To be pragmatic to an excess-- where is their incentive to? I agree this is an issue, and more than that a pattern-- but they seem to be any to continue unimpeded. I imagine when they push initiatives like this at meetings, they consider the risk- reward metric of such decisions. In this case, I don't think they'll see much real risk except for some grumbling as we are now
You mean rely and hope that whatever the user installed as the default browser will not mess-up help, documentation and other such links?
I'm quite certain that all those non-standard URLs are all for internal links to OS-related information hosted on the web. If they instead just popped a custom app that hosted an Edge webview nobody would rip their shirts. Doing that would be ridiculous given that Edge is just there and has been tested and vetted by QA.
Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales. You're asking MS to trust that any 3rd party app will give proper user experience for any locale when presenting such links.
It's not as-if MS was hijacking normal URLs. But ripping shirts is soooo much fun.
> I'm quite certain that all those non-standard URLs are all for internal links to OS-related information hosted on the web.
You definitely shouldn't be certain of that. If I go open a folder and hit F1, I get an edge bing search for 「get help with file explorer in windows」. The special embed at the top is a blog post on a site I've never heard of explaining that the question mark in the top right is for help. If I click that icon, it opens another bing tab with the same search. Below that embed is completely normal search results for 「get help with file explorer in windows」. It's actively worse than ddg and google.
They're not all for internal links to OS-related information hosted on the web, though. The start menu search will always open a Bing search in Edge, for example - doesn't matter what your default search is set to.
Why are you writing with certainty about things you apparently have no firsthand experience with?
So the claim is that if I make up a URL scheme, it should be untouchable by other developers and only my software should respond to it?
> Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales.
You are confusing Microsoft with their users. Microsoft needs that. No user does, and very few need more than one version and one locale.
> But ripping shirts is soooo much fun.
Right, there is no competitive aspect at all to see here, just hardworking monks trying to ensure the absolute best Windows experience with no other motives whatsoever.
It's a link to a web page. Microsoft is in no position to assert that it knows best about how to display a web page. It has never been, in fact. So, this argument, frankly, holds no water. Literally every one of the major players has implemented a better web browser than Microsoft. Microsoft's own browser was implemented by someone else.
If Microsoft cannot create a page that can be displayed properly in other browsers, then the problem lies not with the other browsers.
tsol|4 years ago
_arvin|4 years ago
Choice over force
pierrebai|4 years ago
I'm quite certain that all those non-standard URLs are all for internal links to OS-related information hosted on the web. If they instead just popped a custom app that hosted an Edge webview nobody would rip their shirts. Doing that would be ridiculous given that Edge is just there and has been tested and vetted by QA.
Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales. You're asking MS to trust that any 3rd party app will give proper user experience for any locale when presenting such links.
It's not as-if MS was hijacking normal URLs. But ripping shirts is soooo much fun.
Dylan16807|4 years ago
You definitely shouldn't be certain of that. If I go open a folder and hit F1, I get an edge bing search for 「get help with file explorer in windows」. The special embed at the top is a blog post on a site I've never heard of explaining that the question mark in the top right is for help. If I click that icon, it opens another bing tab with the same search. Below that embed is completely normal search results for 「get help with file explorer in windows」. It's actively worse than ddg and google.
manderley|4 years ago
Why are you writing with certainty about things you apparently have no firsthand experience with?
_jal|4 years ago
> Don't forget that these things need to work on all versions of the OS and in all locales.
You are confusing Microsoft with their users. Microsoft needs that. No user does, and very few need more than one version and one locale.
> But ripping shirts is soooo much fun.
Right, there is no competitive aspect at all to see here, just hardworking monks trying to ensure the absolute best Windows experience with no other motives whatsoever.
basilgohar|4 years ago
If Microsoft cannot create a page that can be displayed properly in other browsers, then the problem lies not with the other browsers.
siproprio|4 years ago
MS can't fucking keep updated office documentation, but suddenly they're hijacking URLs for quality assurance reasons!
BULLSHIT!