Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-touch-that-dial! dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When you try to install the Firefox pr Chrome web browser on a recent Windows 10 version 1809 Insider build, you may notice that the installation gets interrupted by the operating system.

The intermediary screen that interrupts the installation states that Edge is installed on the device and that it is safer and faster than the browser that the user was about to install on the device.

Options provided are to open Microsoft Edge or install the other browser anyway. There is also an option to disable the warning type in the future but that leads to the Apps listing of the Settings application and no option to do anything about that.

[...] Companies like Google or Microsoft have used their market position in the past to push their own products. Google pushes Chrome on all of its properties when users use different browsers to connect to them, and Microsoft too displayed notifications on the Windows 10 platform to users who used other browsers that Edge was more secure or power friendly.

The intercepting of installers on Windows is a new low, however. A user who initiates the installation of a browser does so on purpose. The prompt that Microsoft displays claims that Edge is safer and faster, and it puts the Open Microsoft Edge button on focus and not the "install anyway" button.

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:28PM (4 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:28PM (#734292)

    Why would anyone even want to use a search field instead of going to the web page of the search engine you want to use.

    Oh, right, there can be only only one search engine.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by urza9814 on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:37PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:37PM (#734295) Journal

    Why would anyone even want to use a search field instead of going to the web page of the search engine you want to use.

    ...because it's a hell of a lot faster? I mean I could type www.duckduckgo.com, hit enter, wait for the page to load, scroll down to the search box, type in my query, and hit search...or I could just type in my query and hit enter in the first place. Efficiency is good :)

    Oh, right, there can be only only one search engine.

    On Edge, perhaps. On a sane browser, you can easily enable multiple search engines through the URL bar quick search feature. On Firefox, by default typing something which isn't a valid domain name into the URL bar will give you an option of searching with Google, Bing, Amazon, DuckDuckGo, Ebay, Twitter or Wikipedia. Not the best list, but it's easy enough to add or remove anything if you don't like those options. Chrome doesn't seem to give any options, probably because it's not a browser but rather a tool for enabling Google's EEE strategy. Same is likely true of Edge, though I've never used that one.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Marand on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:38PM

      by Marand (1081) on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:38PM (#734318) Journal

      ...because it's a hell of a lot faster? I mean I could type www.duckduckgo.com, hit enter, wait for the page to load, scroll down to the search box, type in my query, and hit search...or I could just type in my query and hit enter in the first place. Efficiency is good :)

      Efficiency is why I used the Ubiquity [wikipedia.org] addon for Firefox for so long. Stuck with the ESR release and avoided the WebExtensions apocalypse for as long as possible because I knew it would be the end of one of my most-used addons. It pops up a command runner type thing when a keyboard shortcut is used, similar to how some IDEs do, so I followed their convention and set it to ctrl-space. Instead of routing everything through a specific search engine, I used its extensible command list to search specific sites directly and show results in-line, which often saved me a page load if the summary had the info I wanted in it.

      Unfortunately, the WebExtensions apocalypse hit even Debian stable, which swapped from 52ESR to 60ESR recently, so I had to finally deal with it. Which I did by installing Waterfox and moving my Firefox profile over, which saved most of the extensions I use. But not Ubiquity, which I couldn't seem to get working again due to the multi-process changes after FF52. Tried some suggested workarounds, but no luck.

      I mention this because, in giving up Ubiquity, I found a way to make the Firefox (and Waterfox, Pale Moon, etc.) url bar work as a sort-of workaround for part of Ubiquity's functionality. Bookmarks, when being edited, have a "keyword" field that can be used to quickly load them by a given name, e.g. one could type "sn" and load soylentnews.org. Not too useful by itself, but it has some extra magic with searches: if you right-click a text field you can "add a keyword for this search", which allows you to use the keyword to search that specific site, so you can do things like type "wiki SoylentNews" in the URL bar to search Wikipedia. Not quite as convenient as Ubiquity (which showed results in the pop-up instead of replacing your current page, and opened a new tab if you clicked any), but a mostly acceptable substitute.

      Anyway, the point: if you want efficiency, try using keywords to search the correct engine directly instead of sending everything through a single search provider. Make keywords for IMDB, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Duck Duck Go, Google, your image search of choice, Stack Overflow, Arch wiki, etc. and choose the right tool instead of hoping a search engine will do it for you. Cutting out the extra step of going through a general engine when you're looking for something specific can save some time. Also, consider turning off the "save search and form history" setting to avoid cluttering the URL bar's history with a bunch of search shit.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:48PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:48PM (#734389)

    You can add (and last I checked the default install came with half a dozen) multiple search engines to the searchbar in Firefox so you don't have to go to a different webpage. You can even cycle through them via Ctrl+UpArrow and Ctrl+DownArrow while you're entering text in the searchbar.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:15PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:15PM (#734537) Journal

    I like my search box. The duckduckgo icon sits in the end of that box. I click the icon, and I'm presented with my own customized list of search engines, including Yandex, European search engine, Ecosia, Wikipedia - what's conspicuously missing is Bing and Yahoo. I use Google from time to time, because sometimes they are seemingly the best choice. A few others, less often.

    I suppose that I could achieve the same thing with bookmarks, but I like my search bar.