(fire cracking)
- I remember the early days, do you?
- [Narrator] For years, the cruel William Gates III
reigned as the undisputed king of Internettia,
but then from the dark continent came
two brave warriors, "99% no more."
They cried, And banished him to the fiery
bowels of Mount Anti-trust from whence he came.
- But the monopolistic king wasn't truly dead,
only sleeping.
And now that he's returned
with an edge sharper than before,
our suffering will be truly great.
And--
- what are you doing?
- Oh, I'm making a video about how Microsoft's back
to their pushy ways of trying to force us to
use their browser and like anti-competitive
and like antitrust, that sort of thing.
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- [Both] (cheering)
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(Upbeat Music)
- Anyone running Windows 11 right now
knows the pains of Edge all too well.
Wanna open a PDF, follow a link or view just
about any type of image file?
Until you've changed out the default browser
for every single one,
Windows 11 is going to default to edge.
It apparently wasn't bad enough in Windows 10,
when edge not only installed
itself as part of a windows update,
but then set itself as the default browser
and pinned itself to the task bar.
Now, if you like edge more power to you.
It's certainly an improvement over Internet Explorer,
but I'm not into it.
The default search engine is Bing, More on that later.
The default vertical tabs take up
up a ton of screen real estate.
Yes, we know you can hide them,
but even hidden they're bulky.
And you can't uninstall it even if you wanted to.
Then in 2020, they added some shopping extensions
to the browser that would price match for you,
And add coupons or promo codes to online purchases.
Which sounds great,
but you didn't add ask me first.
And then more recently there's been controversy
surrounding integration with zip,
a buy now pay later service that has been criticized
as predatory for the way that it might tempt people to
spend money that they do not have.
Now don't get me wrong,
having a web browser on your PC right out of the box
is a better customer experience
than a few decades ago.
Anyone still got an an A.O.L. C.D. lying around?
No? All right.
The problem is that windows
has been the dominant operating system for so long
that Microsoft gets ample opportunities to leverage it
for an unfair advantage.
And that is why we need antitrust laws now more than ever,
To demonstrate, we're gonna do a fresh install
of Windows 11 to show you just how bad it is.
You can find the links down below
for the parts we're running on our test bench.
One moment, please.
Lately, It seemed Microsoft has aggressively ramped
up their efforts to make their store
the one stop shop.
Windows comes with edge, their browser.
And Edge defaults to Bing, their search engine.
As for why that matters to them.
You need to look no further than Google's business model to
understand just how valuable your search data,
along with your location, the apps you use
the games you play can be to a company like Microsoft.
There it is. There's your tailored experience,
and advertising ID.
Take it all. You will anyway.
Then once you hit the desktop,
we can make jokes about how edge only exists
so you can download another browser,
And most people do it.
But because of Microsoft's position,
they can force you to open it at least once to do that.
And when you do,
you'll notice it's front and center top left right here.
The new startup wizard prompts you
to give it a crap ton of data.
Stay up to date by regularly
bringing in browsing data from other browsers.
What? that's the default?
They know they can't make you keep it,
So they're gonna take your browsing data from elsewhere?
How about we say no.
Express yourself, Do you like light or dark mode?
What colors do you like?
Like I gotta wonder, what am I telling Microsoft?
When I say, look, I really like the bubble gum color scheme.
This actually was not nearly as bad as it used to be.
Well, kudos,
but not that much kudos.
Now that I've got another browser
I don't need edge anymore.
So I'm gonna go ahead and just remove it.
And then right, uninstall--
Repair.
That's my only option
like an average user is not gonna know that you
have to change dot HTM to default to a browser.
This could only be like this to make it more difficult.
Let's go ahead and just search for something and perfect.
That launches an Edge even after you've changed
your default browser.
So unless you're willing to put the time
and effort into absolutely purging Edge
and anything that it relies on from your system
you're going to end up using it once in a while
even if it's just out of laziness.
And is that so bad?
I mean, it's not like it doesn't work.
So is this even a problem?
And has it always been like this?
To answer those questions,
We need to go back in time.
In time in time in time.
Hey there, buddy.
It's me favorite Canadian YouTuber guy.
Boy, I sure do love chopping wood,
craftin' and lttstore.com
Okay. That's gonna get annoying fast.
Anyway, the point is back in 2007
Opera software filed an antitrust complaint
alongside the European union, complaining
about Internet Explorer being bundled with Windows.
Mozilla and Google quickly joined forces with them.
And in response Microsoft offered to
basically add a toggle switch to turn off or on I.E.
But that wasn't good enough.
By late 2009, they agreed to instead add a
browser choice screen giving users
the option to pick what they'd prefer.
Hey, that sounds kind of familiar buddy.
You know, you're right 2007 Linus, it does.
In 2001, the United States also won an antitrust case
against Microsoft for,
you guested it, monopolistic practices including
bundling internet Explorer with their O.S.
and making it impossible to uninstall
after all, why should I waste time and money
buying Netscape Navigator when
Explorer is already right there.
Now, Netscape had already switched over
to a free model by 1998
but the damage had already been done.
Internet Explorer had 99% market share.
Making matters worse, Microsoft lied
When they said that removing I.E.
would make windows run slower.
Their evidence ended up looking rather
fraudulent, to put it mildly.
And they even altered the API to favor Explorer
over third party browsers.
The good news though, is that
this was the first time that Microsoft had engaged
in this kind of manipulative nonsense.
I'm just kidding.
All the way back in 1994,
Spyglass Inc created a unified version
of the mosaic browser that could work on any platform.
This was then licensed out to resellers
who sold either an unmodified version
or one that utilized their code base.
One of these became internet Explorer.
The original deal with Microsoft
called for base quarterly fees plus royalties
from any internet Explorer revenue.
But how could there be any royalties when
Microsoft would just bundle the internet Explorer product
with windows for free, very clever Mr. Gates.
But the lawyers didn't seem to think so
since Microsoft ended up settling with Spyglass
for 8 million after they threatened legal action.
That's a lot of money for you to
not learn your lesson at all.
Have you noticed that none of the things
that Microsoft was punished for
or agreed to have actually been implemented in windows 11?
So let's talk about why Microsoft is so determined
for you to use the web browser
that they would treat multimillion dollar fines
and settlements as just cost of doing business.
We live in a world where data is as good as gold,
and the more people using edge,
or by extension Bing the more data Microsoft can accumulate.
And if they make it harder for the consumer to
avoid their software,
that is the very definition of anti-competitive
and monopolistic behavior.
Now to be fair, according to netmarketshare.com,
Google Chrome actually has the highest market share
by a long shot at roughly 69% at the time of filming
with edge sitting at a meager sub 8%, nice.
But what's not so nice is the way that edge is
bullying their way into the runner up spot.
Chrome got to first place by being a strong competitor
and running creative ads like this one.
Microsoft strong-armed rather than sweet talked
leaving us where we are today.
And there's more to this than web browsers.
You probably don't remember Novell or WordPerfect,
but there are leaked memos from Gates in 1994,
trying to hinder competition again.
- We should wait until we have a way
to do a high level of integration.
That will be harder for the likes of Notes
and WordPerfect to achieve,
and which will give Office a real advantage.
We can't compete with Lotus and
WordPerfect/Novell without this.
- In 1996, Novell assigned rights to Caldera
which sued Microsoft and won $280 million,
which to remind you,
taught them absolutely nothing.
Now let's be clear Google and their Chrome browser
are not the white Knights
that it might feel like we're making them out to be.
They're owned by Alphabet, Inc
who has been involved in their
own set of anti-trust lawsuits
and have been accused numerous times
of monopolistic practices, tax avoidance,
among other things.
I mean just about every browser is running on chromium now,
the basis of Chrome and Chrome is the
most widely used browser by a long shot.
But that's a story for another time.
Maybe once they've surpassed Microsoft
in terms of market cap.
Now these days, you'll see Mr. Gates
doing philanthropic work with charities
and nonprofits, but don't let the PR fool you.
He, and by extension Microsoft got to where they are today
by ruthlessly sabotaging and tricking the competition.
So the next time you see someone using edge
because it's already there.
Remember this classic Simpsons line lampooning Bill
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- Anyway, thanks for watching.
If you guys enjoyed this video
check out the TechQuickie we did
about how everything thing is just chromium now.