Edge vs. Chrome: Microsoft's Tracking Prevention Hits Google the Hardest

[enitihas]

Tracking prevention in Edge makes sense for Microsoft, as they already have more than enough tracking in windows itself.

[GuB-42]

That's why I think that Microsoft is walking a fine line here, blocking other people trackers while keeping their own may be considered anti-competitive. If Edge had the market share IE had in the past, that would be calling for legal trouble.

Google themselves also suffer a lot from bad actors. Many people start installing ad blockers after visiting abusive sites, and these ad blockers block the more tolerable Google ads as a collateral. For that reason, they want to introduce a built-in ad blocker in Chrome, and unsurprisingly, given their position, they are taking a lot of precautions.

[AA-BA-94-2A-56]

Do you think they’re trying to monopolise user data to sell to advertisers?

[rgrs]

Atleast getting tracked by one is better than getting tracked by two.

[tuananh]

it's ridiculous. i only realize it when i install pihole and microsoft is there at #1 tracking domain

[dudus]

I can't tell from the article. Does anyone know if Google Analytics is blocked by default? It says the default is Balanced mode and that the trackers blocked are mostly from Google. But it doesn't make it clear if Google Analytics is blocked by default.

Google Analytics uses first party cookies so it usually passes by default blockers at least. If they are blocking that by default this is a massive blow. Otherwise it's blocking things that are probably already blocked in other popular platforms such as Safari on OSX and IOS, and this is much less impressive.

[vmurthy]

"Of that total, 552 were from Google domains. That's a mind-boggling 23.8% of the total. To put that into perspective, the second entry on the list of blocked trackers was Facebook, which represented 3.8% of the total. (It's worth noting that these results shouldn't suggest any kind of conspiracy against Google. The fact that Google is at the top of any list of online trackers is a reflection of their business model and their ubiquity. Google Analytics and Google AdSense are embedded on a staggering number of web pages.)"

It sounds like Google Analytics is blocked by default at least in the "Balanced" mode

[mrtksn]

There are claims about Google "mistakenly" breaking Youtube etc. on Firefox. I wonder what happens if Microsoft "mistakenly" breaks Chrome and the updater?

Because when these companies truly take on to each other, they do play dirty.

I would prefer to watch such a fight, instead of browsers becoming non-standard. Default ad-blocking shouldn't be a thing, what's next? Browsers with default Reddit enhancement suits?

The default should be, browsers render whatever the HTML and JS say and leave it to the users to choose to modify this through ad blocking extensions and so on.

[iamaelephant]

Google is already doing this with Edge, too. Google Maps on Edge will give an error message, "Google Maps does not have permission to use your location," no matter how you have your permissions set. I'm very sure there will be other examples. Google very subtly breaks things intentionally on competing browsers.

[scarface74]

Were you also opposed to browser vendors blocking pop up windows and auto playing video and sound?

[chkaloon]

With the new Edge Zdnet articles like this one maybe will be more readable without garbage all over the page.

[sorenjan]

It's very readable with the reader mode in Firefox.

[tracker1]

Yeah, it's even worse on mobile... it came up in my news feed that uses chrome by default, it was pretty horrible. Mostly use Brave on my phone.

[petilon]

Chromium-based Edge will curb abuses by both Google and Microsoft. Now we can use Edge when using Google's services such as Gmail, and Chrome when using Microsoft's services. This will prevent abuses such as Chrome logging you into the browser itself when you log into Gmail, thereby enhancing their surveillance.

Incidentally, Chrome had a longstanding bug where the setting that prevents Chrome logging you into the browser just didn't work. Recently it has started working. Is it a coincidence that this got fixed just weeks before Chromium-based Edge is due to be released? I think not! Hurrah for competition!

[paulcarroty]

Hard to believe if you know about their Windows deals, especially super funny ignoring blocked Microsoft telemetry hosts by default firewall.

[ropiwqefjnpoa]

And they're doing it with Chromium, this is all a little poetic.

[finchisko]

MS turning Google owned guns, against them. But I shed no tear here. Browser wars are actually quite amazing battlefield to follow.

[machinecoffee]

MS also attempting to use its monopoly position on the desktop to damage a competitor, there's no heroes in this fight.

I say attempting because, thank goodness, MS no longer has the stranglehold that it used to have - due to Google attempting itself trying to get a stranglehold on all computing devices that people use through Android.

I'm surprised that Fuchsia hasn't made an appearance yet as that will probably also be pitched as a competitor to Windows, hoping to further erode MS's position in the market.

I kinda hope they make Fuchsia a full-fledged desktop OS other than the same online-only offering that Chromium was.

[paulcarroty]

> MS turning Google owned guns,against them.

Not enough market cap for this yet.

[asadkn]

Hit hard with what? The 1% marketshare it will eventually get like the previous Edge versions?

[rasz]

Not if they refuse Manifest v3 and remain the only Blink browser with full uBlock Origin support.

[fwxwi]

They will use the Chromium engine, so it will be fast and render pages well.

If they stick an ad blocker by default, something the Mozilla Corporation hasn't got the balls to do, they will definitely get some market share.

[thoughtexprmnt]

> simple text files called Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) to allow or block third-party requests from specific domains

Sounds like a hosts file, and the same end result could be achieved in any browser/system-wide by using a curated one such as:

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Or is Edge Tracking Prevention more effective in some way?

[bishalb]

Does it block trackers for Bing display network ads or not?

[maelito]

I'm still looking for a browser that lets me pay websites visited in exchange of being served no ads.

I don't understand why Mozilla doesn't offer this kind of subscription in Firefox. That could solve their funding problem too.

[joecool1029]

>I'm still looking for a browser that lets me pay websites visited in exchange of being served no ads.

Isn't that the entire premise of Brave's browser? https://brave.com/

[ymolodtsov]

Because that's not up to the browser to decide.

[rogerkirkness]

In what way is this not the extend phase of embrace, extend, extinguish?

[sasmithjr]

EEE is when a proprietary addition is made that affects interop with other conformant implementations of an open standard. This privacy feature does not alter how Chrome, FF, or Safari will render HTML or run Javascript, so it is not EEE. There's nothing stopping Chrome from implementing a similar (or better) feature in order to maintain or grow its market share!

We're in funny territory that Microsoft is using a Google open source project in a consumer-positive way that also happens to hurt Google's primary business, but because the feature addition to Edge does not affect interop with other browsers, I don't see how this is EEE.

[olliej]

Um, chrome is doing the embrace and extinguish now under the guise of standards. Essentially they flood standards bodies with unending half assed specs that make it difficult for smaller browsers (Mozilla, opera, qt, etc) to keep up. Then make their properties depend on those half assed features.

While at the same time making sure those new specs also aid their primary business of spying on and tracking users without consent. Then saying any browsers that don’t support those abusive features are holding back the web.

[wayneftw]

You need a majority market share to extinguish something. Edge has 2%.

[dessant]

Competitors are not disadvantaged by Microsoft adding privacy-friendly features to Edge. Google would be capable of transitioning to a business model that respects people's privacy. If they would want to, they could flourish under such model.

[decebalus1]

In this way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

[rodgerd]

In the way in which the EEE monopolist in the web space is Google, not Microsoft.

[Dylan16807]

What, you think this was all a long con and they're going to go back to Trident? That's the only way I can think of to apply EEE here.