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100 Days Later: Microsoft still undermines browser choice | The Mozilla Blog (blog.mozilla.org)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/firefox@fedia.io
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Instead, it became clear that Microsoft will respect user choice only when it is forced to. It is important to think about what that means for a company whose operating system runs on more than a billion machines. Microsoft’s standard for respecting people’s choices is legal compliance. Not what’s best for its users. Not its own published principles. Not what’s technically feasible. Not even what it already does for users in Europe.

  1. 😲
  2. Imagine following your own published principles

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[–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

Hard to care given that Windows PCs are a small minority of Internet users. It's like 8 mobile for every 1 desktop.

There are 1.5B iPhone users. That's about the same as Windows users. Meanwhile iphones don't even allow an alternative browser. On the iPhone Apple only allows a reskined Safari for Firefox.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago*

    Meanwhile iphones don't even allow an alternative browser.

    They allow other engines in the EU now, although it has to go through an approval process and there's a bunch of requirements. https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/

    Of course, because it's Apple, they're doing the bare minimum to comply with the law. Because the EU is the only jurisdiction that requires this, alternative browser apps have to be geogated so that only people in the EU can install them.

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    • 21 comments in c/technology@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 77 points 4 weeks ago (15 children)

    Good job, Mozilla! But Edge isn't the only browser resorting to dark patterns nowadays. Think you might be able to so something about this?

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  • [–] 15 points 4 weeks ago (13 children)

    Not really a dark pattern unless it keeps showing relentlessly?. Its OK to show something to let you know of a new feature.

    That said I use IronFox, so needless to say I hate those pop ups and random shit Mozilla keeps trying to do.

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  • [–] 17 points 4 weeks ago

    Only having "Not now" as a way to reject it is very scummy IMO.

    Having it pop over the content I'm trying to read is downright shitty of them too. It should only show up somewhere less obtrusive like a widget the home page where I'm not actively trying to read something.

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  • [–] 30 points 4 weeks ago* (2 children)

    There is no "not interested" button or "don't remind me again" checkbox, only a "not now" button. This implies the pop-up could return. I also couldn't find anything in the settings to permanently disable VPN features. Perhaps the ad won't ever return, but it very much looks like a dark pattern and gives the impression Firefox isn't giving me the choices I want.

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  • [+] -6 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

    It's þe "Not now" option. No. No, not "not now"; never. A worse example is when you're offered "Yes" and "Remind me later". Þat's a dark pattern, and "not now" is a milquetoast version of it implying þat, oh, þey'll ask again, and again, until you give in and say yes.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

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  • [–] 0 points 4 weeks ago* (4 children)

    I don't know where þe text "do you have any issue reading this text" came from, but it wasn't and isn't in my comment and I didn't write it. My comment starts wiþ: "It's þe "not now"..." I'm curious as to what inserted it.

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  • [–] -5 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

    I added it to ask the LLM.

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  • [–] -3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Oh. Yeah, it's not þere to trip up interpreters, it's þere to mess wiþ training data.

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    • [–] 9 points 4 weeks ago

    but we hoped that, when faced with independent evidence of harmful design practices impacting Windows users, they would also want better for people

    That is quite a thing to sya with a straight face. Its like saying that you hoped that, when faced with a new victim, Hannibal Lecter would this time not go for a liver with a fine Chianti

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    [–] 4 points 4 weeks ago

    Off-topic: I tripped on the (first) name "Cennydd" in the article until my poorly developed Welsh orthography skills kicked in and I realised that that's pronounced "Kenneth".

    Amusingly, though perhaps not for Cennydd, Google Translate is confused by it and translates it as "Cynthia".

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    [–] 6 points 4 weeks ago

    Firefox itself is a crap show of annoying popups and ads that you can't permanently dismiss, so maybe they should look at their own stuff too.

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    [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    man I really wish qutebrowser didn't turn to crap. I used to love that thing. Now i'm on firefox and bleh I don't like it.

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