These changes are only applicable to users in the EEA. For those outside the region, Windows will continue to function as it is!
The changes to Windows for DMA-compliance include:
- You can now uninstall Edge and Bing web search using the built-in settings. Earlier, the option was greyed out.
- Third-party web search application developers can now utilize the Windows search box in the taskbar using the instructions provided by Microsoft and choose any web browser to show results from the web.
- Microsoft will no longer sign-in users to Edge, Bing, and Microsoft Start services during the initial Windows setup experience.
- Data collected about the functioning of non-Microsoft apps, primarily bug detection and its effects on the OS, from Windows PCs will not be used for competitive purposes.
- Microsoft, from now on, will need explicit user consent before combining data from the OS and other sources. It will also deliver new consent screens where required.
About 20 years ago, Microsoft was found guilty and convicted, because they forced their browser on their users, driving out competitors by abusing their de facto monopoly on PC operating systems. These days, they are doing the exact same thing again, just on an even broader base. I don’t even understand how this verdict took so long.
It makes perfect sense once you understand that regulators have only cared about stock prices for the last 40 years. The EU coming down on giant corporations is a new development
Only because we don’t have any tech giants, we’ve slept on it so we get the money this way and try to slow down others until we figure shit out.
You can see that we don’t care about consumer that much in markets we’re strong.
It’s just lobbyism
Lol this is asinine.
America let their tech companies get too big to the point that they are all behaving ridiculously anti-competitively, and you think the solution is that the EU should have let their companies get so big that they behave anti-competitively?
This is the EU steeping in to clean up America’s mess when it spills over to them.
The fucking sad thing is, when they did it 20 years ago Internet Explorer became the gold standard. Now they are pushing super hard, annoying users, killing competition and they have a tiny market share. They aren’t getting anywhere, just being assholes because they don’t know how not to be.
Edge is just a Chromium build with more manageability for enterprise use.
The behaviour required of you when you have a monopoly is different when you don’t.
These days IE isn’t a monopoly. Chrome is. So Microsoft is allowed more leeway to nudge its users.
This isn’t a verdict. There’s been no court case. This is Microsoft complying with EU regulation, which is very recent. Microsoft has responded to it quite quickly.
Me for the rest of the week:
Is you regional settings set to a European country?
(by the way, life pro tip, setting your region to a European country solves a ton of issues people have with Windows, most complaints I see I never had a problem with even though I live in Canada, my settings are set to UK)
Interesting that setting your location to the UK gets you EU protections. Do the EU protections apply in the UK? They Brexited didn’t they?
IIUC when they separated they basically ended up with a snapshot of EU regulations. So most of GDPR applies. But IDK if the DMA will apply as it was created after they split.
Right, and the consumer protections and ownership rights for that licence are grossly insufficient compared to what you would get if you bought a physical object.
We’ve allowed ridiculous compliance requirements and forced updates to become normalized when we never should have, and we’ve accepted the undermining of user authority because we refused to fight for it.
That’s what it’s become. But, hear me out, what if I want the hardware without the software? Tough luck? Both are so tied together that if the company pulls the rug you don’t have reasonable access to the hardware.
You don’t need Windows to use a computer. There are tons of flavors of Linux among other options. There are plenty of manufacturers who sell Linux boxes and you can always build your own. Microsoft just pays a lot of manufacturers to bundle Windows in the cost, but not all.
What are you talking about? Most suppliers allow you to buy the hardware without forcing Windows on you.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted because you’re right. You don’t really own hardly any of the software you buy. You don’t buy the software, you buy a license to use it in almost all commercial cases. It would be financial suicide for companies to revoke those licenses in most cases, but it still is what it is.
Just because software vendors legally made it that way doesn’t make it right. Also probably the main reason, many people don’t have any qualms pirating.
I see hive mind stupidity is alive and well as your completely factual statement is downvoted by absolute morons.
This ought to happen everywhere. Either I’m the admin on my machine or I’m not. If it’s not, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll tolerate a Windows machine.
PSA: Once this rolls out into the actual downloadable Windows builds, everyone should be able to do this by reinstalling Windows.
European Economic Area PCs
As noted above, some functionality is only available in the EEA. Windows uses the region chosen by the customer during device setup to identify if the PC is in the EEA. Once chosen in device setup, the region used for DMA compliance can only be changed by resetting the PC.
I’d worry about how that might effect other things. Windows isn’t the only thing that changes its behavior based on region. What other software would be looking at that specific region setting?
That’s the real gift given by Microsoft:
Once chosen in device setup, the region used for DMA compliance can only be changed by resetting the PC.
Just change your region back to where ever you are after setup. Nothing on your PC outside of the OS will be reading the region set during Windows Install, they’ll be asking for the currently set region.
But I thought this was a crucial part of the operating system?!
The Internet Explorer system stuff is still there, the difference is that when it launches as a normal browser, it automatically opens Edge instead of IE. (iirc)
Yeah, internet explorer is integrated deeply in places you wouldn’t expect.
Which is entirely unnecessary and done explicitly so they can pretend it is essential to the operation of the machine.
It is, specifically MS Edge WebView. For example new MS Teams and new Outlook client are using WebView. Widgets are using it as well as do many other things.
This uninstall will most likely still keep Edge present, it will just be somehow hidden / not as easily accessible.
