an open letter to mircosoft and god

This happened: I booted my computer and it finished an update. I use this computer to use one app, Chrome, to use one site, Google Docs. Sometimes I open a second tab and Google synonyms. There are no icons on my desktop besides Chrome and the Recycle Bin. But when my computer was updated, I saw this: the Microsoft Edge icon invited itself to both my desktop and my taskbar. Then of its own accord on a machine I thought was mine Microsoft Edge helped itself to my ram and my processing power and my electricity and it launched itself. It was desperate. It wanted love. It was so convinced I would love it it hid parts of itself; there was no X button, no option to minimize. It bared itself to me, fully, full screen. Even with a right click to the newly self-pinned taskbar icon, while ostensibly offering me the option to "close window" Edge was so saddened, so shocked that I would rid myself of it it simply refused. I alt-tabbed. The spectre remained. Mousing over to the "show desktop" sliver on my now invaded and occupied taskbar I saw my now invaded and occupied desktop. The intruder Edge glared at me. I right-click deleted it. "Are you so sure?" Windows asks me. "Are you so sure? To delete that requires the high-ranking authority of--" (it whispered this solemnly to me now) "--an Admin. Are you an Admin? Please prove it to me. Please." It was gone. The window remained open on my taskbar, still refusing to right-click close. But at least the dektop icon was gone. It had needed Admin approval to leave. But which Admin approved its arrival? Far off some lead of leads of the "Download Chrome" browser realized I, personally, was not just their customer but also a fool; this computer which I thought was mine and which I thought I used for only one app and one site was destined for so much more: true love, Microsoft Edge. I opened the task manager. I pulled back the hammer. I pulled the trigger. I ended the task. Mircosoft Edge was now dead, my computer now safe. But how did Edge break into my house in the first place? Am I not to be trusted with what icons I put on my own desktop, my own taskbar? Are which applications I choose to use on my computer not my decision to make? What, I ask, gives? Who decided that was an okay thing to do? Is this really their ideal machine, an OS of obtrusion, whose programs open not by a user's consenting click but by corporate mandate? Is this your art? Your life? Is your aim a better world, the democratization of power, of love, of education, and of information? Or did you just want to trick elderly mothers and young children into using a different Chromium-based web browser, in some sad hope to increase some internal user figure within the 301,300,000,000 dollar company that owns the most popular desktop OS in the world? This is our world. I'm saddened by it. Congratulations on TikTok.

You know, the new Edge is Alright. Its a Browser. It Browses.

Imagine hating a Chromium fork this much.

Pretty sure it also has patches to use LESS ram that Google have disabled in Chrome due to it slowing down other benchmarks.

Yah man they really came a long way. I still don't use it on the regular but I do launch it once in a while for kicks and ehh it works real well.

It's a shame they patched out native ePub support though.

Browser is just one letter away from you know who. AND THERE'S NOTHING ALRIGHT ABOUT THAT YOU KING KOOPA APOLOGIST!

@bigsocrates: There's a dumb modded version of Paper Mario that runs the script through multiple languages in Google Translate and Bowsers name is constantly rendered as Browser in one of them.

This is relevant to nothing but god damn it made me laugh every time.

New Edge is great. If it doesn't find the website it loads up a surfing version of skifree.

I like the writing a lot here. Good job birdo.

@onemanarmyy: Thanks! This is the first writing I've put online in a long time!

@mikewhy: I actually don't mind Edge, I use it on my living room PC since it's the only way for me to get full 1080p on a lot of streaming sites. I couldn't think of a writing prompt for myself this afternoon and for whatever reason complaining about a Windows update is what stuck.

look, I kinda sympathize, its annoying, but also the title of this thread is just a dril tweet

I missed that it was mircosoft and I'm way more into it.

The actual problem with Edge isn't that it's a bad browser, it's that Windows pushes you in every way that it can to make Edge your default browser even if you don't want it. Go change it in settings? Aw, come on, use Edge! Oh, you want your default PDF reader to be something else? Use Edge! It's the sort of practice that pushes me more and more back to running Linux as often as possible and just dealing with the headaches of that OS.

@justin258: Yep. I get the notification once in awhile: something happened with a program so we switched your default PDF viewer to Edge.

What happened? What program? WHY?

I used Chrome for many, many years, but recently switched to Edge to give it a go. It's fine. They're all fine.

@ultrabirdo: edge is the best browser right now Internet explorer is long dead. Chrome is resource heavy as fuck and Firefox is right behind it among other things.

I'm not having that issue. Is it just a Windows 10 thing? I'm still on Chrome and I haven't heard Edge moan once.

I'm on Windows 10 and while i do have it on my taskbar as a secondary browser to use every once in a while, i don't remember the last time i was nagged about using it as a default. Like that must have been years ago by now, with that big fall update or something. But hey, everyone has their own experiences.

I loved every second of reading that

Mircosoft

Thank you.

@singing_pigs: Thanks!