The new Windows 11 defaults manager is amazingly user hostile. [1] Microsoft decided it's a great idea to make non technical users manually adjust 15 different file and protocol associations in order to change the default browser.
Microsoft's statement on this: we are implementing customer feedback to customize and control defaults at a more granular level, eliminating app categories and elevating all apps to the forefront of the defaults experience.
More granular control is nice and all, but I don't buy for a second that it couldn't be behind some "advanced" button. I think the most probable explanation for removing the app categories is a calculated move to steer people towards Microsoft products which have access to backdoor internal functions to change all of these automatically.
I do remember how bad things were back in Windows XP days when every random toolbar would change all the associations. I don't wish for that experience to come back for non technical users either. Microsoft could perhaps look into allowing digitally signed apps to change the associations automatically (a single summarizing OS confirmation prompt might be wise), and non-signed apps would have to instruct users to manually change things.
> More granular control is nice and all, but I don't buy for a second that it couldn't be behind some "advanced" button.
In fact, they could've just kept it the same as Windows 10 because this exact system was under "Choose defaults by app", along with a "Choose defaults by protocol" option, at the bottom of the defaults apps pane.
Windows 11 is a step back from more granular control considering there is no longer the option to change defaults by protocol. Instead, you need to go through multiple apps to see which protocols each app supports rather than going straight to the protocol/file type you want to change the default for.
Windows 10's version was definitely better, but it still had its own brand of sketchiness.
Specifically, they had chosen a window size that placed the "default web browser" selector conveniently scrolled off the bottom. It would never be scrolled into view by default, even if the defaults control panel had been explicitly opened for the purpose of setting a default browser.
Oh there were definitely dark patterns, especially if you add in the "Microsoft Edge is the recommended browser for Windows 10" or whatever was displayed when you tried to change the default browser.
My only point is that, even by their own logic, it's a step backwards, which makes the stated reason seem like straight up deceit.
It baffles me that Microsoft cares what browser people use; Edge is based on Chromium and Edge's user count confers absolutely no authority over web standards (one of the major things Google gets from making Chromium) to Microsoft.
Edge defaults to Bing for searches, which is a direct source of revenue via ads. Edge also uses browser history for ad targeting via the "personalize your web experience" option; I don't recall whether that's enabled by default but I'd expect it is. On top of those there's a price-comparison feature (affiliate revenue) and a Pinterest partnership.
No more than a year ago the little "help" icon in explorer linked to bing with a prefilled search query that didn't even include a guard to make sure only microsoft.com results were returned (that has since been fixed). The results were (predictably) full of blog spam.
Microsoft was deliberately showing blog spam, just to route users to bing. I can't understand how that's a good business model.
Why doesn't control of Edge give Microsoft a say in web standards? They are not just a Chrome reskin: they can and do add features that Google doesn't like or hasn't prioritized, etc.
>Windows 11 is a step back from more granular control considering there is no longer the option to change defaults by protocol. Instead, you need to go through multiple apps to see which protocols each app supports rather than going straight to the protocol/file type you want to change the default for.
haven't had a Windows machine for a couple years so I'm wondering - is there still a registry and are protocols still registered in it? I'm obviously not thinking about everyday users going through that to change permissions, just thinking about me.
But what makes it even worse is that Microsoft overrides your choice frequently on OS updates, which means you will need to repeat all these manual steps not just for each machine, but also for each major OS update. And you can’t script it.
I see this statement repeated often but I have never had this happen - not even once. I use Windows Pro and don’t do anything special either, I just apply Windows updates. If this is happening, I wonder why it is not happening to me.
Same, I never had Windows Update change defaults. This is one of those urban legends that is only very loosely based in fact (KB3135173 back in 2016 indeed had a bug that reset defaults, afaik it never happened since) but keeps persisting.
It's the same with ads; everyone claims Window 10 shows ads but I never saw any ads and I doubt it even has the capability of downloading and displaying random ads. It does occasionally show "recommendations" for using its apps (like Edge or Teams) and I guess if you squint really hard you could call those "ads", but I never saw an actual advertisement for some 3rd party website or product or anything of the sorts.
Yes, Windows 10 is bloated and the fact MS refuses to release a SKU with fully opt-out telemetry is bad, but this kind of hyperbole rubs me the wrong way.
Windows 10 reinstalled "Candy Crush Soda Saga" on my machine multiple times during updates, so it's absolutely not just first-party software like Edge and Teams that they've pushed.
Not doubting you but that is so weird. I deleted it (and a few other apps) once on that first install of Win 10 and it has never come back. I've never used any tool to disable or clean anything, etc... Just removed the apps through supported means.
It shouldn't happen anymore, but what kind of braindead update system didn't check for that in the first place?
> One of the ongoing feedback items we’ve heard is how the apps that come preinstalled with Windows will reinstall after each upgrade – particularly noticeable for our Insiders that receive multiple flights per month. We’ve heard your feedback, and starting with Build 14926, when your PC updates it will check for apps that have been uninstalled, and it will preserve that state once the update has completed. This means if you uninstall any of the apps included in Windows 10 such as the Mail app or Maps app, they will not get reinstalled after you update to a newer build going forward.
"Oops, we totally forgot to consider that any users would want to uninstall this bloatware, so we just included it again as part of each update. And definitely no one inside our organization had personally uninstalled Candy Crush, pointed out this problem, and had their concerns ignored because we wanted to maximize the number of installs that our partners are paying us for. User experience is our highest priority, and what're you going to do about it, switch to Linux?"
So MS turned Windows into the device OEM bloatware infested version of stock Android, combined with Google level tracking. Nice. I guess corporate customers are treated different, at least my commercial Windows liscense and my work-laptop has no bloatware worth mentioning.
Urban legend? Every time Windows updates I have to go into the Sound settings to disable the low-quality bluetooth endpoint on my headphones, because it is the default option and every update clears my selection and reestablishes the default.
I agree that can be annoying; did you try submitting a bug report?
I sent one once through their "Send Feedback" thing and someone actually got back to me (several months later, but still).
FWIW, I'm using wireless headphones that have the same 2 options (for calls and for "gaming") but never had the issue you're describing (though they're not Bluetooth, they come with a custom usb dongle).
You'd have to stretch the definition of ads quite a lot for those to fit. At worst, they'd be bloatware (but IIRC they're not even pre-installed apps, just stubs that link to the store that you can simply remove permanently). Still in bad taste and those should not show up especially in Pro SKU.
An ad would be a banner that shows up when you open the Start menu with "meet singles near you" or "try ubereats" or "buy Chevrolet cars" or some other bullshit of that sorts.
They're ads. Just like product placement in videos. When the actor is drinking Coca-Cola(tm) with the label pointed perfectly to the camera, that's an ad.
The fact that it doesn't "feel" like an ad to you, is just the industry adapting to audiences general dislike of "obvious" ads.
I really do wonder what causes the unevenness of this. For me, I installed Foxit reader and it's always stayed my default. I also switch .txt files to open in Notepad++ and it has always stayed the default too. I've changes a lot of file extensions over the years and they always stuck through all the Windows updates, etc... I've never used any version of Edge as my main browser nor has it ever become the default for anything automatically. I may have been prompted to try it during an upgrade welcome screen but I've always said no and it's never bothered me again.
I dual boot. Once a year or so, windows update trashes my boot loader and makes me do a grub repair in order be able to boot into ubuntu again. It’s inconvenient for me, but amateur Linux users could really panic and think it was Linux’s fault
This used to happen to me with the quarterly? version increments but hasn't been the case for a couple of years now. I even upgraded from W10 to W11 and was pleasantly surprised that grub was left intact, i.e. as the default boot manager.
I use the Professional edition too, and Windows resets my default image viewer and PDF viewer every now and then. Not sure if it's related to Windows updates, though. IIRC the resets are correlated more with one of those apps updating itself and Windows no longer trusting it with the defaults it had been previously granted.
Just speculation but perhaps the way the installers work makes it appear to Windows that the app was uninstalled first and then a new version is installed. If it looks like it was uninstalled then I can see why Windows might change the default.
Which feels quite amateurish and thus ridiculous for Microsoft. Like, they invent a new app store in Windows 10 and they still can't even be bothered to implement a working update routine that isn't infuriating to end users?
I honestly don't remember any details but this had happened to me once, about 1.5 or 2 years ago, where a major W10Pro update had somehow reset the default browser to Edge. It was just a normal bi-annual update, however it could be that I've installed manually using Windows Update Assistant without waiting for the normal rollout.
Microsoft just forced all of their office suite file extensions to look at their MS Office... which I don't (shouldn't) have installed. I happily use LibreOffice. But suddenly things are going to different apps!
User Friendly, as long as by "friendly" you mean "actively sabotaging"
That's happening on my dad's new laptop as well - he still uses his MS Office 2013 license because why not, but even after many attempts we couldn't figure out a way to make Windows open double-clicked files in that old Office. It would always pop up the newest unactivated test version. And before that it took a while until the OS even listed the programs in the start menu. MS literally fights its own software when you don't pay the annual 365 ransom.
This was happening to me after a system restore. Uninstalling all other versions of office on my computer, then rebooting and changing the default program to Office 13 worked for me.
I recently gave a friend my old PC, I installed Windows, updated it then did a factory reset so they could go through the first run setup themselves. Watching them set the machine up and blindly agreeing to all telemetry without even blinking really opened my eyes to how much "normal" people dont care about telemetry.
The great irony here is that we - technical people - have done this to ourselves. We opt out of telemetry (as we should IMO) as a default so out usage patterns never get sent to the mothership. So of course Windows gets dumbed down, options disappear, and the OS gets targeted at the normal folk.
I have no horse in this race to be fair as a linux user but I do find it amusing.
I have my first Linux machine since this weekend, and I really love how that feels a lot like old school Windows. Just an OS running on your own hardware, no calling home, no cloud, no account somewhere if I don't want to. And surprisingly easy to install as well, again not really more difficult than, say, setting up Windows XP yourself. or Windows 2000.
It is really quite refreshing to have some of the freedom from the "old days" back. Honestly, I don't think I'll go back for private usage. Work is different, a) because employers provide hard- and software and b) because Office 365 is quite good for corporate use.
What makes you think that old school Windows didn't use telemetry?
(I ask because I'm genuinely curious, not just playing devil's advocate -- I strongly suspect that even in 2000, Microsoft was collecting user data. But I'm to young to have been in the industry at the time, so maybe telemetry just wasn't that big in 2000?)
> The great irony here is that we - technical people - have done this to ourselves. We opt out of telemetry (as we should IMO) as a default so out usage patterns never get sent to the mothership. So of course Windows gets dumbed down, options disappear, and the OS gets targeted at the normal folk.
There's no irony here. Even if every single technically apt user sent their feedback to Microsoft at once, it would still be drowned out by the 99% of the general population that clicks through everything without reading or adjusting.
It's not even close, and we shouldn't be giving MS the benefit of the doubt anymore, considering what they've done to Windows in the last 10 years. They did it deliberately, while hiding behind "improving user experience" and "security".
Heck people default to donating their organs if that’s the option that’s preset when they register for a driving license. Or the reverse if that’s the option that’s preset. It’s not even close: whatever is the default option, no matter how serious, the vast majority of people seem to shrug and get on with their day.
I am so comfortable with personal computers that I take it for granted how intimidating the setup can be for the average Joe and Jane. Telling someone to change which app handles a certain file extension is like a mechanic telling me how to adjust one of the valves inside of a carburetor. Certainly do-able, but a nightmare to someone who thinks they can break the whole thing with one wrong move.
There is nothing wrong with well-implemented telemetry. It's an extremely valuable tool for improving software quality. I don't understand the antipathy some people have for it.
I'm not strongly against telemetry, but I previously wrote a comment explaining why I question the need for it (which was a source of cognitive dissonance given my employer at the time): https://lobste.rs/s/htbkqd/console_do_not_track#c_hqev1u
I worked for Mozilla over a period during which we went to having no telemetry to good telemetry and the benefits for quality were huge, especially for crashes. Without crash telemetry you simply have to guess which bugs are the most important to fix first. With telemetry you know. This is especially important when a bug suddenly shows up in the field, e.g. some antivirus vendor ships an update that breaks your product. Diverse teams are good but you are never going to have a team that truly represents the experiences of non-technical people.
Of course it's calculated. Try putting Chrome/Google search on a fresh install of Windows and see how many times you are one click away from being reverted back to Edge/Bing. It must be over a dozen
I appreciate the way MacOS handles these sorts of things: Applications can say "I am a browser!" and then the user can choose their preferred default from a drop-down. Also works for e-mail and FTP clients, as well as possibly others.
> Microsoft could perhaps look into allowing digitally signed apps to change the associations automatically (a single summarizing OS confirmation prompt might be wise), and non-signed apps would have to instruct users to manually change things.
I don't think that should be acceptable until Microsoft provides a way for developer to sign their programs at no cost.
What I really want is a way to tell Windows to open a different application for the file or URL type based on the application it comes from. I run a dedicated browser for work that proxies all its traffic across an SSH SOCKS proxy, and really just want clicks from Outlook and Teams to load in it, and everything else to load in Firefox.
Instead, I wrote a little thing myself[1] to make a distinction based on the pattern matching the URL. I took the chance to learn a bit more about Deno and deploying standalone apps, which I don't regret, since it was actually super easy, but I still wish I didn't have to. (Note: that utility isn't quite ready to be used easily, it needs to default the config file to a more standard location for the user to be easily useful as an filetype/URL target).
On a related note, I find it really frustrating that I can't just select a default text editor. I even want to use a MS product, VS Code, but there is not really an easy way to tell Windows to use VS Code for all text files.
Really what I would like is a two step association list. Be able to specify what category a particular file type is under (i.e. text file, web browser file, etc.) as well as specifying which text file or web browser should be used in general. Obviously many file types only need a direct association with an application, but that is not always the case and as is the case with text files, it may not be possible for an application installer to know all extensions it needs to associate with itself.
My solution to that problem is mostly via my favorite text editor KEDIT and some good directory tree walking via some simple Rexx scripts.
So the usual way of working is to use a text window (with a nicely juiced up set of environment variables) to go to a relevant directory. Uh, several directories are fairly easy also since a command line MARK A will set environment variable MARK.A to the directory name and command G A will make that directory current, for A, B, AB, C, ABC, .... Then with a directory current, use command K to run script K.REX to run KEDIT which right away displays the directory contents and right away gives me lots of ways to edit, manipulate, select lines in the display. Then one keystroke can view a file, that is, run my KEDIT macro VIEW.KEX which is pretty smart on what program to run to process that file.
I have, let's see, in my main collection of KEX macros 265 macros!
That process works for essentially all my typing for any and all reasons -- email, blog posts, macro writing, code writing, TeX word processing, PDF file reading, movie watching, etc. I'm thrilled, happy as a clam, especially with the Windows file system NTFS -- not so thrilled with some other aspects of Windows.
I seem to remember a checkbox during install for this. Though if you use winget/chocolatey, unsure of how to do it after the fact.
Though, 99% of my VS code use is launched from terminal anyway, and I can always right-click. That said, the Win11 right-click menu buries most of the options.
Long ago I gave up on letting Windows use associations. So, instead, I run programs (apps) via a script that makes the associations I want based on more than just a file extension.
Windows keeps thinking that it knows where I want files for music, movies, documents, images, etc. Nope, for me it knows no such things. If Windows was correct, then I would be making only nearly trivial use of Windows. Going back to PC/DOS, I knew where I wanted files, had my own way of keeping track of files, and still do.
I'm pretty sure 11 is my new 7. I won't be using it (well, maybe my employer will, but that's one machine out of three I use regularly), and it's pushing me towards alternatives again.
Let's hope Windows 12 solves these problems, as 10 solved 8's.
I used to share your belief, but as I got older, I realized... Windows isn't targeted to us, the faux technocratic elite that grew up with computers: it's targeted to the average person, and the average person, largely, is technologically illiterate to some degree.
You cannot get file/uri associations correct in a UX in a way that handles all situations. Essentially, this is a subset of the "many to many relations in database tables fundamentally suck" problem, and every time this happens where it is directly exposed to the user it has never turned out well.
Combine the potential UI/UX nightmare of this with literal actual criminals putting malware on the PCs of technologically illiterate users: it now hijacks 15 different file/uri associations in ways that are not easily fixed.
What Microsoft should do? Do an Android-style ask (yes, the one that all the people like us hate) every time a new handler can be associated. What they can't do? Expressly this because it didn't exist in Win98 when they added uri handler system to the existing file handler system, and Microsoft is obsessed with backwards compat.
Side note: Technically, Firefox could trigger the OTHER existing API for this that UWP apps are forced to use as per MS Store sandboxing, from the C++ WinRT API; any app could. It isn't well documented, and isn't the intended use but WinUI 3.x's path is allowing apps to piecemeal their way into the future without all-or-nothing rewrites. I'm not going to insult Mozilla by saying they "choose not to", I'd rather someone else jump in the deep end first on that.
How Microsoft ended up fixing the actual issue at hand? Removing the need to get another browser in the first place, but still allowing technologically literate users to install one if they want. Edge is Chrome, but without the boneheaded decisions Google makes ruining it, and actually moving forwards in usability.
Edge has vertical tabs built in, it has an actually visually correct dark theme built in[1], has the existing bookmark/history/open tab/etc syncing (which some Chromium-based browsers still do not, as they have to write their own backend), it has an Android version (many desktop Chromium browsers do not have a matching phone version), it has the beginnings of a ABP/uBlock style ad blocker built in (its already in the Android version as well) (Chrome will never ship with adblocking built in, Google's entire business model depends on their ad network), its the first Chromium-based browser that supports the VBS-based hardware-enforced browser sandbox (Microsoft wants to bring it to all Chromium-based things including Electron apps), and it also has tab collections built in (which is also supported on the Android version), and last but not least, they have an actually working PWA container on the desktop (reviving the code Google killed because they didn't want a future where Android couldn't be a vendor lock-in moat).
The number of extensions I need to make Edge actually productive is less than any other browser.
You know what Mozilla brought me? Panorama, which is now gone. An extension system that could actually deeply modify the UI (thanks to XUL), which is now gone (and has been replaced with a partial WebExtension implementation). A PWA-first OS, called FirefoxOS, that would be lighter and faster than Android by several magnitudes, which is now gone. An Electron alternative that used Gecko instead, called Positron, also gone. A PWA container for the desktop called Prism, also dead.
Almost everything Mozilla thought of, half-assed, and then killed, Edge has succeeded, and brought to not only Windows, but OSX, Linux, and Android too, and also salvaged the slowly rotting Chromium codebase at the same time.
[1]: Dark themes should never have backgrounds darker than 16, as the eye has poor "bright on dark" focusing, but most monitors, even ones being sold today, have very poor tracking of values below the limited 16-240 range (even HDR monitors); the two of those together make standard viewing conditions (dimly lit office or indirect sunlight lit room or single 60W equivalent on a desk in a small bedroom, with a 100 nits monitor (sRGB defines optimal brightness as 80 nits + offset for ambient, BT1886 defines SDR white as 100 if not otherwise calibrated, BT2020 defines SDR content in HDR display mode as 100)) hard to read for standard distance and DPI monitors (ex: 24" 1080p or 27" 1440p at ~29 inches, given a 1.2 ratio of screen size to distance) at the standard text size (16px).
Dark themes that have pure black for misguided reasons should be eradicated for user accessibility reasons; contrast and readability are very important for everyone, not just people with diagnosed vision problems.
> I used to share your belief, but as I got older, I realized... Windows isn't targeted to us, the faux technocratic elite that grew up with computers: it's targeted to the average person, and the average person, largely, is technologically illiterate to some degree.
I mean, the average user has been capable of installing and using alternative browsers for a significant period of time. Most folks exist as some shade of gray between your Grandma with an Ask toolbar and the "HN elites." If anything, I think there is often an underestimation of what regular users understand and are willing to do with their tech (to improve their experience, privacy, etc.) If you need some sort of a sanity check, see how your friends and peers (that don't work in software) configure their systems. See what browsers they use, what adblockers they configure, etc. I predict you'd be surprised.
I rarely meet this "average user" who is often discussed on HN; this person who isn't interested in using non-standard software, who doesn't care at all about their privacy, who will use only the easiest and cheapest solution possible, etc. Dark patterns don't just work on these "average users," they work on plenty who even work in tech. I click "Accept All" on the cookie banner on this one-off website if it's the fastest way to read the contents, I will put off changing default apps if I have to hunt for the correct settings, heck I've been charged for subscriptions an extra month because I put off dealing with the hassle of cancelling the thing.
I think this "average user" is constructed in the collective imagination because it makes implementing user-hostile design choices a little more conscionable if you view your users as tech illiterate morons. Considering the state of the industry, one where dark patterns and user hostility permeate nearly every design choice, it doesn't surprise me that HN, a subset of this industry, holds this dim view of its users.
> If you need some sort of a sanity check, see how your friends and peers (that don't work in software) configure their systems
Everyone I know who doesn't work in tech "configures" their system by calling me and saying, "it doesn't work" (no other details provided), and asking if I can just fix it.
> I rarely meet this "average user"...who isn't interested in using non-standard software...doesn't care about privacy...will use only the easiest and cheapest solution
Consider yourself lucky, and consider the circles you travel in are may not be reflective of the majority of users.
Everyone's anecdotes will be different (and may differ along generational lines.) For a more concrete example of users seeking non-standard software, within a few years of it coming out Chrome became the most popular desktop web browser, surpassing IE. People perferred the experience on Chrome over that on IE to a considerable degree. On the privacy front, 96% of users opt out of surveillance-based advertising [1] when empowered to do so.
The longer we consider concepts like user freedom and privacy as only things that "HN elites" would appreciate, the more tolerable user-hostile design choices will be among HN types.
I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. I spend a lot of time and effort customizing my setup so it fits my needs perfectly. Because I believe that spending even a day or two on setup for a system I'm going to use for a year+ is well worth my time.
So many of my coworkers at every job have just blindly accepted all defaults for Windows, macOS, etc. setups. Even when something really annoys them, they'll only occasionally express it... and when I show them that it's a setting they can actually change to better suit their workflow, they're super grateful and excited at this new thing they learned. As if they couldn't possibly have navigated to preferences on their own.
Even things that are massively broken, like my dad's router that was constantly overheating and shutting down because it was stacked in the back of a closet surrounded by other crap, many people just accept and move on from.
My personal favorite? I'm constantly frustrated by almost everything I do in the Spotify app:
- General lagginess, slowness to start up or respond to clicks
- loading in albums and playlists that reorganizes the homescreen as a I scroll and try to click on things
- albums I click on that never load unless I back out and click on them again
- music that shows up as "playing" but doesn't actually play any audio
- unplugging headphones leading to half a second of audio blasting out my speakers because the app takes so long to respond to the headphone disconnect event...
I asked a software engineer friend if he's ever frustrated by those same things. He said "it's fine." I showed him some of these frustrations (because they're very replicable).
He said "it's fine. It plays music, what else do you want it to do?"
Most people are content with mediocrity. Perfect example: the folks who use built-in apps on Samsung phones that display ads in between weather and text messages and emails.
Honestly the way I look at it, these issues all have such a simple solution. The user experience can be so much better, but MSFT does not want that. They want a confusing experience that pretends they aren’t monopolizing their platform.
Even if the lowest common denominator can navigate the settings (eventually) it’s still not an excuse to make shitty UX paradigms. This is a company with some of the best and brightest engineers—and we’re on three decades of Windows… and they can’t figure out how to design a proper defaults page? Come on.
"Open all browser file types in a single browser I select" is good enough for both the average user and the "technocratic elite" in basically all cases, and there are certainly zero cases where choosing every file association manually is better for someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
I don't understand your complaint about Firefox's dark mode; I've been using it for years and I don't remember any pure black elements. And as far as extensions, Firefox may be missing a couple minor APIs but it's the only browser that doesn't block the important ones (e.g. the ones uBlock Origin needs) so ad companies can make more money.
I use dark themes with pure black backgrounds precisely because it maximizes contrast and increases accessibility. I don't understand your dislike for them and desire to eradicate them, especially when they can exist alongside grey dark themes (as is commonly the case with Android apps).
It was removed from the core browser because they reached the point where it could be entirely implemented in an extension, and also wasn’t as popular as they’d hoped. … it should then be noted that it can no longer be perfectly implemented in a WebExtensions world; there are some compromises that need to be made, comparatively minor is my impression but I don’t use it (I used Panorama at first, but found before long that multiple windows and Tree Style Tab was more useful to me).
> An extension system that could actually deeply modify the UI (thanks to XUL), which is now gone (and has been replaced with a partial WebExtension implementation).
Replaced for entirely legitimate performance reasons, even if you ignore the security and maintainability arguments. As with many things, it’s a balance. So long as userChrome.css still works, I’m fairly OK with where things lie.
> Firefox OS, Positron, Prism
Sigh. Yeah. I’d count XULRunner here too. I won’t comment on Firefox OS or Prism, but I believe a substantial reason in the killing of XULRunner and Positron is that they were too hard to maintain and held progress on Firefox back.
> Almost everything Mozilla thought of, half-assed, and then killed, Edge has succeeded
It’s funny how these things go: an early implementer before its time, and then later something else reinvents much the same thing but actually succeeds at it. The first two examples of this that my mind always springs to are actually both Microsoft: HTA, which was basically Electron lite, but in 1999; and tablet PCs in the mid-2000s, that quite flopped because the hardware wasn’t quite right yet, and so Microsoft abandoned the space and licked their wounds for another decade before returning (with the iPad and Android tablets having occupied the space, including things like ASUS’s Eee Pad Transformers).
And the related phenomenon of cycles like how OSes used to be all colour-customisable, then they steadily lost that, then eventually they all added dark modes back in again, treating it as something all new and never-before-seen.
> Dark themes
You’re subscribing to the common fallacy that dark themes are just one thing. The fact of the matter is that there are actually several substantially different types of dark modes. This is theory I’ve been mulling over for the last few years; I’ve vacillated between reckoning three and four types and exactly where to draw lines, but I’m currently going with four: ① æsthetic, which is fairly low contrast and certainly avoids true black and white; ② accessibility, which is high contrast in both colours and styles (that is, no gentle gradients, just harsh boundaries between colours), and uses true black and white—note here that light accessibility mode is much more likely to be useful than dark accessibility mode, but both have a place; ③ low-light, which uses true black and mostly fairly bright whites up to and including true white, but is not scared of in-between colours or actively trying for super-high contrast; and ④ power-saver, which is largely for things like OLED panels, where true black definitely uses less power and can look great, and certainly not for TN LCD panels where true black tends to look awful. Which type of dark mode is most appropriate depends on the user’s eyesight, the device screen type, the ambient lighting conditions, the nature of the content being presented, user preference, and power availability.
I'm pretty sure browser share is done by useragent, which will report Firefox if you're using Firefox. Unless of course you change your useragent but the number of people doing that will be vanishingly small.
To be fair, one of the very few add-ons available for Firefox on Android is an add-on that does exactly this on Google properties so Google won't degrade your experience for using FireFox.
So maybe it is more popular than we think. Very hard to know for sure.
Not sure you can really blame android, when Android allows Firefox as a first class replacement for Chrome and with ease for the user, whereas iOS doesn't even allow the real Firefox.
iOS is a very important platform for Firefox, so apples anti-competitive behavior in this regard really undermines firefox's future.
I'm very sad that this issue has not come up in all of the debate about the app store.
~98% of Androids use the default browser, which is an incredible amount of people, like in the billions. We tend to forget iOS is a minority worldwide.
Not sure it's reasonable to ask a for-profit company to do more than make it easily and fully changeable. Neither Microsoft nor Apple come close to that.
Dark patterns from Microsoft and Google. They nag users to set their own applications as the default. You can't expect users who don't know any better to to always say no, they get tired and then say yes.
Because the reasons why its market share ever got as high as it did to begin with no longer apply. Firefox isn't basically competing with a piece of abandonware that happens to ship with Windows any more.
Microsoft's statement on this: we are implementing customer feedback to customize and control defaults at a more granular level, eliminating app categories and elevating all apps to the forefront of the defaults experience.
More granular control is nice and all, but I don't buy for a second that it couldn't be behind some "advanced" button. I think the most probable explanation for removing the app categories is a calculated move to steer people towards Microsoft products which have access to backdoor internal functions to change all of these automatically.
I do remember how bad things were back in Windows XP days when every random toolbar would change all the associations. I don't wish for that experience to come back for non technical users either. Microsoft could perhaps look into allowing digitally signed apps to change the associations automatically (a single summarizing OS confirmation prompt might be wise), and non-signed apps would have to instruct users to manually change things.
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[1] https://www.theverge.com/22630319/microsoft-windows-11-defau...