Technology

I'm actually alright with this, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. It seems totally sensible for them to ask why you don't want to use Edge and would rather use Chrome.

I wish for Microsoft to mind their business when I download another browser. A web developer or someone excersizing their freedom of choice should not need to deal with petty and sorry looking surveys.

On the other hand, it is fine to ask how the browser experience is like but not this.

If we want to prevent monopolies, we need healthy competition. If Microsoft improves Edge based on this user feedback to create an actually good product, then we all win. It means that if Firefox starts to pull the shit that Google is doing, we have a solid alternative.

Unfortunately, this privacy invasive feature goes against this concept because it already made the browser worse. Also, Edge is chromium based. Mozilla, Apple's Safari, and Chromium are the only true browser choices. Edge may bring some UX features, but they are data harvesting focused and not the core browser mechanisms. Microsoft is taking the work Google, and the chromium community puts into the code base and then running their own data harvesting UX on top. It is not a "alternative" browser choice, ever.

With Microsoft's track record, this survey is not to improve the browser but to harvest more data to pinpoint your identity and behavior to sell to advertisers and data analysts. So the "manner" Microsoft does this is more of a reason for not wanting to have this.

I think it's a conflict of interest to leverage their position as an OS provider to do this. If they want feedback they can pay a market research firm like a normal company. God knows they have the money.

My problem with all of it is, they've built that shit into the browser. That means baked into the browser, it is watching what I'm doing and doing things on its own based on what I do.

It leaves the door open for them to bother me/phone home anytime I do something that isn't in their interests. Are they going to add in similar things for me looking for windows, office, GitHub, or Xbox alternatives?

I feel like a lot of users won't use edge because of spite. It's intrusive and manipulative stuff like this which has angered a lot of people. Admittedly, this is one of the more harmless reactions.

Edge: "Nobody likes me. :( "

Microsoft: "Don't worry. We will make them like you. >:] "

It’s none of Microsoft’s business if I’m using their web browser or not. They shouldn’t be blocking my use of another product just because I don’t like theirs.

The competition between Chrome and Edge is very shallow, they're two slightly altered and heavily branded reskins of chromium, the real competition would be Firefox and it's forks (mullvad, waterfox, librewolf) (and maybe webkit aka safari) Vs chromium but there's no big corporation behind those (except safari, but it has many of the problems that big corpo chromium browsers have) , so they're struggling a lot.

Microsoft is synonymous with "healthy competition!" /s

Edge collects your "ctrl-f" in-page searches. Fuck that with a cactus.