Microsoft complies with EU's DMA, allowing uninstalling of OneDrive, Edge, Bing, and more
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Microsoft has adhered to the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) by enabling Windows 11 users to uninstall Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Bing, and more. This move is in line with the tech giant's obligation as a DMA gatekeeper to foster competition and expand consumer choices in digital markets.
Users in the European Economic Area are now able to uninstall Microsoft Edge, disable Bing in Windows Search, and turn off Microsoft News feed and ads in the Widgets Board. The company has also provided guidelines for third-party web search applications to offer services through the Windows task bar search box, and for developers to create third-party news feeds in the Windows Widgets panel. OneDrive can also be uninstalled or disabled, with a support document outlining the process. Microsoft's LinkedIn has also adapted to the DMA, offering new APIs for third-party developers and page administrators to access user data continuously.
Despite this, the European Commission has exempted Bing and Microsoft Edge from DMA oversight due to their non-dominant market position. These changes are part of a broader Windows 11 update which introduces more AI features for Microsoft Copilot (Windows & 365) and a redesigned sign-in experience. -
The EU has been on top of things with these corporations, bravo to them.
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And how about Win 10?
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@Dancer18 I'm guessing no change. Tbh, this never really bothered me. I'm more interested in being able to install alternatives and not having them interfered with, rather than whether the MS versions are actually there or not.
However, I do use all three, as well as alternatives to each.
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@wintercoast Meanwhile I could manage to deinstall Edge on Windows 10. There are tutorials in internet for it, I forgot what exactly it was.
In general I'm a happy Linux Mint user (since 2 days LMDE 6 instead of LM 21.3)
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I used to have to go through the registry to disable Bing search on the windows search bar. Now that we'll get the option to disable Bing, it'd be interesting to see if it could completely be removed.
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@electronvolt Yes, that would be interesting. However:
I have recently received helpful answers with Bing search and its AI "Copilot", especially to Linux-specific questions. I had noticed that Startpage has extreme difficulties, at least here, in responding exactly to my question. The links provided were correspondingly poor.I had previously assumed that Startpage uses Google's algorithms and that Google is best able to filter out my exact intention and then provide suitable links.
I had long been aware that this is only valid to a limited extent, both with Google and Startpage, when it comes to political questions. But even when I ask, for example, how I can get a newly installed Thunderbird to use my Linux theme? Startpage only provided links showing how to change themes in Thunderbird or Linux.That said I am happy to have a lot of alternative search engines in my Vivaldi browser, and also Bing.
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It'll always be a tradeoff. You'll go faster but at what cost, or you'll go private, but at what cost.
I don't mind wasting more time on privacy focused solutions because it's rewarding for my small brain. For the lambda user, privacy feels more like a hobby than anything else in this day an age.
Recently Duckduckgo is providing GPT-3.5
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo&ia=chat -
This is why I use linux.
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@Dancer18 said in Microsoft complies with EU's DMA, allowing uninstalling of OneDrive, Edge, Bing, and more:
And how about Win 10?
How about ALL versions of WindBLOWS?
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@SkyBorg It was about uninstalling instead of deactivating.
In the meantime, I have long since managed to uninstall Edge in Win 10 as well. -
@Dancer18 Really I would of never guessed.
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@JoeBecomeTheSun what distribution?
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I'd like to see Google do the same in the U.S., allowing Android users to uninstall/remove all Google apps they're not using, not simply disable them (if the app has a disable option) and without having to root the phone.
