The biggest issue for a lot of people is going to be Microsoft forcing all Office 365 users to use Edge all the time. Our sysadmin recently forced me to uninstall Firefox and Chrome from all workstations unless they had an approved use for it. Everything must be through Edge.
Why? “Security” of course. It’s always “security”. Curious
Edit: the point is Microsoft could have worked to provide enterprise customers with ways to manage third party browsers going forward. They could have worked with Google and Mozilla to make that happen. They didn’t. Not really.
It’s that Microsoft continues to make decisions that create rationale for only using them, because that’s their business. “Security” gives them an extremely convenient cover for anticompetitive behavior. Anyone that thinks their C-Suite hasn’t pulled the defender/365 team into a meeting or two to discuss business strategy has far too much faith in a corporation that deserves very little.
Back when Internet Explorer was still a thing you could configure it with group policies domain wide. If Microsoft implemented similar features for Edge in an active directory environment I can definitely see the appeal. Not to say similar isn’t possible with Chrome or Firefox, but first party integrations in a corporate environment tends to be the path of least resistance.
Firefox does support GPO amongst other policy mgmt solutions, and so do Chrome and Edge. But yeah it’s easier to only support Edge, apply policies recommended by the company which also supplies the OS and productivity suite, and call it a day.
It’s curious because Microsoft owns the operating system and was more than capable of designing in such a way that would allow sysadmins more control over third party browsers and software. Firefox would have been willing to work with them to provide the necessary levers. They already do with group policy.
“Security” is a term that shuts down arguments and silences all accusation of anticompetitive behavior. And they absolutely abuse that. You don’t think the bean counters are ecstatic about the fact that they have effectively been able to turn every IT department in the country into Edge salesmen? You don’t think there was a board meeting where the benefits of that were discussed?
Of course. I hate MS as much as the next linux user, but unfortunately from the IT team’s pov it makes a lot of sense now that MS’ browser isn’t a broken pile of shit anymore.
Microsoft has been on a shameless crusade recently to make people adopt Edge. Upon launch, thier Bing AI had a rather absurd requirement to use Edge to access it.
genuine question, how much does that really matter when it comes to performance? in my personal experience, on my system, edge does feel faster than chrome and most other browsers. but also, it’s not really a big enough difference for me for it to be a valid reason to use it over other browsers. like realistically i dont normally register these tiny fractions of seconds and milliseconds unless im deliberately payig attention for some reason. on the other hand, on my computer (and my bf’s computer (he runs Opera GX as his default browser)) at least, Opera GX is by far and extremely noticeably the best browser i have ever used in terms of performance, and it also uses the same engine as Edge and Chrome. i dont use Opera GX daily and i almost never recommend it to people but if i want to run some kind of browser based game or heavy interactive multimedia or website, or if i want to load something as quickly as possible, it’s basically the only realistic option on my system. before Opera GX, the closest thing that ever compared was Maxthon Nitro which was also based on Chromium. but Maxthon was maybe even less privacy friendly than Chrome lol. anyway, i can easily get 60+ fps in Opera GX in those situations where other browsers make me feel like im playing on the cheap Dells and eMachines i grew up with: lucky to get 10fps but still loafing pages in well under a second. i assumed this was because, although these browsers all run the same underlying open source technologies, each company has made their own proprietary changes to it in order to tweak certain things. in the case of Edge, better albeit forced integration with Windows, in the case of Opera, noticeably better performance. idk if Microsoft made changes that improved performance compared to Chrome on purpose, but that has still been my personal experience. on the other end of the spectrum, Vivaldi, even if i like it more than them, is often noticeably much slower than any of these browsers (often taking over a second to load big pages) and it’s also based on Chromium.
in terms of performance, on my computer, Firefox seems to be usually more or less identical to Chrome. not hating on it, i love firefox and it’s usually the first browser i recommend to ppl (when it’s not the first browser i recommend, that’s usually only because the person I’m talking to is looking for some kind of very specific or even niche feature that imo some other browser can do better than Firefox), but i dont notice a difference on my computer between it and chrome when it comes to performance. but im also not someone who cares that much about loading times, like i said these differences are often within milliseconds and i just don’t normally even notice unless im trying extra hard to pay attention, and im normally not. Opera GX and Vivaldi are outliers only because of how dramatic the differences are for me.
There can be other reasons, and while it saddens me to say, we were forced to keep IE for specific web-panels, which hadn’t been updated since the 90s.
Edge does, after all, allow for compability with such sites, which is a good thing.
Please note that this is work work-related machines only.
I dont see how it’s an issue when it has to do with your work account. You shouldn’t be using this for other things than work.
That’s just because Edge is integrated with O365 and can pass device compliance information. There’s actually a plugin to enable Chrome to do the same thing, but nothing yet for Firefox.
There’s definitely ways to know if they really wanted to stop that, but those employees aren’t going to pull something like that. They weren’t just told they can’t use Mozilla, they were told they must use Edge. Using anything else is noncompliance (which I absolutely support as a person but as an employee I have no say in the policy)
Besides, with the upcoming changes to 365, you’ll never get links to open in anything but Edge without admin credentials at the very least, but realistically even that won’t stop it. You could use a portable version I suppose, if just to have at least one browser with proper uBlock support.
The biggest issue for a lot of people is going to be Microsoft forcing all Office 365 users to use Edge all the time. Our sysadmin recently forced me to uninstall Firefox and Chrome from all workstations unless they had an approved use for it. Everything must be through Edge.
Why? “Security” of course. It’s always “security”. Curious
Edit: the point is Microsoft could have worked to provide enterprise customers with ways to manage third party browsers going forward. They could have worked with Google and Mozilla to make that happen. They didn’t. Not really.
It’s that Microsoft continues to make decisions that create rationale for only using them, because that’s their business. “Security” gives them an extremely convenient cover for anticompetitive behavior. Anyone that thinks their C-Suite hasn’t pulled the defender/365 team into a meeting or two to discuss business strategy has far too much faith in a corporation that deserves very little.
Not really, it means less work and less risk for them if they have to support fewer software.
Back when Internet Explorer was still a thing you could configure it with group policies domain wide. If Microsoft implemented similar features for Edge in an active directory environment I can definitely see the appeal. Not to say similar isn’t possible with Chrome or Firefox, but first party integrations in a corporate environment tends to be the path of least resistance.
Firefox does support GPO amongst other policy mgmt solutions, and so do Chrome and Edge. But yeah it’s easier to only support Edge, apply policies recommended by the company which also supplies the OS and productivity suite, and call it a day.
It’s curious because Microsoft owns the operating system and was more than capable of designing in such a way that would allow sysadmins more control over third party browsers and software. Firefox would have been willing to work with them to provide the necessary levers. They already do with group policy.
“Security” is a term that shuts down arguments and silences all accusation of anticompetitive behavior. And they absolutely abuse that. You don’t think the bean counters are ecstatic about the fact that they have effectively been able to turn every IT department in the country into Edge salesmen? You don’t think there was a board meeting where the benefits of that were discussed?
Of course. I hate MS as much as the next linux user, but unfortunately from the IT team’s pov it makes a lot of sense now that MS’ browser isn’t a broken pile of shit anymore.
Microsoft has been on a shameless crusade recently to make people adopt Edge. Upon launch, thier Bing AI had a rather absurd requirement to use Edge to access it.
At least it runs decently enough. Better than chrome
It’s literally the same engine
genuine question, how much does that really matter when it comes to performance? in my personal experience, on my system, edge does feel faster than chrome and most other browsers. but also, it’s not really a big enough difference for me for it to be a valid reason to use it over other browsers. like realistically i dont normally register these tiny fractions of seconds and milliseconds unless im deliberately payig attention for some reason. on the other hand, on my computer (and my bf’s computer (he runs Opera GX as his default browser)) at least, Opera GX is by far and extremely noticeably the best browser i have ever used in terms of performance, and it also uses the same engine as Edge and Chrome. i dont use Opera GX daily and i almost never recommend it to people but if i want to run some kind of browser based game or heavy interactive multimedia or website, or if i want to load something as quickly as possible, it’s basically the only realistic option on my system. before Opera GX, the closest thing that ever compared was Maxthon Nitro which was also based on Chromium. but Maxthon was maybe even less privacy friendly than Chrome lol. anyway, i can easily get 60+ fps in Opera GX in those situations where other browsers make me feel like im playing on the cheap Dells and eMachines i grew up with: lucky to get 10fps but still loafing pages in well under a second. i assumed this was because, although these browsers all run the same underlying open source technologies, each company has made their own proprietary changes to it in order to tweak certain things. in the case of Edge, better albeit forced integration with Windows, in the case of Opera, noticeably better performance. idk if Microsoft made changes that improved performance compared to Chrome on purpose, but that has still been my personal experience. on the other end of the spectrum, Vivaldi, even if i like it more than them, is often noticeably much slower than any of these browsers (often taking over a second to load big pages) and it’s also based on Chromium.
in terms of performance, on my computer, Firefox seems to be usually more or less identical to Chrome. not hating on it, i love firefox and it’s usually the first browser i recommend to ppl (when it’s not the first browser i recommend, that’s usually only because the person I’m talking to is looking for some kind of very specific or even niche feature that imo some other browser can do better than Firefox), but i dont notice a difference on my computer between it and chrome when it comes to performance. but im also not someone who cares that much about loading times, like i said these differences are often within milliseconds and i just don’t normally even notice unless im trying extra hard to pay attention, and im normally not. Opera GX and Vivaldi are outliers only because of how dramatic the differences are for me.
There can be other reasons, and while it saddens me to say, we were forced to keep IE for specific web-panels, which hadn’t been updated since the 90s.
Edge does, after all, allow for compability with such sites, which is a good thing.
Please note that this is work work-related machines only. I dont see how it’s an issue when it has to do with your work account. You shouldn’t be using this for other things than work.
Edge nowadays is just a wrapper for Chromium. So it will only handle whatever Chrome handles.
Not true on Windows. They have an IE mode specifically for enterprise apps.
I wouldn’t count on Microsoft’s security:
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1187208383/china-hack-us-government-microsoft
If this can happen to governments using microsoft, it can happen to little guys using microsoft.
that doesn’t mean security is bad across the board. As invasive and terrible as Edge is, it’s actually the most secure browser out there.
That’s just because Edge is integrated with O365 and can pass device compliance information. There’s actually a plugin to enable Chrome to do the same thing, but nothing yet for Firefox.
What if you run the portable version of Firefox? How would they know?
There’s definitely ways to know if they really wanted to stop that, but those employees aren’t going to pull something like that. They weren’t just told they can’t use Mozilla, they were told they must use Edge. Using anything else is noncompliance (which I absolutely support as a person but as an employee I have no say in the policy)
Besides, with the upcoming changes to 365, you’ll never get links to open in anything but Edge without admin credentials at the very least, but realistically even that won’t stop it. You could use a portable version I suppose, if just to have at least one browser with proper uBlock support.