouldn't be relying on fast ring, or even slow ring, builds to determine strategy in production environments. So, I'll admit, there may have been a fast ring build that mistakenly reset the default browser during an upgrade. However, I haven't experienced it in the slow ring build I tested and I don't expect it to be the behavior in the final release.

 

[Chrispy_]

You have just confirmed yourself a troll, a pedantic one at that.

I was talking about my own experience (as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices) with this exact behaviour.

You are choosing to ignore context of the next sentence that EXPLICITLY STATES HOW MANY ARE ON 20H2 and misinterpret it:

It's not even really context when the very next sentence is literal clarification of the exact point you are having a pedantic fit over.

If I don't reply it's because you've earned yourself a well-deserved ignore.

 

[newtekie1]

You have just confirmed yourself a troll, a pedantic one at that.

I was talking about my own experience (as a sysadmin managing 500+ devices) with this exact behaviour.

You are choosing to ignore context of the next sentence that EXPLICITLY STATES HOW MANY ARE ON 20H2 and misinterpret it:

It's not even really context when the very next sentence is literal clarification of the exact point you are having a pedantic fit over.

If I don't reply it's because you've earned yourself a well-deserved ignore.

My posts might have some off topic stuff correcting your inability to properly form sentences and paragraphs, but it has a lot of on topic stuff too. The fact that you are now not even responding to the on topic stuff and have completely gone off topic kind of puts you in the troll boat there buddy.

If I don't reply it isn't because I have you ignore, it just that I don't feel like wasting anymore time with you.

The fact is the behavior is not to reset the default browser when you upgrade. My experience with upgrading to 20H2 on the slow ring shows that.

 

[EarthDog]

This is disingenuous. Obviously you need to use it once to download another. Then, put it aside to never touch it again if you want. Duh.

Actually, your post is shooting itself on the foot. How do you suppose to download your favorite browser if they didn't ship any browser with the OS??

Another PC.. DL the file.

 

[Caring1]

Another PC.. DL the file.

Or they can give options on the original O.S. install.

 

[lemonadesoda]

I don't understand why people are freaking out.

Do you all think that Windows will change your default browser if you have something other than Edge set as the default? (snip)

I hope you are correct, but just this morning, I SHFT+CTRL+ESC to find out what is lagging my laptop. And guess what? 50% CPU utilisation by Microsoft Telemetry Excrete. HOW MANY TIMES I have turned that off? And it is BACK!? Answer me that! (rhetorical). So no, I don't trust MS anymore to not fark with everything on every update. Turning on what is off, updating what I dont want updating, replacing silently without consent, etc. I really hope the EU whacks MS with another whopping fine. This behaviour needs to stop. Unfortunately, there is a new generation of employees at MS who did not learn the lessons that the previous employees/product managers learned. History repeats.

 

[theGryphon]

If during an "update/upgrade" installation, MS actively changes the default browser from a non-MS browser to Edge, then it would be totally wrong and I'd like to hear that if anyone experiences it. My understanding is that what MS is saying is not at all that. They're simply saying Chromium-based Edge is replacing EdgeHTML-based Edge as the default browser of THEIR OS, not YOUR INSTALLED OS.

 

[dwragon]

During the "update/upgrade" Edge changed my installed default browser right along with my contractually agreed to MS to Edge, so then Chrome-based Edge IS replacing the default browser of MY INSTALLED OS.

And no, Edge did not replace my OS, but it did block all of my pinned websites which allowed me to avoid the advertising on the Edge browser homepage. Sorry but I got to many things to do than be distracted by unneeded or unwanted advertising, so, this is my two cents worth, I am 52, grew up with the internet, there was a time that the internet was all about sharing educational and technical information, and of course the porn sites which financed it. The internet now is about half about advertising, every site wants you to view their advertising so the advertisers pay the site owner, the only problem with that is that less than ten percent of all purchases are influenced by advertising, because what really influences peoples purchases in their budget. The second is personal information, google stands for "G"overnment "O"bservation "O"f "G"roops, "L"eftist, (and) "E" tremeists, and everyone falls into one of those three sub-catagories. Why do you think that the web browsers "Offer" to "Save" our passwords, it sure the hell aint because they are just being nice, nothing is free, everything has costs. The U.S. government licenses and buys information from google so that it does not have to subpoena it, they want to stick their noses up our @$$e$, but dont want us to do the same to them (The problem with that is that absolutely nothing on the internet is secure, its all ones and zeros, which with the right technology can be deciphered.)

There was a time that Google advanced search was the best thing on the internet, now google has watered down its search algorithm, supposedly to give smaller companies an equal search share, that you cannot find $h1T in the internet, but you sure see alot of advertising on the way to nowhere.

Now microsoft (which personally sounds to me like a robot porn stars name, who has something neither micro nor soft and is out to screw everyone) is forcing Edge on everyone, and yes it is forced, like a dry anal penetration. I was happy with what I had, didn't want, nor agree to have what I had changed, and now it has screwed up in seconds what it took me months to set up. I live on a set income, and advertising has absolutely zero influence on my purchases compared to cost and necessity.

Why did microsoft force edge onto everyone they could, when they should have sold it like crazy? Because of the google/microsoft alliance which gives them almost absolute control of not what, but HOW a person accesses the internet and the forcefeed advertisement capability as well as the providing of searched/accessed information to the government.

I deleted Edge's run CAPABILITY, it is possible, and did the same to its future update CAPABILITY. And yes this crippled my computer, but did not kill it, as is shown by this submission. Prior to the deletions, i downloaded another browser to a usb and am using it remotely after the deletion. In response to microsoft screwing up my setup, the fourth which it has done in the last ten years, I am learning to build a Basic backed Linex sytem, and using it through a laptop from which I have removed the harddrive, again by a usb simcard as a drive, which the government does not want people to know that they can do, (Compare the size of a hard drive to a hideable sim card.).

People are only bound by what they want to be bound by, there are those who are too lazy to fight, the sheeple, and those who remember that our scientific classification, based upon our eyes being forward and not on the sides of our heads, is that we are predators. We did not get to be the baddest MO FOES in the jungle by simply surrendering to what wanted to devour us, and that is exactly what google/microsoft wants to do with our freedom of choice.