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Microsoft Wants To Force Windows 10 Mail Users To Use Edge For Email Links (theverge.com) 172

Posted by BeauHD from the desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures dept.
Microsoft has revealed today that "we will begin testing a change where links clicked on within the Windows Mail app will open in Microsoft Edge." What this means is that if you have Chrome or Firefox set as your default browser in Windows 10, Microsoft will simply ignore that and force you into Edge when you click a link within the Mail app. The Verge reports: "As always, we look forward to feedback from our WIP community," says Microsoft's Dona Sarkar in a blog post today. I'm sure Microsoft will receive a lot of feedback over this unnecessary change, and we can only hope the company doesn't ignore it.
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Microsoft Wants To Force Windows 10 Mail Users To Use Edge For Email Links More

Microsoft Wants To Force Windows 10 Mail Users To Use Edge For Email Links

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  • Use a different mail app (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @05:03PM (#56272327)

    Use a different mail app ... problem solved.
    (1) View webmail in a different browser
    (2) Install Outlook, which will remain configurable for business reasons
    (3) Install Thunderbird or another 3rd party email app

    Microsoft Mail is the new Outlook Express, without the charm of a built-in NNTP client...

    • yep.. MS still needs to learn that only apple can get away with abusing their customers and have them begging, salivating, and quivering for more.

      (am i trolling? maybe. but using this type of lock-in bullshit seems to be right out of apple's playbook.)

      • Everyone seems to forget the era when Microsoft locked-in Internet Explorer (with horrific results), causing the EU, and yes, even the USA to demand that those poor Mozilla folks, and that tiny company called Google, and all those little guys had to be able to play as a first-choice browser.

        It's pretty insulting for Microsoft to have chosen to mandate its own browser AGAIN.

        Apple's BS had nothing to do with it-- Microsoft has shot a hole in its foot, the SAME FOOT, before. They just don't remember the pain.

        • They are just widening the hole (Score:4, Insightful)

          by HannethCom ( 585323 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @06:22PM (#56272749)
          They already did this with Cortana. Remember her? No, probably because anyone who was using her stopped when it started ignoring your default browser and always opens Edge instead.

          • You can turn off Cortana, and yes, you can turn off Windows Mail. But the mandate, that's a problem.

            I wonder if there's a way to rename Firefox as Edge, and have it come up instead. I'll have to try that sometime. But not now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      (1)Drop M$ and all its product.
      (2)Nothing else required.

    • Their mail app when 8.0 was released was awful. No reason anyone would want to use that. It was spyware too, you couldn't even run it without a microsoft account in addition to the mail account.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MemeRot ( 80975 )

      I've never used the Mail app. I don't see the reason to. The websites are all SPAs now, and as responsive as an app without any of the overhead

  • >""As always, we look forward to feedback from our WIP community," says Microsoft's Dona Sarkar "

    Be careful what you ask for....

    Flip the middle finger at your users, AGAIN, for the zillionth time, and expect what? A "thanks, this is great!"?

    • They're locked in, and will soon be locked in to Microsoft's cloud-clown infrastructure. Never mind that you're serving them week-old poop, they'll learn to like it. Mangia! Mangia!

      • Most likely. c# is still the best language for business development because it is so quick to reliably bang shit or enterprise scale applications out in, client or server - while the IDE is still the easiest to use. Microsoft has had two things going for them from the start: marketing and catering to developers (the source of all the shit users use,) the latter is the only thing which really matters because if it costs a business 1.2x as much to do something in Linux and the enterprise operating system an

    • Instead they can look forward to feedback from the EU, in the form of another hefty fine for anti-competitive practises.
    • users that use the windows mail app (not sure I have ever come across one, but I am sure theyr must be some) are unlikely to care what they use. If anything this may actually be a positive move as such users are likely to need heavy support in their day to day use and a consist supported option is probably better.

  • Since I will not be using mail on win10 anyways... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @05:09PM (#56272365)

    Seriously, the only thing I am going to trust Win10 with (somewhat) when win7 goes out of service will be gaming. No email, no web-browsing, nada. They can f*** their creepy selves. Instead I will have a clean, trustworthy Linux box for anything non-gaming and a win10 box for gaming only.

    • Or just keep running Win 7 -- just don't be stupid and click on links from spy32545434warecle4ner.ru. Some computers are perfectly fine running XP in 2018 as long as they're not used by numpties.

      • But spy32545434warecle4ner.ru is where I get all my porn!

      • Or just keep running Win 7 -- just don't be stupid and click on links from spy32545434warecle4ner.ru.

        Even when Win 7 goes out of support, it's only support for client programs that really matters. As long as the TCP/IP stack has no holes that can't be firewalled against, there's no reason for Windows updates.

        Some computers are perfectly fine running XP in 2018

        Alas, Firefox stops support for XP and Vista in June 2018, leaving you with no usable browser. That makes the computer no good for a typical user, although it'd still be useful for that Windows-only $1M medical device.

        And, it looks like Windows is rapidly stopping to be the problem. IOT crap, on the

        • Run an old Firefox -- if sites b!tch about it being insecure, change the UserAgent string as appropriate.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          Don't care about firefox - I recently found that streaming audio through VLC sounds a whole lot better than through firefox (probably because VLC has an equaliser), so that one little eeePC running XP will continure to provide audio for my kitchen. I've turned off all other network services, and it sits behind the household firewall, so I'm not worried.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I want a CPU upgrade for gaming eventually, so that is unfortunately not an option. Otherwise I would probably be doing that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Avoiding dodgy domains doesn't help much...
        There is a lot of malicious advertising present on otherwise legitimate sites, legitimate sites also get hacked and configured to spread malware.

    • Seriously, the only thing I am going to trust Win10 with (somewhat) when win7 goes out of service will be gaming.

      I was recently forced to move to windows 10 because windows virtual reality headsets only work with windows 10. It's not better than windows 7, feels like more of the same really.

      • I like my reality -- I'd rather stay with Win 7 than use a nausea-inducing VR headset with 10.

      • You mean a Windows branded VR headset, or all VR headsets in the entire world that can work with Windows?

        • You mean a Windows branded VR headset, or all VR headsets in the entire world that can work with Windows?

          The problem is you need some beefy hardware. Windows 7 is no longer supported for anything after Skylake hardware. Even Skylake had no Windows 7 support until Dell and HP SCREAMED to support it until 2019 before EOL.

          New business laptops do not use the latest 2 intel cpu and chipsets for this reason :-D

          Also Nvidia no longer supports Windows 7 32 bit which is the majority of enterprise installs.

    • Even for games....

      I understand that for AAA games Windows is the way to go.

      But if you are into the indie game scene, most indie games on Steam also work on Linux.

      I also have Windows for gaming only, but currently all the games that I am palying work on Linux.

      Thanks Steam.

      • Note that some AAA games that you could optionally get from the apps store worked worse than the same game purchased a different way. They only sell "Universal Application Platform" apps in their store, and most games aren't built that way and are more traditional apps. There aren't enough AAA games in the Windows app store to know how this is going to play out though, but if history is any indication, Microsoft will screw this up the same way they screwed the pooch with GFWL.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I will stay away from the MS app store if at all possible. So far MS never had anything I wanted badly enough. And yes. MS screwing up things is not the exception, it is the expectation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I am into both. Hence I basically need that Windows box at least for a part of what I am playing. Otherwise I would go with no Windows at all.

    • I'm not certain about their gaming, they've been doing stupid stuff there too if you buy games from their app store. Don't forget the stupidity of Windows for Games Live, whenever they see some other companies monetizing users MS will always jump in and try to grab a piece of the pie too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. I will avoid the MS app store if at all possible. So far there is nothing available only there that would tempt me.

    • Which makes since, since games are the only thing that really push the full capabilities of a modern machine to the max.

  • It was a couple decades ago, but I'm 99% sure this is the exact thing they lost an antitrust lawsuit over already (only instead of Edge+Mail it was IE+Explorer.)

  • " we can only hope the company doesn't ignore it."

    Wrong. What you can do is take control of your hardware with an OS that permits it.

    • " we can only hope the company doesn't ignore it."

      Wrong. What you can do is take control of your hardware with an OS that permits it.

      You can also take control by not using shitty software, like Edge and Windows Mail.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Which pretty much requires replacing the OS, since you can't get rid of this unwanted software while still running windows 10.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MemeRot ( 80975 )

          I've never opened windows mail. I don't know why anyone would. hotmail, gmail, etc all work perfectly fine in the browser.

    • I started to post this as AC to avoid getting dinged for expressing the unpopular opinion. I only decided to bother because somebody ought to say some things that I haven't seen said already. After previewing it, I decided I should put my name on it, even if it's unpopular.

      " we can only hope the company doesn't ignore it."

      Wrong. What you can do is take control of your hardware with an OS that permits it.

      Or take control of your hardware and software to ensure it does exactly what you want, the way you want. Not that I disagree with using an OS that facilitates making sure your computer does what you want. I've used open source for my prim

  • NO I don't want it! First Edge is broken and does not work correctly. If Microsoft will fix Edge so it doesn't take 40 clicks to save something in a specific folder and stop Edge from using Bing or always trying to guess what I want, in other words let me turn that off, no I mean really turn it off not give me a button to turn it off but still does crap in the background, I mean really be able to turn it off. Then I would give Edge a chance.
  • I'm not familiar with the Windows environment at all, but couldn't one just install let's say Firefox, replace the Edge executable with a batch script of the same name that transposes the Edge args into Firefox args, and then from said script call the Firefox executable with those args?

    • You could try replacing the executable from another Windows instance, or Safe Mode maybe. Except the binary (like Cortana among others) is a monitored file, whose hash-sum is checked, and will be replaced by the OS if it is found to of been tampered with.

      You could try removing most permissions from it except for read,and/or creating a edge junction|hardlink, but Microsoft will still update the file via Windows Update. They are real cock suckers.

      About the only option going forward, if you are going to be r

      • You could try replacing the executable from another Windows instance, or Safe Mode maybe. Except the binary (like Cortana among others) is a monitored file, whose hash-sum is checked, and will be replaced by the OS if it is found to of been tampered with.

        You rename the folder Cortania is located in, works for me.

  • ... except for gaming. I jumped to the big fruity ship that Apple built. It was that bad on Windows. Now it’s that good on Mac: Office apps with a *nix shell.

  • I'm not a fan of Windows but at least hear them out. Here is what was said in the blog post.

    "For Windows Insiders in the Skip Ahead ring, we will begin testing a change where links clicked on within the Windows Mail app will open in Microsoft Edge, which provides the best, most secure and consistent experience on Windows 10 and across your devices. With built-in features for reading, note-taking, Cortana integration, and easy access to services such as SharePoint and OneDrive, Microsoft Edge enables you
    • So give the option of selecting Edge or another browser within settings. The problem is not that links are opened from Edge, it's that M$ is taking away the user's choice to use another browser.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jetkust ( 596906 )
        Yes, the ideal is Microsoft could implement the change as described, but then add a way to change the email browser to something other than Edge (because let's be honest, "opt-in" to Edge would just be dumb). But you can also look at it this way: They just have an email app with a "built-in" browser. And maintaining the ability to use an external browser would be an added feature.

    • Re:It's not a completely unreasonable change (Score:4)

      by Wyzard ( 110714 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @08:16PM (#56273173) Homepage

      None of those reasons they cite are specific to email. They're valid reasons why one might want to use Edge as the default browser for everything in Windows 10, but if a user has nonetheless chosen to use a different browser, the mail app -- just like other apps -- ought to respect that preference.

      ...will open in Microsoft Edge, which provides the best, most secure and consistent experience on Windows 10 and across your devices. With built-in features for reading, note-taking, Cortana integration, and easy access to services such as SharePoint and OneDrive, Microsoft Edge enables you to be more productive, organized and creative without sacrificing your battery life or security.

      This is marketing-speak. It seems pretty clear that the purpose of this change is basically to advertise Edge: Microsoft is dissatisfied with how many people are choosing different browsers, Microsoft thinks that people would prefer Edge if only they'd give it a try, so Microsoft is basically railroading people into trying Edge whether they want to or not. Same sort of thinking that gave us GWX.

      • [...] It seems pretty clear that the purpose of this change is basically to advertise Edge: Microsoft is dissatisfied with how many people are choosing different browsers, [...]

        ...and may by these actions have the effect of driving people away from Microsoft's mail app. Which I personally don't use. In fact, I'm a little leery of using any Microsoft app because I'm never sure if it'll conform to my set preferences or do something completely different.

        But what do I know? I see the OS as a framework to manage resources and load the programs *I* want to use, and *not* as some kind of interconnected environment of programs that the OS manufacturer wants me to use. Besides, Micros

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      That's all nice reasoning and I'm sure something like it showed up in a presentation at Microsoft when they pitched this.

      But the real reason is of course that top executives are demanding improvements in Edge's usage numbers. They've tried PR, they've done the battery life "Pepsi challenge", they've reset preferences during major updates, they have nag screens reminding you that entire villages in India rely on Edge for clean water and medicine, they even made it better at searching for porn.

      But still noth

  • Microsoft does NOT respect you ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @07:43PM (#56273069)

    .. nor your preferences.

    Fuck them. Use software that does.

  • Wow, serendipity (Score:3)

    by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @08:28PM (#56273213) Journal

    I don't use Windows 10 mail, Live Mail, or anything with the words "mail" and "windows" or "microsoft" in the same title. Previously it was because I happen to like the mailer I've been using (in various versions) since the nineties, but now I have an even better reason -- currently, when I click on a link, it opens in Firefox. Or Chrome, whatever one has one's default browser set to.

    I understand Microsoft wanting people to use all Microsoft products whenever possible, but I have to wonder -- is this a sign that Edge isn't reaching estimated levels of popularity?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jetkust ( 596906 )
      Edge is not reaching popularity for one reason. Setting it as the default browser in Windows does nothing at all to help it's popularity. The first thing most people do is download Chrome or whatever browser they like. And as soon as they open that browser, it pretty much becomes their operating system. Clicking on something that loads the "default browser" rarely even happens.

  • Soooo? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Friday March 16, 2018 @08:52PM (#56273305)

    If you're actually using the Windows Store Mail app, Edge is what you deserve for a browser.

  • on microsoft computers.
    Just play computer games on Windows computers.
    Let MS collect data about the fun of playing computer games.
    That fast CPU, GPU, their OS and all the computer games.
    Move your work to a real OS that respects your privacy.

  • Our company has never fully supported the Win 8 or 10 Mail apps. If it works, fine, but if a user calling in has trouble with it, apart from checking the basic settings, our policy is to assist them in installing Thunderbird as a replacement or to point them towards webmail instead.

    Worst. Client. Ever.

    This is yet another step in the wrong direction.

  • But not THAT great. I used it exclusively for 6 months just to get a solid feel for it. Edge is definitely a worthy contender. With some patience on the part of MS, it will organically gain greater market share. So far, it deserves it (OSS politics aside). But it shoving down peoples throats? I thought MS was growing out of that flawed marketing ideology. This will not create more Edge users. It will create more Thunderbird users and other alternative email application. As for my own installation of Windows

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