I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10. I counted 5 seperate scare tactics employed by M$ to keep you using Edge. I thought they were successfully sued for monopolistically coupling Internet Explorer to Windows and had a flow in their installation menu's for installing competing browsers. I was surprised that this is now totally missing!

From what I could see it was also difficult to switch the office suite. My OEM installed trial versions of word, excel, etc. which were set to be opened by default on all related file extensions. Switching to libreoffice was a PITA, I couldnt find a simple, one-click way to change all these. I had to go over them one-by-one.. (.doc, .docx, .dochtml, .docxhtml, .xls, .xlsx, .xlshtml, .xslsxhtml,....)

Don't forget about the shady and underhanded ways to prevent you from making a local account for a new installation of Windows. The first screen you see asks for a WiFi password, and I assume that it is going to start downloading updates in the background. Instead, it prompts you to enter an email address for a Microsoft account. The "Learn More" button says that you can make an offline account later, but right now they'd really like to have your personal information before letting you continue.

The only way to actually make a local account is to either (a) refuse to connect to WiFi until after an account is made or (b) disconnect the router while it is trying to talk to Microsoft. Option (a) is inaccessible by the time you realize that there is a problem, and option (b) is ridiculous and needs to be found on third-party suggestions. All so that Microsoft can pull in another email address.

Oh yes! I am just glad I knew about this behaviour beforehand and didn't let the laptop connect to my WiFi. My dad would've fallen into this trap _for sure_.

Windows 10 installation has become a maze which only the really savvy can escape with their privacy somewhat in tact.

What kind of version did you try to install?

I never had this bullshit on PRO versions, but I'm connected through cable tho.

This was on a home edition, pre installed on a new Lenovo laptop. Looking it up, this happens on all Home versions, but hasn't yet spread to Professional.

The thing to experience here, is to try using Google sites with Edge: Microsoft has definitely been pushing people to use Edge, but it pales in comparison to how heavily Google abuses their web properties to shove Chrome down peoples' throats.

Back when I used Gmail, I'd open my email and get not one, but TWO separate things, one a popup box, and one a top bar, telling me I should switch to Chrome, and dismissing it never stuck. It'd come back in a week or so. Even once Edge started running on Chrome code, Google stepped up writing new tricks to claim that Edge was "less secure" because it didn't direct telemetry straight to Google servers.

Google's underhanded push with Chrome has hurt everyone, and unfortunately, Microsoft probably can't "target just Chrome" in retaliating against such messaging, so Firefox gets hit too.

Since I abandoned Windows for Linux, my opinion of Microsoft has improved dramatically. Windows has to be one of their worst, if not their worst product. GitHub and Azure are both quite good, and Office is at least OK. All their Android apps and Android integration are excellent. The new Xbox and related services are even quite good. Just every time I'm forced to use Windows (especially at work where I can't change any aspect of it), I'm reminded of why I hated Microsoft so much.

>>I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10.

Install a Package Manager like Chocolety [1], AppGet [2] or the new "Official" one WinGet

>>I couldnt find a simple, one-click way to change all these. I had to go over them one-by-one.. (.doc, .docx, .dochtml, .docxhtml, .xls, .xlsx, .xlshtml, .xslsxhtml,....)

Yea MS has tried to bork this, but in the "Default Apps" settings page of the new "Settings" Application, there is a link called "Set Defaults by App" that makes it MUCH easier than what you did which was "Choose Default Apps by File Type"

[1] https://chocolatey.org/

[2] https://appget.net/

[3] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

That's terrible and all, but you can't even really install a different browser on your phone. They're either Safari wrappers or Chrome wrappers (even Firefox).

They're all Safari wrappers on iOS because Apple deems it so. Android has no such requirements and thus when you install Firefox you're actually running Firefox.

From what I understand, that's a limitation of the iPhone and is not the case on Android.

Blame Libre installer then?

Yes, I agree. To fail to register as the default program for all the extensions you support, ideally optionally, is surely the fault of the installer not the os?

There are perhaps better anecdotes for reasons to dislike windows...

Im not sure if libreoffice is fully to blame, I don't think it is possible for applications to _change_ the default app directly themselves, they now need to link to the windows settings screen to have the user manually do it. It is a fair point that libreoffice currently fails to do even this.

These are still registry entries and are still located in the same part of the registry and still with the same way. This hasn't changed. What's changed is registering applications to show up for the new UI is a huge pain requiring multiple registry keys, however simply setting the opening application for a given filetype/protocol is quite easy: either open a .reg file with reg.exe (pops up a code window) or regedit,exe (pops up a prompt), or add the entry programmatically (silent).

Personally, I'm still annoyed that removed the File Types settings in Windows 7(?), though some of them have made their way back with the new settings.

Yeah, I was there. I have a long view and cynicism that m$ has retreated to the Embrace phase. To vastly oversimplify their governance, they're a new CEO away from Extend and Extinguish.

Lately, I love what they've been doing. Even github -- there have been disappointments, for sure, but nothing like the egregious misbehavior in the bad old days. But given their history; given Google's "do no evil" bait&switch... I don't want to hand them more power.

It'd be cool if an interested third party could build out an app store that automatically sources from github (and its competitors), though.

> It'd be cool if an interested third party could build out an app store that automatically sources from github (and its competitors), though.

That’s called a package repository and there are hundreds (thousands?) of them.

An “App Store” is a vertically integrated package repo.

There is F-droid but its success is unfortunately only moderate at best.

Element is actually in the F-droid store but the version is outdated.

Yeah, I "use" fdroid. Usually that means searching for apps, finding their download links broken, and then finding the apk on a couple skeezy-looking apk download pages and checking that they checksum the same (verifying, at best, that the skeezy sites have the same possibly hacked apk... ick)

Personally I do not look at companies for being nice, sweet, good to the world or whatever other bullshit any company will try to convince you to believe.

Do you really believe Microsoft is changing their tactics because they want to?

They needed to change.

Their goal which has always been Platform, around 12 years ago they realized it had to be open open towards everything else than Windows only. Otherwise they would be seriously under pressure.

Why do you think Azure is so popular with other platforms too, other than ms tech?

Microsoft is really really good at setting and reaching goals. They excel at it. And believe you me, that their goal is not to approve and support open source because they shifted their mindset towards it - it's because they had to - and they will make money doing it.

These statements about companies, being kind towards this or that, has to be read carefully. They are savages in the end and will do pretty much anything to win.

I worked at MS for many years. Not any longer.

Yeah, LSP may be turning out to be a good example of Microsoft going back to EEE; with a twist, though: rather than embracing a pre-existing standard, they're proposing a new one

https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode/issues/1863#issuecomme...