Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update. I don’t use Microsoft Edge regularly, and I have Google Chrome set as my default browser. Bleary-eyed at 9AM, it took me a moment to realize that Microsoft Edge had simply taken over where I’d left off in Chrome. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  • MystikIncarnate
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    10 months ago

    If you intentionally load edge there’s a prompt you can say no to that asks if you want it to continue to try to pull information from other browsers.

    IDK if that will prevent this, but it’s better than nothing.

    IMO, this is underhanded at best. It’s as if some middle manager was tasked with getting more people using edge and they thought to themselves that most of their oblivious parents/grand parents/brothers/sisters/cousins/friends/whatever don’t really notice what browser they’re using (and frequently they don’t care), so let’s just move them over to edge as seamlessly as possible and they just keep using it because they’re too oblivious to even notice it’s not chrome.

    To be fair, they’re right, but also that thought process is so morally bankrupt that it should be criminal. IMO, that a lot like replacing someone’s Toyota Corolla with a similarly designed Ford with the same engine under the hood, overnight, and hoping they just keep using it.

    I don’t want to bash Ford here or anything, but they have very different ideas than Toyota on how to accomplish common tasks. They’re “the same” but very very not the same.

    A better automotive comparison that I’m aware of would be the Mazda 626 and the Ford probe. They used the same engine but were very different cars to use. They performed the same basic function, but it was a very different experience.

    I had a 626 ES V6 back in the day. If I woke up one day to find that someone had swapped it for a similarly spec’d probe, I would be livid. I don’t hate Ford, or the probe specifically, but I drive the 626. I know that car. I want to keep using that car. I don’t care that the probe is “basically the same”. Fuck off and give me back my 626.

    I sadly spun a bearing on that 626 and when I heard the knock from the engine I knew it was time. I still miss that car.