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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


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  • (Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday September 17 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)

    by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 17 2018, @06:48PM (#736119)

    I'm running 1803, and installing Acrobat Reader DC. The first time you run Reader after install it will give you instructions on how to change the default PDF reader. Same thing with the default web browser, IIRC. It doesn't automatically change the file extension default application like it used to do.

    I will probably have to stick with W10 as it's part of my job to support it, but that doesn't mean I have to use it as my primary OS.

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  • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday September 18 2018, @02:43AM

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 18 2018, @02:43AM (#736349) Journal

    I've seen the problem of Adobe Reader DC derping the file associations several times. The behavior is the first time you render the icon for a PDF file the OS recognizes that the association is set improperly you get a popup that says the associations have been reset. (...and of course it sets it back to Edge)

    My customers have fixed it one of two ways. One customer (an early adopter) changed the installer command line to tell it not to try to set the association. A later customer found that it was fixed in newer versions of DC.


    * Derp is, in this case, referring to changing the file association by writing directly to the HKLM/Software/Classes section of the registry instead of calling the appropriate APIs. This technique worked in older OS, but wasn't supported or recommended. Win 10 tries to protect users from malware that changes file associations by (I don't entirely recall the specifics) that prevents this behavior.**

    ** The goal is to help stop malware that e.g. installs hacked browsers (e.g. chromium***) and tries to trick/force users into using it so it can steal your data.

    *** I'm not picking on Chromium, that's just what the last malware I saw did.