I'd already written about this development last week, but it looks like the rest of the tech media world has also caught on to Microsoft's latest move to force Edge on Windows 10 users, and the results are about what you'd expect.
Por ejemplo, Mashable:
Sorry Microsoft, but this isn't the way to get people to use your Edge browseror diGit:
Microsoft could soon force Mail users to use Edge for email links in Windows 10
In the latest Preview Build, Microsoft is testing opening all Windows Mail links in Edge, even if the user's default browser is set to Chrome or Firefox.or Übergizmo:
Windows 10 Mail Users Will Be Forced To Use Edge For Email LinksThe Reg:
Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn’t default browser
Grab some popcorn: Redmond’s asked for feedback on the ideaThe Inquirer:
Express.co.uk:
Windows 10 could FORCE you to use Microsoft Edge, even if Chrome is your default browser
MICROSOFT could soon force Windows 10 users to open links in Edge, regardless of users’ default web browser.These are just the headlines, of course, but the story that they'e reporting hasn't changed since Friday, and the headlines show pretty clearly how badly Microsoft have failed at pitching their terrible idea. Almost every headline uses the word "force" to describe what MS are doing; none of them are even potentially positive. The Inquirer talks about "anti-competitive strong-arming" in their headline; The Reg is grabbing their popcorn as they watch this fireworks show kicking into high gear. It's difficult to say what reaction Microsoft were hoping for, here, but none of these reactions are good news for Redmond.
None of them are particularly insightful or informative, though. For those things, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Paul Thurrott.
Thurrott's take on this move covered the expected bases for openers:
(Free membership required, and totally worth it.)
The responses I saw to this change, presented as it is as a benefit, were immediate and predictable.
The sycophantic pro-Microsoft crowd, faced with a hard-to-defend policy, chose instead to criticize those, like myself, who chose to stand up for choice instead of everyone’s favorite corporation and what I see as its increasingly user-hostile policies. We are, after all, petulant children. How dare we.
My own reaction was typical, for me. Righteous indignation communicated with my characteristic and sarcastic humor on Twitter. You can almost watch how I process this information in real time if you follow the tweets.
Paul Thurrott on Twitter:Crucially, though, Thurrott actually goes on to explain something that I, as a Windows 7 hold-out, did not know:
For the love ofPaul Thurrott on Twitter:
Windows 10’s Mail app forcing you to use Edge for clicked links is too much. This is what the bad old Microsoft would have done. You’re better than this.Paul Thurrott on Twitter:
I’m going to go the car wash and wash all this Edge off of it.Paul Thurrott on Twitter:
We want people to use our product. Should we:
a) Make a better product
or
b) Not give them a choice and ram this inferior product down their throats?
Is not a normal question to ask.
First, and most important, this change does not represent the first time that Microsoft has subtly (or not) pushes users to its (now not-so-new) web browser, Microsoft Edge. Instead, Microsoft has been artificially intercepting connections the default web browser that users configure in Windows 10 in various ways for a long time. The situation is so untenable to some that there is a utility called EdgeDeflector that was designed solely to circumvent Microsoft’s circumventions.He then goes on to explain the overall strategy at play here:
This is as much about totalitarianism as it is about modernizing Windows as quickly as possible. In fact, these two things are the strategy.
I’ve often compared Android to Windows, and have noted that Android is the next Windows. This topic came up again in this week’s Ask Paul, and I mentioned that I mean this comparison very broadly. Android is just like Windows in so many ways.
In plotting the future of Windows, Microsoft very specifically doesn’t want Windows to be like Android anymore. It doesn’t want Windows to be like the Windows of the past and present. It wants something that is more secure, more reliable, simpler, and something that provides better performance up-front and over time.
It wants Windows to be like iOS.
In doing so, Microsoft is not just copying Apple yet again and betraying its never-ending jealousy of that company’s successes and ability to lead its user base—which, by the way, is about as big and diverse as that of Windows now—in what it feels is the right direction. It is instead trying to transform this legacy tech product, this mountain of software spaghetti, into something that resembles—no, is—a mobile product.
[...]
Taken in context, this push to force Windows 10 Mail app users to use Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 starting with version 1809 is, in fact, not a big deal. Is, in many ways, just a minor and somewhat innocuous change that few would notice. Left unsaid here is that the Mail app is terrible, is in many ways worse than Edge at what it does. And that someone with needs so simple that Mail works for them would probably use and be happy with Edge anyway.
But that’s how they get you. That is how democracies like Windows fall. Not in one fell swoop. But in tiny bites. Many of which come from within.It needs to be said, at this point, that Thurrott is a Microsoft supporter; he says explicitly in his article, "I support Microsoft’s overreaching goal." He likes S Mode, and thinks that it is the logical and desirable destination towards which Windows should be moving. "If Windows is not modernized," he writes, "is not made simpler and more secure, if the performance degradation issues that have plagued this platform for decades are not solved, it will fall."
Supportive as he is, though, even Thurrott is using words like totalitarianism to describe Microsoft's approach, and describes the strategy as, "deeply flawed. It is alienating users, especially power users and enthusiasts like us who are Microsoft’s most important advocates. And if you lose the base, as they are in danger of doing so, Windows will likewise fall."
Basically, Microsoft are between a rock and a hard place; having spent years coasting, comfortably ensconced in their niche as the OS industry leaders, they're now doomed to irrelevance if they don't do decades of catch-up work, fast, and turn their flagship product into something with the features of a modern operating system. The thing they've chosen to do, though, is to turn Windows into iOS, something their customers continue to categorically reject. They're damned if they do nothing, damned if they continue doing this thing, and apparently devoid of other ideas.
And some people, like Paul Thurrott, know this:
There is a broader context at work here. And when you see this change within that context, you realize that this is just a single clue about the biggest issue facing Windows and its users today. It’s about survival, about fending off an extinction moment.
And that is how Microsoft justifies its actions internally. It must do whatever it can to save Windows. No matter the cost.Wow. That sounds almost noble. What Thurrott doesn't mention, however, is that the demise of Windows doesn't leave Windows users as devoid of options as Microsoft is. Consumers have other options; several of them, in fact, all developing quietly under a single umbrella. It's called Linux. And you'd better believe that Linux vendors are waiting for Microsoft's disaffected users with the warmest waiting hug of welcome that they can manage.
And that assumes, of course, that Google doesn't manage to displace Windows entirely, with Android and ChromeOS. After all, if PWAs are the future, something that Thurrott also advocates, and cloud computing is the way we'll do everything in the future, then do we really need Windows at all?
I don't blame Thurrott for not mentioning that there are alternatives to Windows. He's a declared Windows man, after all, who thinks that Windows 10 is worth it despite its flaws, and that S Mode is the direction in which Windows should be heading. But the alternatives do exist, and if Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the feet, their customers will eventually start heading for the exits, towards operating systems that let them control their own systems; OSes that respect their right, as consumers, to make informed choices, and to have those choices be respected, rather than being over-ridden.
Most of the coverage of this story uses the word "force" to describe what Microsoft is trying to do, an that's entirely correct. This move is coercive. And, eventually, Microsoft's customers will become resentful enough of being coerced to begin voting with their feet. It only remains to be seen whether Microsoft start counting the cost of their own corporate strategy; whether they have, internally, any ideas that they're not copying from Apple.