Can you blame it?
It would be nice if, unlike GDPR, some veteran UX leaders would be consulted before this legislation was drawn up.
GDPR was well intentioned, but many of the pop experiences are littered with dark UI patterns, and most of those pop up experiences are annoying as hell.
An amendment has changed the rules on that. They need to be as easy to reject as to accept. Lots of websites atm are breaking the law on this still.
My hot take is that GDPR, CCPA, etc. should require sites to go through a standard user experience native to the browser’s chrome. Kind of like how Android and iOS handle tracking permissions for Play and App Store apps.
That seems like it would be way easier to audit / govern, and it would be a better overall experience for end users.
You shouldn’t assume the contents of the GDPR based on what most companies are doing. It’s not legally consent, if it was not given freely. So, no dark patterns, no coercion, no inaccurate descriptions, nothing. You need to inform the user as accurately as possible and ensure that they choose what suits their interest. Then it’s consent.
Didn’t Windows used to have a browser selection screen already? What happened?
If you have use the one in windows 10/11 its a bit of a nightmare. You have to manually change the default browser for all file types from edge to your new browser. And there are about 20 options you have to manually change over.
Edge does a lot of things to annoy me on Windows, but this is not one. I do not think I had ti change the default browser for every file type. Also the normal user would never notice this problem, as they rarely open HTML files directly.
In 11 changing the default browser does not change all the filetypes the broswer can open. Setting an alternate browser as the default only sets the new browser to open a few filetypes. Its why I see confused illiterates at my workplace with Chrome, Adobe, and Edge open.
Wow dude that’s unnecessary.
What browser do you suggest for illustrator files? You photoshop directly in firefox? Adobe applications are a necessary evil for some people, and multiple browsers can be handy for sandboxing or separating user profiles, especially on public machines. People with multiple applications open aren’t “confused illiterates” jfc. They just use their computers differently from you.
Rude.
They are confused when all 3 have PDFs open in them.
Oh. Oh my. I take it all back.
You’re allowed to be a little bit mean on the internet.
Particularly when the most virulent word used was “illiterate”
I find “Rude.” pretty virulent myself.
I’m pretty sure that is no longer the case.
I haven’t had any trouble switching my default browser around recently, at least.
That said, they still tried and showed the lows they’re willing to stoop to.
Yeah just did a fresh install and once I installed Waterfox I just had to click a single button when prompted.
However this was Tiny11 so I am unsure if that applies equally to normal Win11.
And you can’t open any Microsoft help sites in the settings without Edge. I don’t think you can change that at all.
And that’s something that specifically got them in trouble with the DOJ in the 90s. The gall of them to do it again. Absolute scumbags.
Apple and Google should also be smacked down for their anticompetitive behavior.
Well, they seem to have noticed that we live in a time without consequences.
Edit: Recently I’ve been wishing Windows XP back. They’ve even started with the undeletable apps shit like on smartphones as well on Windows 10/11. You can’t really OWN anything anymore it seems.
If you’re wishing for Windows XP, I’ve got some Linux distros to offer you. Actually only one because my sister said it looked ancient and that’s Linux Mint.
Unfortunately I’m not REALLY tech savvy and know almost nothing about Linux other than that it’s open source. (I know it’s kinda ironic to say that in a technology community.) But I’ve been toying with the idea…I kinda hate MS and Apple and all the other tech giants.
The mainstream distros do not need any technical knowledge. Installing it requires a bit of knowledge (setting up a bootable USB stick and getting UEFI to boot from USB), but that’s basically it.
The only wrinkle is making sure beforehand that all the programs you use in Windows either work on Linux or have an equivalent.
My very nontechnical gf happily used Ubuntu for many years. Switched her to Fedora about 2 years ago. She only really uses Firefox, torrents, VLC, and some Steam games (recently Witcher 3 and Tabletop Simulator), so it’s all very straightforward.
As Barbarian mentions, a lot of the process of setting up Linux has been streamlined across distros by their creators.
The only one which can be considered quite scary is Arch but that’s due to the philosophy behind it. The Arch developers don’t want to constrain the users to what they like using so every decision is handed to the user to build the system as they see fit. It’s not for everyone. I’m a control freak so I like it.
I can point you to a tutorial of someone setting up an Arch system in about 45 mins if you want it but there are many options like Mint, Ubuntu. PopOS is a fantastic one which I recommend to people who play video games. It has one of the most innovative launchers I’ve seen and System76 is constantly updating it. I’ve heard good things about Fedora.
Here’s a little quiz you can do to help you choose: https://distrochooser.de/
It was made as result of an EU settlement that only lasted about 5 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
I have absolutely no idea why they figured 5 years would be good enough.
Obviously, the multinational billion dollar company would see the error of their ways in that period of time
The idea is it gives enough time for competition to establish and then everyone completes on an even footing without fettering the original monopoly after it’s no longer a monopoly in that space… arguably it worked as Chrome took over but all that’s happened it it made a new monopoly 🤷🏻♂️
We don’t need AMP links on Lemmy. Please try to avoid them by posting links to the real article. We (mostly, I’d think) have ad blockers, so it won’t be a problem.
We should have Lemmy auto translate these links to non amp versions, or just outright refuse those links
FWIW there’s an iOS app called Amplosion that does just that.
Sorry for that, but I don’t actually understand what you mean…
EDIT OK I’ve googled it and it seems to be a page that is sponsored by Google but I use Firefox and it worked fine with that - so is the problem that it doesn’t work with certain browsers?
Not only sponsored, but owned by Google.
AMP links are basically Google repackaging other people’s articles. It prevents the actual owner from getting a pageview and let’s Google track you more invasively.
Thanks for the info - was not aware of this before. Yet more wonderful business practices from the world of big tech…
Basically AMP is a copy of the website content hosted by Google for a “speedier load” but there are privacy, longevity, and general decentralization concerns with the “protocol.”
Thanks for this - this is something that has passed me by. So essentially plagarising another website’s content for traffic plus the usual Google shenanigans? Nice
I mean, the website opts into it (it can’t be done with any website), but otherwise yes.
Obviously - I guess I’m more surprised at The Register in that case. They’re a very savvy industry magazine. Presumably they get a hefty wad.
Lol I think I will have to stop using internet.
Can’t read the article (Cloudflare blockade).
In principle there needs to be pushback on the power of defaults for sure. Yes, all the options are shit anyway, but that’s in part due to the #powerOfDefaults.
We were here before when Internet Explorer 6 was the dominant browser.
It didn’t reduce the usage of IE. People just pick what they know in those screens.
This is one of those things that is great in theory, but proper execution is going to be hard
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What determines a popular browser?
Would smaller browsers like LibreWolf make the cut? What is the prerequisite? Should every small fork of a few dozen users be shown?
Should security patch speed and security defense be shown? What about number if CVE’s
Which order are they shown in?
Do they have descriptions, and how do you accurately describe the difference in web browsers in a short description?
Should Firefox mention they’re the only non-Chromium browser engine, and should it be grouped by browser engines instead?
Is it really diverse if they’re all just Chromium skins?
If Firefox is going to be buried at the bottom of the list, is that really as fair as the first one in the list?
What about if they unfairly resize their Edge browser as half the screen and preselect it as a default, while making the alternatives smaller and harder to see at a glance for people that just want to go quickly through the options.
How do you accurately describe what the browser defines “private” as?
At what point is the user too informed or too little informed? You don’t want to information overload.
This is why it’s more complicated then just “show every popular browser”.
There’s not really much here that isn’t pretty easily solved. Alphabetical order, descriptions yes, written by each vendor. Yes Firefox would be required to be listed since it’s one of the handful not based on chromium. Design literally is just solving these exact kinds of problems and it happens every day, no need to make it a harder problem than it is.
Alphabetical order
A problem since a lot just choose the first or last.
https://www.sitepoint.com/european-browser-choice-today/
https://www.sitepoint.com/microsoft-fix-their-non-random-browser-choice-screen/
All of that points are valid questions to be solved for an implementation. I want to add another one: Which part of the users profit from this?
Most users don’t give a fuck which browser they use as long as it’s working. They cannot comprehend most information you described in your questions and want a simple solution. The other part of users usually knows how to install and select a browser of their choice on a PC. After all it’s not that hard with the current OS choices available anyway.
I agree, mostly. let OS have a default choice; sure, even make it not uninstallable (as a failsafe so that noone accidentally ends up with no browser whatsoever). but also FORBID them from ever automatically switching back after user makes their choice and FORBID them from prompting the switch in any place in the OS. opt-out is opt-out, not opt-out-but-maybe-will-change-my-mind-at-some-point-or-just-misclick. and this doesn’t only go for browser. any “restore microsoft recommended settings” should be fucking banned. if I want to open my PDFs in sumatra, I want it to stay that way and not be prompted to use fucking edge for that. sure, ask my once whether I’m sure about it. but that’s it
I remember there was a debate over iOS sideloading and someone made a very good point. Apple can lock me out of their eco-system, stop updates, void warranty. but let users use their fucking devices as they wish.
