@kde
I remember decades ago when a US court convicted Microsoft to seperate their browser from windows. The court wrote the verdict that Microsoft ilegally tried to prevent competion . Since Microsoft lost it shouldn't be difficult to file the next suit . @kde
During the Clinton era Microsoft was a hair's breadth away from being broken apart for all its anti-competitive monopolistic shenanigans -- including the browser war thing that you mention.
But then Bush Junior got into power (I resist using the words "was elected") and he swept all that away.
As I recall:
Microsoft Windows used to have good online help, circa 1991-1994 (Windows 3.1).
It was based on the Rich Text Format (RTF).
Then Microsoft added a web browser, and called it Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer really wasn't very good for exploring the internet, apparently because its development had been rushed and it didn't display some things like other browsers would.
Then Microsoft argued in court that its web browser was an integral part of Windows, which Windows could not work without.
Then the judge removed the web browser from his own Windows-based computer and experienced no problems.
Then Microsoft changed its online help to HTML and made us use its web browser to access it.
Apple had to learn the hard way: Under the DMA (thanks @EUCommission !) they were forced to give users a choice regarding the default search engine and browser on their systems.
What are we going to do about Microsoft misleading users?
It is still required, as Google had to do the same with Android, offering multiple search engines and presenting them to the user (at least that happened to me with my phone), but after doing it in Windows 8.1, Microsoft probably thought that it was enough compliance to keep "those nagging EU politicians" away.
I just found out that the agreement between Microsoft and the EU commission was only valid between 2009 and 2014. So MS is no longer obliged to make the change of the default browser easy.
@kde@kde I've been using Plasma 6 as my daily driver for three weeks now, and it's really good! I'm grateful for all the time that developers, testers, and doc writers have spent on this project. I decided to ditch Windows after getting yet another nudge to "please create a microsoft account".
Oh, hey, I already did that! I'll have you know that once I did, my computer was no longer broken and my life changed— Colors became more vivid. Birdsong sounds sweeter. Food tastes better. My wife got even hotter. And I even discovered the secret to nuclear fusion!
Joking aside, ever since switching to Linux, my machine had never run better.
I have rescued several laptops that were struggling with Windows by installing Linux, and KDE Plasma is excellent these days. My 7 year old Dell XPS, which had become unusably slow and hot under Windows 11 despite repastes and cleaning, runs OpenSUSE Tumbleweed like it's a new machine.
@kde@kde
I love KDE so much. If I didn't rely on certain creative software for work, I'd ditch macOS in an instant.
And I think that's one of the reasons people just aren't able to switch over from Windows.
But hey, every other computer in the house that isn't a Mac runs Fedora KDE. 😃
I feel the same about KDE and Windows. I only keep Windows for some music production stuff and legacy .NET application maintenance. The rest of the time I avoid it and use Linux and KDE, a far more pleasant experience.
It doesn't say anything about repairing, this is such a low class clickbait.
All it says is that the default settings are changed, and they recommend resetting to their service. Because of course a company is going to recommend their own services. Would be a bad company if they didn't.
This is the actual picture they used in the article:
If you look at the screenshot, you can see this is the "Repair tips" tab/button. I don't know what it looks like, but it does say something about repairing.
A tip for if things went wrong, like if some virus installed a weird browser and set it default, and you want a quick fix.
It isn't saying that if you installed any other browser the system is broken and it should be repaired to Edge. That is just ridiculous and why I call this clickbait.
It is aimed at people who don't even know what a default browser is. You know, the average user.
You are working with hypotheticals. We cannot judge what the reasoning is. We can only judge what it is. It may have been done with good intentions as you say. Given MS's track record, highly unlikely, but either way the fact is MS is telling its Windows users that anything that is not Edge and Bing is damaged or malicious. That is anticompetitive bullshit (intentional or not) and FUD.
@kde@kde Guess what, Firefox does the same thing (a refresh will reset your privacy settings and your default browser, all of which affect Mozilla’s revenue streams) but they’re a tad sneakier/cleverer(?) about it.
(Firefox is not private by default so getting you to reset your settings is how they try to influence you to return to their preferred configuration.)
@aral@kde@kde I wouldn't call that one deceptive design tbh, it says what it is doing on the box, resetting the browser to its default state. That includes search engines and privacy settings. Resetting settings to defaults is a completely normal feature that many apps have, and can be useful for fixing issues.
@aral@kde@kde I still dont consider this deceptive design. A prompt to reset is perfectly normal in programming, and it would be weird if they did not reset privacy settings with that. Resetting settings is resetting ALL settings. In fact, since resetting is often used for fixing issues you are having in your browser, resetting security settings is a good thing, since some of them can break sites.
Shh! You're messing up their bizarre soapbox interjection! They want everyone to switch back to chrome because they'd rather Google have access to your data instead
It showed up on my feed. I see similar advice posts regularly "Just ditch windows and..."
Aside from my work tools not working on Linux natively, there are usually a few other steps involved in making the transition. Most people don't want to fuck around with that sort of thing.
I played around with Ubuntu back in the early 00s, before reverting back to Windows.
I looked into what was the easiest current distro to install in order to revive an old laptop. The consensus seemed to be Mint. It works fine and the old hardware was all recognized and so on. I'm still primarily a Windows user, even with all the the BS that goes along with it.
Using Linux is hardly a project anymore, unless you want it to be one. Plasma is just an interface, you can get many distros with it if you want including Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE, Kubuntu, Arch, and so on.
You can pretty much just install Mint or Pop OS and go. There are a lot of options (I would argue too many) but you can ignore most of them as a beginning user. No one should recommend arch to a beginner and anyone who does should be shot.