this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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568
Microsoft Edge gets "unfair advantage", browser makers claim (www.techradar.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
153 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Some of the top browser makers around have issued a letter to the European Commission (EC) alleging that Microsoft gives the Edge browser an unfair advantage and should be subject to EU tech rules.

A letter seen by Reuters, sent by Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Wavebox, and supported by a group of web developers, also supports Opera’s move to take the EC to court over its decision to exclude Microsoft Edge from being subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice. The letter states that, “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge's unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows. Edge is, moreover, the most important gateway for consumers to download an independent browser on Windows PCs.”

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (19 children)

I’m not defending Microsoft… but if we’re going to go after a tech company for leveraging their other assets to give themselves an unfair advantage can we also go after Google?

In the first releases of Edge, Microsoft tried to build a new web browser from scratch to compete with Google Chrome. By google kept changing YouTube’s code so that videos would playback janky on Edge. Microsoft eventually gave up trying to fix for YouTubes ongoing changes and now Edge is based on Chromium (the same open source web browser maintained by Google, that chrome os built on). Google leveraged YouTube to prevent completion from Edge.

And now Google is blocking ad blocking extensions so that users are forced to see more google ads in their browser.

Microsoft’s has leveraged their unfair advantage to get a little over 5% market share.

Google’s leveraged their unfair advantage to get 66% of the market.

Both companies need a hard smack down, but I want to see Google taken down too.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Any source that YouTube is the reason that Edge switched to chromium?

I'm betting it's just cheaper and easier than making their own engine.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They’re was never any evidence of google’s wrongdoing, the accusation came from former MS edge developers:

https://www.developer-tech.com/news/edge-developer-google-youtube-chrome-browsers/

Officially Google denied it:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18148736/google-youtube-microsoft-edge-intern-claims

You may be right, this could have been MS couldn’t make a better browser and pulled the plug, and the devs just blamed google.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Old Edge was a better browser

more responsive/lower overhead

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