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?
They are OS-generated links. Kinda funny that you claim I don't know what I'm writing about when the very example you give is an OS-generated link.
The start menu search is very much integrated with the OS and even gives you result right in the menu. Would be weird if the result shown in the menu would not be the same as the ones shown when it opens a web-browser?
But I guess you did not stop to think about such minor details.
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.
No, I claim that if you write an OS that you need to support, you need to ensure that some of its basic functionality have been tested and can be vouched to always work for all users.
And also, you have misunderstood my claims about locales. Not all alternative browser support all locals that Windows support. Would you like to have help page from the OS or search result from the OS open in a browser with a UI in another language. Don't forget: not every computer is your own, so people can get in a situation where a browser they have chosen is installed.
If you cannot fathom why this is necessary, it mostly shows you haven't work on large software, with a large install base and support personnel. And yes, search from the start menu and F1 from the explorer are exactly the type of things where you need to guarantee some baseline of functionality and testing and support. Do you want to be the guy in support on the phone trying to explain something about a web browser you know nothing about?
It's not like I'm too dumb to understand the line of reasoning people are using. But people are clearly unwilling to admit there are also good reasons why things are the way they are. Just adamantly repeating that Microsoft does thing for one single reason is just being close-minded for the sake of being right.
As for the competitive aspect: you'd have a leg to stand on if we were talking about how Microsoft makes it harder to switch browsers in Windows 11. But, unfortunately, that is not the subject at hand. It's about specific links that are generate right inside the OS. There is no competition around showing help and OS search result. The browser competition is not about the microsoft-edge: URL schemes. In what world do you live where it is the relevant competition?
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.
