Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Because one is a clearly declared policy that anyone can look up (even though you, or regulators of a certain country, disagree with it). I’m sure there’d be a lot less outrage if it was Microsoft’s policy that other rendering engines (or browsers) were disallowed, instead of being sneaky and trying to fake error messages, degrading user experiences, and the like.

Further, it could be argued that dynamic code execution, whether through an app downloading additional modules on the file system with the executable bit set, or in memory, with the mmap(PROT_EXEC) syscall opens up potential avenues for abuse, and alternative browsers are an unfortunate collateral damage in such a policy.

Regardless, no action can be justified because another entity is also doing it; it only serves to cheapen the discourse.



> Because one is a clearly declared policy that anyone can look up (even though you, or regulators of a certain country, disagree with it).

Microsoft has now clearly declared this policy. The basis of the article is the message sent to IT admins clearly declaring it.


Sure, but one week it's a first run screen recommending Edge, the next it's pop ups when visiting Firefox download page from Edge, the next it's a notification icon about "Microsoft recommended" settings, then it's a notice before running the installer, etc. There is no rhyme or reason besides their business interest and no timeline besides "let's boil this frog"




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: