Technology

"our browser is so good, we have to offer bogus prizes to get people to switch to it!"

They're just making themselves look trashy and desperate.

What might work is making their software better than everyone else's. But that requires effort and skill and managerial competence.

I can use Edge. I offer cloud based edge user experience for $14.99 monthly. Microslop is free to reach out to me any time so we can hammer out an agreement. Smugface.jpg

We started to use ad blockers in the early 2000s because no one could trust they were the 999,999 visitor to the website.

It sounded (and stills sounds) scammy.

One of the last things I used to respect about Microsoft was when they kept up the development of their own rendering engine, even as Chrome ran away with its popularity. IE6 was a monster, but for a time MS was doing a good job as an underdog by pushing standards compliance. Even if it wasn't as nice as Firefox, it was important to have more horses in the game of competing browsers rather than creating a monoculture around Chrome.

Needless to say, the Edge appearing in this contest is nothing like what I ever had hope for.

This disease is simply testing AI systems on your browsing data. It's trying to collect data from your services and analyze it with AI. That's all. If something is offering you big rewards, free services, or discounts, it's probably using you as material for its services.

Let me guess... Existing users are excluded from participating? Cause I ain't got no pop up banner anywhere. Or is cause I'm European?

Awwww, silly little Microsoft is upset the browser monopoly isn't theirs

Hey Microsoft, how about innovating instead? Edge is a Chrome engine browser like dozens of others out there. Why not write a new browser engine to give customers a choice? Or at worst, how about contract with Apple to license Webkit bringing a third solid choice for a browser engine to Windows. You're not going to out-Chrome Google Chrome browser, so stop trying.

I used to use Edge at home, then ditched it. I used it recently at work and it is getting really enshittified. Now I'm between Cromite which works until suddenly the interface freezes, or Ungoogled Chromium which I haven't got to work on the work laptop (it works now on my home Linux so whatever).

Edge used to be so much better before today.

Native persistent pop-up that doesn't go away and stays on multiple tabs is truly the best way to advertisme your browser /s

Wow, the days of dodgy toolbar extensions never truly went away. They just evolved to become part of your operating system.

The thing that actually baffles me about this is how this looks in the face of their next major competitor in the consumer market, Apple and their macOS.

macOS (or any other Apple product) has never (to my knowledge) had anything like this and it would be extremely out of character for Apple to suddenly change that. With all other manufacturers raising prices (including the Surface as of today) and the MacBook Neo directly competing with the mid tier PC laptops, this is what Microsoft decides to do?

At some point, one would hope that the average user starts to ask the question, can I have a computer that won't pull this bullshit on me? But I think unfortunately most typical users (especially anyone daily driving Edge) just think there's too much friction to move away from Windows, and so they stay, continuing to get fucked in the ass by megacorps.

But hey, I'm not in the running for a free car like them. Not like I'll install Edge onto my Mac or Arch Linux computer and sync my shit with OneDrive.

Microsoft is a very large lumbering giant that seems to lack a cohesive vision forward, especially on the consumer front. Every single piece of consumer facing software lacks a cohesive design language, and seems to be regressing in usability. No one is truly primed to replace them yet in either the corporate or consumer businesses however, something like the MacBook Neo can certainly take a few points of market share away from the standard consumer

Does Edge support Linux? Actually, never mind. I'm good.

Rigged. They won't hand it out to some rando.

Oh man, I needed that. A good belly shaking laugh.

For years they ran a program to reward people for using Bing (they still technically do, but the payouts are next to nothing, maybe $5-10 worth of gift cards per year).

10 years ago you could accumulate a passive income of several thousand dollars per year by farming Bing Rewards, Perk (before that company went under) and a few other programs.

Eyo who's got a botnet? I have an idea

Well, cars suck and 1million would be nice but still won’t but me a home where I live.

Not the Onion?

Not worth it

You know that edge injects a popup into the chrome download page begging you to use edge. It says something like "Hey dont you know that edge is actually built on Chrome as well and blah blah blah copilot AI"

What’s the small print? Edge is already a requirement for me at work.