Some of the top browser makers around have issued a letter to the European Commission (EC) alleging that Microsoft gives the Edge browser an unfair advantage and should be subject to EU tech rules.

A letter seen by Reuters, sent by Vivaldi, Waterfox, and Wavebox, and supported by a group of web developers, also supports Opera’s move to take the EC to court over its decision to exclude Microsoft Edge from being subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

As Edge comes pre-installed by default on Windows machines, users must navigate the Microsoft offering in order to download their browser of choice. The letter states that, “No platform independent browser can aspire to match Edge’s unparalleled distribution advantage on Windows. Edge is, moreover, the most important gateway for consumers to download an independent browser on Windows PCs.”

    • @A_Random_Idiot
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      6 hours ago

      Yes, and its a nasty story thats all unofficial cause no one is ever gonna go on the record, at least not for another 10-20 years when it comes out in someones book…

      but the short of it is, Edge had its own browser engine, but google kept making changes to youtube and other google sites that broke Edges performance and made it run like dogshit, while leaving chromium based browsers alone.

      after many instances of sabotage > microsoft workaround > google sabotage> microsoft workaround. Microsoft finally gave up and remade Edge as a chromium based browser.

      • @Wrench
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        -66 hours ago

        So Google establishing a now industry standard of evergreen versioning so that they could iterate relatively quickly on features, rather than have to maintain compatibility with years old versions, and iterating quickly on their own major websites - is a bad thing?

        Right.

        Yeah, let’s go back to having to maintain terrible legacy browsers that behaved completely differently for the rest of time.

        • @A_Random_Idiot
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          4 hours ago

          ah yes, the google white knights. here to completely misconstrue the argument to make everyone but google the bad guy.

          because thats what a trillion dollar company that threatens to seize control of the internet needs.

          • @Wrench
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            02 hours ago

            Rofl. So let’s white wash the browser history before chrome, then. Back when IE reigned supreme. You must either be too young or not in the industry to champion that.

        • @[email protected]
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          65 hours ago

          On “features” they would like to see. Most of the time features that make it difficult to block tracking and keep their advertising business going. The web is all about communication standards between different programs and this includes the joint adoption of new standards and respect for the existing standards.

          • @Wrench
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            02 hours ago

            And Google established a lot of the standards that were both open and long living.

            Yeah, Google has strayed far from the “Do no evil” philosophy in the last decade. But this rewriting of history to praise IE and demonfy Chrome from that era is ridiculous.

              • @Wrench
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                140 minutes ago

                Because we should wipe away 2 decades of history and pretend the next thing is flawless on release?

                Edge came in with a freight train of baggage, and didn’t make it. It’s absurd to frame this otherwise.