Vivaldi presents: "Browser choices. A tale of two Gatekeepers."

jon

Big Tech companies must comply with the EU’s Digital Market’s Act in early March by offering Browser Choice Screens. Vivaldi is thrilled to see Big Tech’s iron grip on the default browser setting loosened. However, the proposed Choice Screens will not be effective unless browsers get the chance to tell users about their advantages.

Click here to see the full blog post

mossman

And of course the same should also apply to e.g. media players and image viewers...

I've lost count of the number of times Windows has reset settings to "recommended" over the years and in Win11 it's now a matter of getting the OS to recognise the software in the first place, then select every single extension / MIME type, then do it again for every single user!

wintercoast

@jon The EU got Microsoft to do this with Windows when IE was dominant. It didn't seem to make much difference. Of course, Chrome ended up as the dominant browser but they did that via free advertising via their search monopoly, ironically in a similar manner to Microsoft in effect. IIRC, Chrome was also bundled and preselected for installation with Adobe Reader and Flash, in the days when those were virtually necessary.

I think Google and Apple are worse than Microsoft in that both can not only favour their applications, like Microsoft, but they can actually stop you from installing them via their stores. Microsoft, for all its sins, at least allowed you to install whatever the hell you liked. The main issue was lack of consumer knowledge of alternatives. That's a never-ending problem.

buak

The browser has quickly become the most crucial tool in any field that includes the use of computers. I'm just glad Jon understands that

Catweazle

@jon, it is to be positively appreciated that the EU is turning off these and other practices to these companies that, unfortunately, are increasingly dominating the market, subtracting sovereignty from users, dictating their conditions in an environment that should be free.

Yes, as @wintercost mentioned, MS in this aspect of allowing the user to install what they want, is the least bad, although it is almost impossible for a inexperienced user to set the browser of their choice by default, already, although possible, requires navigating through infinite menus and settings, for this to be the case, it is not enough to put the default browser mark in the configuration of the chosen browser, so that EDGE does not get in the way when one wants to access the MS page.

The EU has already made good progress with its privacy regulations and put limits on data collection for advertising purposes, but that unfortunately remains a nightmare for US users, just compare the data that MS collects in the US (goosebumps ) with those of the EU, accessing their page, taking as an example.

There is still a long way to go for a truly free Internet and towards user sovereignty in the products that are essential and that have been paid for with a lot of money, to not allow these companies to appropriate what is not theirs.

mossman

@Catweazle said in Vivaldi presents: "Browser choices. A tale of two Gatekeepers.":

it is not enough to put the default browser mark in the configuration of the chosen browser, so that EDGE does not get in the way when one wants to access the MS page.

In the corporate world, Microsoft are exercising other nasty lock-in methods like special extensions so you can only log in to some Office365 services on Edge!

This happened to me - now, when I try to use Vivaldi for my business I get this after going through all the security to log in:

I looked at the extension and IIRC it is a privacy nightmare (wants access to sensitive data and sends back information) and doesn't work anyway (blocked by company policies).

Needless to say you just log straight in using Edge (but only on the designated corporate laptop).

It's now impossible to do things like download my payslip (USB storage also blocked) ... so the effect of all this "security" is that I now have to use the corporate file-sharing system to up and download all sorts of data to my home PC and customer laptops. Fantastic!

Edit: the payslip system and other corporate sites aren't even Microsoft hosted - yet I couldn't get there on my home PC any more, I think all the sites requiring sign-in are somehow limited to that special Edge extension.

Catweazle

@mossman, I don't use anything from MS, not even the store, apart of gutted Windows, almost all other is FOSS, there the only MS part is that they are mostly from GitHub.
In case If I want Office suites, Libre Office is more than valid

Aaron

This is why I use ArchLinux - only install what is necessary and what I like

Catweazle

@Aaron, same, it is possible in Windows too, even from a bigger FOSS catalogue as in Linux, but not so easy in the case of the browser, almost impossible for an newbee. the lack of Window is the amount of crap it has by default, between telemetries, services to "improve the user experience", tons of services not needed, trials...., which it has by default. You can get rid of all this, but it needs some notions to do that, some parts are comanche territory (registry).

mossman

@Catweazle said in Vivaldi presents: "Browser choices. A tale of two Gatekeepers.":

@mossman, I don't use anything from MS, not even the store, apart of gutted Windows, almost all other is FOSS, there the only MS part is that they are mostly from GitHub.
In case If I want Office suites, Libre Office is more than valid

You've totally missed the point - I was talking about Microsoft convincing COMPANIES to use their ONLINE SERVICES in a way that only works with Edge...

I use Vivaldi, VLC, LibreOffice etc. for everything personal - I HAVE TO use Edge for work because of the lock-in Microsoft sold to my company (in the name of "security")!

Stardust

I see some problems with such screen:

There are so many noname browsers (especially on Android), and those hundreds ones with spyware, telemetry that will occupy that screen. How can you prevent this.
I don't believe that there will be such screens with random noname browsers, in that case I would rather close the screen and install my favorite browser later.

I think a better solution would be information on such screen something like

EU’s Recommendations on top:

Vivaldi
Firefox

Update: and default browser like Edge will be possible to easily uninstall for good so it wouldn't appear after system update in the future.

gralan

I came here by clicking on an email link from Vivaldi in order to read about these options. I have earlier chosen Vivaldi for a variety of reasons, most of which are security-oriented.
However, when I clicked to upgrade a response I was told to sign in. No problem. Then I was redirected to a page on Vivaldi that had nothing whatsoever to do with this article and thread of comments.
Ugh. I'm getting beyond perturbed about this. Many websites do this, including AARP for God's sake. To say I'm tired of geeks behind closed doors making decisions like that, even out of lack of concern, is part of why I do not use Brave Browser anymore.
Someone needs to catch a clue at Vivaldi. Or I'll be eliminating them from my browser choice.
This isn't about being Woke or anything else. It is about good programming versus poor to bad programming. Anyone can come up with catchy add-ons, nifty choices, and more; when it comes to basic functioning I will have to go with those who allow better basic functions. That is where most of us live and have our being.

zakius

personally I can say I hate these screens, I can just pick my own easier than using these
just let us install apps from anywhere, become defaults and use whatever tech they want and we'll be fine

zakius

@wintercoast: chrome was bundled with basically everything and abusing the ability to be set as default without user action, being especially powerful on XP that had the default browser launcher at the top of start menu

@installing anything: I think MS did a lot of bad by letting everyone use arbitrary executables as installers, packages handled by OS are much safer (even if they do whatever they want you at least get the system popup before you let them start), that should be changed ASAP and executables of all kinds blocked from running in downloads directory

wintercoast

@zakius Regardless of the actual mechanism my point is really that Microsoft would not stop you from installing an application because they didn't like you or you had the wrong politics - unlike Apple and Google.

luetage

@wintercoast They stopped you from changing default browser not so long ago. Defending Microsoft here is a little silly. It’s like freely choosing what venereal disease to get next. How about no disease?

Catweazle

@wintercoast, this is not MS's problem. Yes, Windows lets you install whatever you want, but this is one thing and another thing is that it lets you use it by default, instead of the own Windows apps. It is not a problem of installing Vivaldi or any other browser on Windows, the problem is when, no matter how much you put Vivaldi as the default browser in its configuration, if you access some files or MS services you find that it does so with EDGE , if you do not go into the Windows configuration of the installed apps and deactivate one by one the combinations where it says EDGE, it also does not offer you to use Vivaldi instead, but to search for an app in the MS Store for this. That is, you have to go into the registry and many hidden settings to get rid of this bad habit, since it doesn't let you uninstall EDGE either, at least not until now.

BRedmond

There's a wrinkle in browser selection. With nobody selling software on physical media, you need a browser in order to get a browser. Does the Browser Choice screen need to actually install the browser that you choose? Otherwise, you need to use IronGrip's browser in order to download and install the FreeChoice browser. Once you use it, they set it as your default.

sanderevers

I've already chosen which browser to use. Why do I have to repeat my choice? On both the "IronGrip" and "'Free'Choice" I am forced to use a "browser selection screen". But what if I don't want to change my default browser? There is no free choice to do that.
Also, currently there are honestly only 3 browsers on MacOS and 2 on Windows. Chromium and FireFox, and Safari on Mac. Having 10+ choices of different "Chromium" skins really isn't any choice. Where is the free choice to pick a different browser engine.
In the IE era you had on Windows: IE, Chrome, FireFox, Opera and Safari. Of those only 2 remain currently.

Also around every 6 months I do a full Windows reïnstall. I have a specialised USB stick that I insert into my PC, it will boot into Windows setup, automatically wipe my Windows partition, install Windows upon the wiped partition, reboot, automatically create my user account, connect to the network (skip the entire OOBE), run Winget to install every app I use. Including my browser. Set the default settings and finish with Windows update. All that before I have to do anything. A forced "Browser choice screen" will either be blocked or ignored by default.

wintercoast

@luetage I've always been able to change the default browser.

@Catweazle Yes, certain MS services, e.g., menu search, default to Edge. Not great, but no big deal as far as I'm concerned.

It used to be the case when in Visual Studio that web links, e.g., from developer news, would default to Edge but now it uses your default browser. I'm not sure when they changed that but it has been the case for quite some time. However, Microsoft tends to be friendlier to developers than they are to the average consumer - or at least they are more responsive to them.

@Catweazle said in Vivaldi presents: "Browser choices. A tale of two Gatekeepers.":

since it doesn't let you uninstall EDGE

In the EU it will shortly, courtesy of the DSA or DMA, I forget which. I saw that the other day.

But no joy if you're outside the EU.