'Microslop' is heading for Edge – major browser redesign is inspired by Copilot and it makes me worry about the future of Windows 11
www.techradar.com
From Micro$oft to Microslop? Copilot-inspired revamp for Edge stokes further AI rebellion
  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    20 hours ago

    At what point do we stop caling it late stage capitalism and start calling it post capitalism? This is going beyond a captive market, at this point they’re outright making products no one wants and forcing it on us anyway by removing the alternatives. If late stage capitalism was the offer of shit or nothing this is escalating to just shoving a tube down our throats.

    • Wolf@lemmy.todayEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      I haven’t used a web browser made by Microsoft in 20 years, since I leaned how to create a web page. I saw how Microsoft was trying to take over the web by leveraging their monopoly to enforce their non-standards compliant crap.

      I even took an A- over an A+ on that project because I refused to code a version of the site that would work better under IE. I just put a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that it was 100% standards compliant and if anyone experienced an issue viewing the page they should consider a upgrading their web browser.

      I understand the Edge is supposed to be better than IE and more standards compliant or whatever, but given their history coupled with their anti-privacy practices, it makes any browser made by Microsoft a non starter for me.

  • eletes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    291·
    3 days ago

    Get ready for:

    clicks hyperlink

    Entire page is scraped and sent to copilot LLM to be processed. This causes a 1.5 second delay

    Then after you get passed the cookies popup and promo popup, the whole page shifts and gets injected with copilot summarizations right as you were about to click on something else.

    Work forces me to use edge, this’ll be fun

    • sexy_peach@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Then after you get passed the cookies popup and promo popup, the whole page shifts and gets injected with copilot summarizations right as you were about to click on something else.

      you forgot ads. It’s going to get injected with ads

      • garretble@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        3 days ago

        Yeah, same.

        It’s not terrible, but it feels like it’s slowly becoming worse as they add new garbage. And especially if they start forcing a bunch of AI shit I’m out.

        But I think a lot of people brush it off outright without really using it. Or, because it’s Lemmy, anything that’s not linux = bad.

    • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      3 days ago

      Actually Edge prior to this was a fine browser. Like a lightweight chrome. It was actually just good enough to not really make you want to install a new browser unless it was your daily driver personal PC.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      1521·
      4 days ago

      Microsoft 365 Copilot Edge Pro Express Home Edition with Teams for Friends and Family 2027.

      People will still use it once to download another browser.

          • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.worldEnglish
            17·
            4 days ago

            I have a USB-bootable thumbdrive with Ubuntu 24 on it. Two home systems down, two to go.

            My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support. Historically, at least recently, the weekly updates and response to critical vulnerabilities and virus scanning have been pretty good. But now that they’re attacking their own flagship products - Office and Windows itself - I think it’s only a matter of time before they fumble Windows security in a big way.

            I’ll also predict that Non-pro Windows will eventually be “free” (as in beer), but will be useless without a live internet connection and cloud services. So now really is the time to switch. IMO, all the money points in that direction.

            • Cricket@lemmy.zip@lemmy.zipEnglish
              7·
              3 days ago

              My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support.

              That and their general quality control. It’s already been happening. Their updates and new products have been having some serious issues with a lot more frequency over the last year. At least that’s the strong impression I have. Oh, here’s an article also calling this out: https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/08/microsoft_lacks_quality_control/ - apparently they may have started going down this path over a decade ago, but it seems to have accelerated since they started using Gen AI.

                • Ænima@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  Dude, that was a GOOD read. It’s been a growing problem, before AI and entirely due to the infinite growth forced on companies by shareholder value.

                  I code, usually for utility or personal projects. I’m surprised how many software devs have shit code. It’s not that their code doesn’t work, they wouldn’t have a job without it. No, it works well for now, until it needs to be maintained or updated, usually after the sloppy author is gone, and then it’s a shit show. Suddenly all the corners the last guy cut need to be added in somehow, with the whole thing expanded to scope, and the code becomes unworkable, at worst, requiring a complete rewrite, or at best turns into spaghetti code that leads to the shit we have in our aging early adopters.

                  My biggest fear, and one that is not talked about in the article, is that we won’t have any asbestos removers in the future. Generative AI is being fed it’s own excrement and that’s being leveraged as working code to new coders. When this really becomes a liability we won’t have many left that can fix or figure out the fix cause it will have obfuscated all the usable info.

          • AMoistGrandpa@lemmy.caEnglish
            121·
            4 days ago

            Out of curiosity, why does everyone always go for Ubuntu in posts like this? I’ve always hated that distro; all my machines run Fedora instead. IMO Fedora with KDE is way better than Ubuntu with Gnome in terms of usability for people switching over from Windows, but maybe I’m just biased since I’m already super familiar with Linux

            • danielton1@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              I’m also a Fedora KDE user and I agree with you. The only real gripe I have with it is that if you don’t know about the full version of RPM Fusion, you’ll get frustrated that certain things are missing or don’t work right, and the GUI button to enable third-party repos after installation isn’t enough. I personally just skip that button and enable the full version following the directions on their site and then use Discover to enable Flathub.

            • deleted@lemmy.worldEnglish
              8·
              4 days ago

              I run Zorin OS 18 on my desktop. I just commented Ubuntu since more people would understand the comments.

              Also, for Surface tablets, I believe Ubuntu is the best option for touchscreen support.

            • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
              4·
              3 days ago

              It took me way more than a decade of using Ubuntu before I got to a point of preferring Fedora, in spite of frequent distro hopping in periods when I was bored.

              I think Fedora has gotten better in the last few years, but for me it also feels a bit more cold and unwelcoming maybe? Dunno, but I was always happy with Ubuntu until some really obscure dependencies got into conflict and I had to change things up. Canonical might not be the absolute best, but neither are Red Hat.

          • passenger@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Use curl.exe otherwise you might invoke the default powershell alias curl which has different syntax (just learned of this here somewhere some time ago in a meme)

            • deleted@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              The link is no longer working. I just needed a direct link to make the point that’s it. Recent versions have buttons to download with script.

          • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            3 days ago

            Ubuntu doesn’t respect the spirit of free open-source software. They keep jamming stuff into their distro to increase their control. There are plenty of alternatives. (E.g. Debian, OpenSUSE, Fedora or Mint for general-purpose distros.)

          • SleepyPie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            3 days ago

            I refuse to use or recommend American distros.

            I can confirm Debian 13 works great for newbies.

      • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        141·
        3 days ago

        It’ll just be called Microsoft Copilot.

        None of you are in an abusive relationship with the cruel mistress that is Windows and her accursed family and it shows.

        Personally I’m excited for when they rerelease regedit as Windows Copilot, MFS as (Co)Pilot, and Purble Place as Copilot Kids Demo.

  • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1632·
    4 days ago

    M$ has done more to convince people that AI is bullshit than anyone else and I just want to thank them for their hard work.

    • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      Windows -> MS copilotOS
      Subscription-> MS copilot 365
      Chatbot -> MS copilot chat
      Office apps mished to one -> MS copilot work 365
      Vs code -> Copilot Code
      Visual Studio -> copilot studio
      Azure -> MS Copilot Azure cloud
      EntraID -> copilot Access
      ActiveDirectory -> copilot Business manager
      Visio -> copilot processes
      Github -> copilot repo management (CoRaMa)
      Intune -> ms copilot manage
      Planner -> copilot task management plan
      Teams -> copilot communication manager
      Linkedin -> ms management ads copilot

      🧐 wonky enough?

  • Tramort@programming.devEnglish
    77·
    4 days ago

    I hate Microsoft edge with a burning passion, and Microslop tries to force me to use it when I click any link from Outlook

    Your tools actively make my job HARDER

    It is so obnoxious. Fuck Microsoft, fuck Edge, and fuck Outlook.

    • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      183·
      4 days ago

      Edge was fine, i use it at work to further separate personal use from work use further. It’s vertical tabs are top tier and being able to have the dev tools have vertical tabs is also a massive plots for productivity. However the latter is getting removed for seemingly no reason and once that’s gone there’s no boon to using edge anymore and I’ll just use a separate Firefox profile or use some chromium browser for work.

      • Dremor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        3 days ago

        Firefox vertical tabs are better IMO. At least you can close them when minimized, which Edge cannot.

      • Jhex@lemmy.worldEnglish
        63·
        4 days ago

        Edge was fine

        When? it always sucked monkey balls… when MS finally gave up and turned Edge into basically chrome with an ugly theme, it was a leap forward… but they soon enshitified it so bad it quickly became a complete bloated mess

          • Jhex@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            3 days ago

            why? (if you don’t mind me asking)

            I find it slower than chromium with a ton of oddly organized settings

            • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              9·
              3 days ago

              It’s developers tools, as is is better than chromes.

              And like i said in my original comment it’s vertical tabs are one of the best implementations out there at the moment.

              It has sensible tab folder features which I usually don’t use in other browsers but in edge they’re great.

              It also has what they call workspaces that keeps the exact state of your tabs across signed in instances if the browser irregardless of device (it even syncs in real-time - which has helped me in times at work when i can remote into multiple different devices on our network).

              Granted i can understand on personal devices the signed in workspaces may sound awful to most but on a device where i already have to be signed in to a Microsoft account for work anyway, it’s a moot point for me. My work laptop is the only windows device i have in the house if that’s worth any merit. Windows is awful, getting worse by the way and edge will soon be following suit so even though I’m praising it in its current state, I can’t see me continuing to do so for much longer.

              • JayGray91🐉🍕@piefed.socialEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                Oh didn’t know Edge has workspace that functions similar to Firefox multi container. Not that I am going to change to Edge, but it’s still neat.

              • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                3 days ago

                Are the vertical tabs better than Vivaldi? If tabs are the metric, Vivaldi is better.

                My primary is Firefox because fuck chrome, but if I had to compare Edge to other chromium implementations I would go with Vivaldi.

                • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2·
                  3 days ago

                  Vivaldi is unusable for me because you can’t have the bookmarks bar only show on the new tab screen, and they seem unwilling to add that in to save face in a few discussions they’ve had about that feature, it’s weird.

                  My primary is Firefox too by the way.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.mlEnglish
    77·
    4 days ago

    Step One: Install literally any other browser
    Step Two: Make new browser the default
    Step Three: Forget that Edge exists

    Peace.

    • Hawke@lemmy.worldEnglish
      65·
      4 days ago
      1. Repeat step two forever when Microsoft decides there was a problem that can be solved by resetting your default browser.
        • Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zipEnglish
          71·
          4 days ago

          I wish I wasn’t such a coward about this.

          Three questions for you:

          • Will I be able to run Blender without issue?
          • Can I run Steam/Steam games easily?
          • Will Discord work?
          • Jo Miran@lemmy.mlEnglish
            32·
            4 days ago

            Will I be able to run Blender without issue?

            The free and open source 3D creation software developed on Linux and primarily run on Linux? Yeah, you should be fine.

            Can I run Steam/Steam games easily?

            Absolutely. Games that have a problem running on linux are mostly contained to this with anti-cheat. You can verify your game’s compatibility with protondb.com.

            Will Discord work?

            Of course. Discord has a linux native client.

            • njordomir@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              3 days ago

              To top that off, you can dip your toes in by running a live image off a USB thumb drive to check if your hardware is recognized and supported out of the box. I have used Linux for 10-15 years, but never for gaming. This year I made the final jump, the one thing I had kept windows for. I don’t play competitive games with anticheat, and everything is running great. I anticipated more bullshit, because 15 years ago, Linux was not so polished. At this point I’m fine with running Linux on elderly folks PCs. It’s finally “good enough” to do just about everything and legitimately excels at most things.

              • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc@lemmy.federate.ccEnglish
                3·
                3 days ago

                Man, this comment made me feel old :)

                So much fun anti-nostalgia for trying to game on Debian fifteen years ago. This game doesn’t really run in WINE, but if you feed the Konami code into launch arguments then you might get working except upside down and in black and white. Oh, you wanted sound with that? Let me introduce you to my main man, ALSA. He’s a dick.

                The kids of today will never know the pain. Proton is a game changer.

            • Tim_Bisley@piefed.socialEnglish
              2·
              3 days ago

              Discord didn’t play nice with Linux for me. It wouldn’t update and then discord wouldn’t let me sign in. Had to go thru a multi step process each update to fix it. Only discord did this.

          • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            4 days ago

            I want to reenforce the other response you got with yes to all of you questions. I use steam and discord daily on my Linux install. I don’t use blender, but as mentioned is was developed for Linux, so should have no issues. If you have an old laptop or something around, try flashing on a distro and give it a whirl. Otherwise you may be able to get something dirt cheap on Craigslist if you want to have a lengthy try without configuring a dual boot, running off the install drive, or nuking your current setup.

            I went all in on mine fairly blind and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in a couple of years. Go with something more stable if you’re hesitant or not well versed in computers and terminal. I went Arch because I wanted to force myself to learn more about how Linux is built and operates. It took me a full day to get loaded to a desktop mostly reading the wiki and deciding what items I wanted and how I wanted them configured. Linux 10 years ago is so different from the current versions, so if you’ve tried it before with issue, forget that experience and treat it as a first time experience.

          • Siegfried@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            4 days ago

            Games run easily, but there are some that won’t run at all. Mainly those that use anti cheat and kernel level shit. Discord does work, but i remember that maintaining it updated was a pain in the ass. In any case, I didnt use it that much so…

          • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            I’ve been using my Steam Deck as my PC, which is Arch Linux. Blender’s only issue for my casual use is that GPU rendering isn’t supported, so for any big rendering job, cloud would be necessary. Otherwise, a more powerful machine would be better, but as for the OS, it’s totally fine.

            Adobe is another issue. Substance is available on Steam, but I think it’s not updatable.

        • Hawke@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

          Absolutely.

          Just need a way to admin Active Directory from Linux and I’m set…

          • UnspecificGravity@piefed.socialEnglish
            9·
            4 days ago

            This makes me think about the hospital I used to work at that had an old 386 parked in the shop running the HVAC system. They had it completely off the network and had to keep it because it was the only way to run the proprietary HVAC control software and would cost an absurd amount of money to upgrade to be compatible with modern systems and it still did its job.

            I imagine a future where there is a computer like that running windows 11 in some basement and new employees are trained “don’t even think about touching this thing, its doing its job.”

            • Hawke@lemmy.worldEnglish
              9·
              4 days ago

              Don’t have to worry about that, win11 isn’t reliable enough for that.

              We had a similar situation for a voicemail system though.

            • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              4·
              4 days ago

              We still have handful of those around at work. 2000, XP and maybe some embedded variant of 98 too still somewhere. They are controlling some non-critical but still useful industrial stuff with stupidly large price tag to replace.

              Specially XP is still going to be around for quite a while in industrial settings where the production line is controlled via single computer and replacing it would mean replacing the whole line with price tag potentially in millions. And those aren’t even that old machines, their planning and manufacturing just takes “a while” due to certifications and everything.

    • kadu@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
      10·
      4 days ago

      Step Three: Forget that Edge exists

      Open a PDF on Windows 11 - Edge is the default app.

      Use the search bar for search, click on a result, even though it’s not your default browser Edge opens the result.

      And there are many other examples. Setting a default on Windows 11 is now extremely obnoxious and requires that you set many file types manually.

    • Poach@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      4 days ago

      Get upset with my old tools that decide to open in edge anyway (vestiges of IE). Or the bullshit microslop pulls and opens their links in edge rather than the default.