Use an ad-filled browser controlled by a megacorp, with an engine built by another megacorp?
Hmmm, I dunno
Even better. After you've explicitly triggered the default change MS is like "have you tried the all new megacorp spyware? It's not actually new, but identical to the spyware we already installed and absolutely nothing has changed in the last 10 seconds since you made the decision, but we figured we'd throw another churn barrier at you because fuck you; we own your OS. You're our product now bitch, and that's all you'll ever be"
Sad but true
Don't forget the OS built by a megacorp snorkeling up all your data anyways
..that they ask you to actually pay for the privilege. Because remember, windows isn't actually free (and you pay for it if you buy a pre-built).
I feel it's important to point out that you can simply not activate Windows and use it indefinitely
Does make you wonder though where Microsoft is getting that money from
Corporate Users. My guess is, that almost any office job where you work on a Computer has Windows as OS. You have a license for your job. The license for home usage is bonus money to Microsoft.
At least I can mostly opt out there. Or use Linux
Sure if you trust that the opt-out switches actually work.
They must do something, or Windows wouldn't constantly turn them back on with every other update.
Maybe that’s just what they want you to think.
and don't get reset the next update.
Do you think Microsoft wants to get sued by the EU?
Those opt-out work. Or at least in the EU they do.
Well, on the other hand, said megacorp finances the only other engine (Gecko, Blink being a fork of Apples Webkit), so they don't have to bother with monopoly restrictions.
Current web is broken.
I realize this, but technically Mozilla is still an independent entity. They also fight some Google attempts at Web DRM, so it's still healthy competition
and web standards! chrome doesn't care much about web standards. they regularly add new nonstandard proprieties that eventually wins because of their market-size.
who needs a standard when you are the standard /s
I hope to see servo on my device next to Firefox some day.
Edge started itself on boot after a recent Windows update. It even had a little pop-up about how "helpful" it was to have it start right when my computer turns on so I can "get to browsing" faster. It's never been set as my default. Uhg.
Make sure you go into the settings and turn everything off. It'll run in the background and do God knows what even though you've turned off startup.
And then on next update go turn it off again, since they'll enable everything again. Rinse and repeat for eternity. Or switch to Linux and be done with their shenanigans.
If you sped through edge's first launch wizard recently it's now scraping your browsing data from other browsers.
Run this after every update, specifically the tweak that uninstalls Edge. Makes things a lot easier. It also gives you the option to delay feature updates by two years and only install security updates on time.
Well, I switched to Edge for work with the latest Chrome update (since internal apps were Chromium only), and was pleasantly surprised. It actually let me turn off almost all the junk, and is responsive in a way I haven’t seen in a Chromium browser in years.
Safari and Firefox for personal use though, and nothing compelling to make me change that.
The performance is pretty on-par with other major browsers now, but it is the obscene amount of popups built into the browser that irritates me.
I use edge for work every day, what popups?
Once you set it up it's fine, but on first opening you have to click through a bunch of menus (no, I don't want to share data, no I don't want to sync my account, and so on). In other browsers it's a small popup in the corner which you can ignore, and just google what you wanted to google. In edge they're fullscreen and you have to click no on each one.
Probably a rather unique problem because I regularly set up new machines, most people just go through it once and never see it again.
You hit the nail right on its head! It's pretty bad that there is no skip all option, and for some of them you have to manually uncheck before continuing.
I'm in the same situation as you where I often work on fresh virtual machines, and so I see this a lot too.
May be worth building a default config to "install" for those setups; that's saved me quite some time when configuring new/spare machines at work.
Same I'm a developer who uses edge as my daily driver and once setup right I love it
I use arc on my mac and it’s nowhere near as nice as that, but I like the side tabs, the way it gets out of the way when I’m searching, and bing isn’t too bad; I’ve actually used it a few times. Once I found a customizable start page I haven’t looked back. Again, for work
There’s the shopping popup that tries to find better deals or vouchers for products you’re looking at. It’s easy to turn off though.
Searching the settings for “notification” does show others - a feature called Discover and sidebar apps seem to be able to send notifications but I’ve never seen either.
its based off of chromium, so one would expect it to be as fast as most modern browsers.
its the annoyances built on top of them, and user privacy that matters in a browser nowadays
Same, I'm only allowed to use either Chrome or Edge on my work laptop, so I chose Edge.
Librewolf on my personal laptop and Firefox on mobile tho.
Bonus for Librewolf!
I love Firefox... But the listicle ads are seriously tacky and annoying. I do not want Pocket. And I do not want Pocket randomly re-enabled after a set of updates.
Maybe look at BromiteCromie? Open Source Chromium browser where you don't need to disable anything
If you need to use Chromium, just use Ungoogled-Chromium or Brave. But Firefox/LibreWolf will always be superior.
What does "built for Windows 10" even mean? It's just a browser. It's even cross platform.
Almost everything that runs on Windows was built for Windows. So it's a true statement, but pointless. That's like BF Goodrich advertising their tires as "built for cars".
You're right, clicked it away so many times over the years and never stopped to think what a silly statement that was. I feel like it was for a time when 10 was a new shiny 'mysterious' thing, that it might convince people into thinking it needed something special, but has just aged like milk.
NO WONDER I CANT GET IT TO RUN ON SOLARIS!!
That unlike teams, which they didn't bother to build for windows and instead used a webapp, they actually bothered to use their own ui tools on their own operating system for a change?
(But I guess they only did that so that teams could be a webapp, based on edge...)
It’s integrated into the OS
In what way is it "integrated"? Please, I'd love to know.
Microsoft Edge is integrated with File Explorer in Windows 10 through a feature called "Pick up where you left off". This feature allows users to resume their browsing session from Microsoft Edge directly within File Explorer.
Their other apps use it or part of it in the background.
Kind of like old Windows apps always used Explorer when they needed a browser
I wouldn’t be surprised if the start menu was using Edge for their search/ads
You're telling me, that Windows now shows ads in the start menu?
Sorry, it's probably a stupid question, but i haven't used windows since XP.
Most are in your system notifications but you’ll have “suggested apps” in the start menu for easy one-click installs
When you try to log out you’ll see ads for OneDrive and Office 365 apparently
It could almost be compared to Google's feed, included in the pixel launcher...
For some time now, every 5th or 6th card is an ad ... And over time they slowly look just like the normal news cards.
Yeah, nowadays we're getting ads forced upon us - one way or the other ads have to be seen, preferably clicked on, by us.
That's not really ads though.
Maybe they meant it integrates well with other windows 10 apps?
Integrates how?
Edge is pretty good...
...for downloading Firefox.
I wouldn't even use a proprietary browser if they'd pay me for it. Let alone a chromium based one.
You don't even need a browser
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
That's a weird way to write apt install firefox
Who needs to sudo apt install firefox when it already comes preinstalled on most distros?
where my zypper fam at?
That's an usual way to write snap install firefox
No!
apt: ok
pacman: ok
flatpak: ok
appimage: ok
built stuff from source: ok
snap: over my dead body
True, I missed that winget is now preinstalled with newer windows versions. I don't use windows a lot though, especially not for browsing the web.
Edge was a win when it first came out. It had its own rendering engine, was fast and svelte.
Now it’s just another bloated Chrome clone overstuffed with privacy-invading marketing features.
Same story every time. Something good turns into shit because they need to add marketing.
I'm shocked Microsoft hasnt fucked up VS Code yet. Someone much smarter than average is running that team at Microsoft.
Oh now you've gone and jinxed it.
Nah the future for VS Code looks dark imo. They own VS Code, Github, NPM and Copilot and everything they touch turns into shit.
It turned bad because a bunch of users refused to use it because they remembered never updating past IE8 and made jokes about it lagging behind the competition
VS Code is the fucked up version of Code OSS
It's because they make their devtool money off of enterprise licensing costs, and they get those costs by getting developers to be okay using their devtools.
The tool is the advertisement for building software for Windows. If it gets too miserable to use the tools or build for the ecosystem, then some companies won't prioritize windows software, and developers will prefer jobs doing something else. It's got to be good enough so that decision makers at software companies don't start hearing that windows software takes three quarters longer to develop.
Web developers are already targeting their browser as an afterthought, and mobile developers are pretty pulled into to apple ecosystem, since you can develop android apps on a Mac, but you can only use a Mac to make iPhone apps.
Without developers, applications lag, and they lose business and consumer market share, which costs them more developers.
Hence: visual studio is fine, and they keep adding azure features to GitHub and tying it all to visual studio.
Windows put a full page ad for windows 11 before my computer started, I'm never upgrading. Hope to God Linux gaming gets better by 2025
linux gaming is basically there at this point proton can run most games flawlessly unless you wanna play games with hyper aggressive drm or anticheat it mostly "just works"
As a linux noob, I'd say it 90% there. I got a new computer recently, decided to only install linux to see if I could dump windows entirely, expecting to dualboot eventually. The only problems I've had so far are Curseforge, MC realms, and One Shot. I've got Modded Skyrim and modded Hollow Knight working, I'm incredibly happy with linux gaming.
yeah I'm also quite a noob with linux I've only been using it for about a year and also dual boot my pc for the few games I have to for me it's actually bethesda games mostly due to no mod managers on linux and I know there's the workaround for MO2 which is what I use anyway but fomods didn't work :/ I'm also actually playing through hollow knight on my deck at the moment though vanilla and that's been working flawlessly as for curseforge dunno what you're modding but if it's mc I used prism launcher and that worked flawlessly way better than curseforge on even windows with that being full of bloat
Prism is life, I agree. My friends don't, so I need a curseforge pack to distribute server updates with. The stupid part is curseforge has a working linux version, but it only does WoW.
The other one is playing on a realm. The desktop solution is supposed to be the Win10 version, but screw that. I'd love to see a mod that lets java join bedrock servers, but they all run the other way. The solution is running the android version with a third-party launcher.
As Phuntis said, curseforge is easily solved with prism launcher. They have a nice GUI to browse modpacks and set up everything automatically. For mods that don't allow direct downloads over the API, they give you a browser link you can open and automatically pull the downloaded files from your download folder.
The launcher also has integration into modrinth and a bunch of other useful features. IMO the better launcher compared to the official one, even if you don't play modded.
Love Prism, love Modrinth, still can't make modpack updates curseforge clients can use. Since everyone else on the server uses CF, I need to build the modpack on CF then import to Prism for myself.
I did see that making a CF modpack file might be possible soon though.
I still have many issues regarding VR games. Mostly related to the view being delayed from what I am actually doing, making me nauseous.
For me, that's one of the biggest issues holding me back from switching. I don't want to bother to dual-boot OSes just for a few VR games.
ah haven't tried vr too expensive for me and not enough space really wanna try it in future though alyx and beat saber look really cool hopefully that'll improve soon with all the rumours of valves deckard headset and them dedicating so much to linux I mean deckard will probably still be tethered to a pc so it's not a guarantee since most people will be on windows then but maybe it'll come with improvements to vr on linux
Man, I just tried for a few weeks and just had no luck on the games I was trying. It maybe is there for most people, but I still ended up in the "google for commands that might resolve these weird crashes / errors" and building random packages from source. However, I tried on a gaming laptop, which have notoriously had worse support than standard discrete cards. I wonder if my experience would have been different with a standard PC. I also recognize that Steam is the answer for a lot of people, but I just don't have that many Steam games.
What games/distro?
I was on Mint and primarily using Lutris, but tried many different WINE runners. I would have tried Ubuntu, which I think is a little closer to upstream updates, but I only had a 4gb USB stick to install from. For games, I tried Horizon: Zero Dawn (which I finally got to open, but it was running 0-3 FPS), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Baldur's Gate II (which seemed to work). I'm not giving up forever, my next gaming tower will likely run linux of some type. I do lots of self-hosting on a Ubuntu PC, so I'm pro-Linux. Just ran out of patience with the laptop!
Interesting. Got Horizon Zero Dawn to work out of the box myself but I'm using Garuda. Any chance you're using an nVidia GPU? They tend to be a lot more fussy with Linux than AMD
Yep, sure enough nVidia 1650 laptop GPU. I tried the proprietary drivers, forced so many versions of VKD3D and DXVK to try for better performance. Oh well, my next box will have an AMD GPU.
It needs a larger user base before companies will make the native version for it
By not switching you play into a self fulfilling prophecy
In 2016 you had 2 or 3 AAA games releasing Linux native versions. Now you are lucky if you get a working proton version. Linux has moved backwards. Honestly I think people tried it and hit a lot of problems with it then left. 2016 was the year of the Linux desktop but it failed to capture the market.
One of the biggest problems with Linux is simply additional hard drives. If you fill up your / drive you are basically screwed of you don't know how to use the command line. Even the easiest Linux distros suffer from this problem. With windows I just reinstall programs to a different drive. With Linux you have to learn about symlinks, create then in the right spot and even then it doesn't help unless you have a bigger drive. Alternatively you can learn about lvm and combine your drives in to one large monolith but this is even far more work for what's it's in Linux literally at worst a 10 minute fix and 0 second if you just install stuff to the right drives.
Genuinely no idea how Linux gaming could be better. I've been playing on desktop and Steam Deck for years, both "flat" games and VR games and it just works. Sure I don't try literally everything but with ProtonDB I'm confident it will work, or not, and decide accordingly. Obviously not all games work on Linux but definitely more quality games that I have time for. For me it just works, I spend at least 99% of my time gaming on Linux actually gaming, in fact I can't even remember when is the last time I tinkered. I don't even have problems with GPU drivers despite tinkering with containers with machine learning. I'm not trying to say nobody has problems or dismiss problems people do have, just sharing my experience.
I think this is overselling it a little. I still run into issues with Proton from time to time that require sigkilling it and its children, and some games (especially EA titles) are finnicky and can take a few tries to launch properly.
As for VR, SteamVR on Linux outright sucks. It virtually never works the first time I launch it and requires some combination of reconnecting hardware and restarting software and the computer, and it's plagued with bugs (most recently the UI rendering upside down in the new beta).
Don't get me wrong, Linux has been my primary platform for some 5 years and my only one for the last few and I'd never dream of going back to Windows, and gaming on Linux has progressed unbelievably in the time I've been daily-driving it. But it still isn't totally painless and there's definitely more room for improvement in the coming years.
Honest question - what is the current problem(s) in Linux gaming? And I don't mean that the way it sounds, I just haven't done it in a long long time. I mean back then it had to have a linux specific version and you had to deal with X11 mouse input.
Now with Wayland and things like steamdeck existing I'm surprised it's not more viable.
I'm sure it's a long list but what are the main factors? Just a curiosity. Unfortunately I just don't get to play games these days. Still GPU and sound driver issues? Publishers refusing to take the extra steps to make a multi platform engine work on it? Too many unknowns based on flavor of Linux installed?
Only reason I don't switch to linux is because of both riot games and easy anti cheat(you can kinda play league of legends most of the time)
but valorant's vanguard is just straight up built for windows so you can't cheat in their game, so you can't even open that game in linux
And 99% of games that use easy anti cheat are also unplayable (except elden ring somehow)
Tbh I haven't really played their any games that fall into this category lately, but I don't want to have to install windows every time I get a urge to play league and tilt myself
and I know that dual boot exists but I have a very limited storage right now (I'm only on a 480gb ssd since my hdd broke)
A lot of EAC games work just fine on proton now. For any game released and/or updated since September 2021 enabling EAC on proton for the devs is as easy as ticking a checkbox.
An interesting point.. i didn't even think about the anti-cheat engines nor considered they'd be bound to windows but yeah i get it, i deal with that on licensing services.
I feel your pain on storage. It's cheaper now but it's all relative. I'll save your UN and hit you up if i stumble into something that may help.
I'm not the guy you asked but I can answer for myself - it's still not nearly as effortless to use for gaming as windows. I work with computers all day, so when I sit down to game at night I absolutely refuse to debug shit. For Starfield as an example, it works via proton, but the protondb page is full of "to get around X issue use the following workaround", and I just can't be bothered.
I use Linux for work and hobby software development, but for me to switch my gaming pc over would require it to not just be "viable", but effortless
Thank you, that's the perspective I was looking for.
And while i understand, it's certainly not limited to games or Linux. I too just want things to work and it's become a struggle for one reason or another. I can find a common thread on that but probably not the place for that.
I am optimistic though that gaming will continue to get better and that will be helpful. Despite all the faults it's at least going in the right direction.
I will say this - nowadays I have to figure out maybe 5% of games I play on Linux, and often times those games have issues with certain windows setups too
That's actually pretty positive. Probably a multitude of reasons but in my very limited experience with recent games they are pushed out with tons of problems on any platform. Sometimes the game was just rushed out and this is what turned me off of games for the most part. "It's online, we can just patch it later!"
Also not a fan of paying for the privilege of being a beta tester. Open betas used to be fun times.
That said, based on yours and others replies i think it seems worth it to dig up an old ssd and try some of my games out on Linux on my main. Honestly it seems way better than what it was years ago so I should go see for myself. Thanks!
Absolutely. It's honestly the older titles that tend to work better as well, perfect for an older setup. A nice static target for the conversion layer. Proton was pretty good 3 years ago, now it's amazing.
Lots of Devs I've noticed tend to be happy to tweak things on their end to get something to work better with Proton as well, or if we're lucky they just use Vulkan out of the gate and make it a very straightforward job.
A good benchmark is seeing how steam deck users get along with that game. If they don't hit any snags it's a very good chance you won't either
Great info, thanks. Most of my hardware is old. But that's actually a good thing I think. I have a Lenovo ideacentre i plucked back from a friend as it was gathering dust. I upgraded the ram and SSD and installed neon on a whim and it's amazing.
That's what sorta started tracking me back.. have continued using Linux for servers but i was impressed at that desktop. Now I know neon is a bit bleeding edge so any recommendations on a distro? I started with freebsd back in the day, then gentoo for desktop, then Ubuntu minimal for servers if that helps. Not afraid to get my hands dirty but prefer simplicity.
I found a 256GB SSD that should be enough for some testing. I need to grab some files off it but then it's ready to go. Distro advice appreciated. Remember i just want to test :) TIA
My main issue is a lack of support from games like DCS, which will never get Linux support, and not having trackIR support, but I suppose that just needs someone who is experienced.
Also I can't play fortnite/cod and that's what my friends play.
Hah I had to look some of that up. I bet I could guess your age within a couple years. :)
DCS seems like a cash grab and travkir thing seems quite the gimmick. But i understand you wanting to play with your friends and so do they and they aren't going to bring Linux support despite it's likely built on it.
Windows is essentially free anyway these days so you'll just have to suck it up for now. You can disable things like realtime scanning for a performance boost. If you can't make your own DNS try quadr9 to block a majority of the telemetry and shit.
Being able to play with your friends is more important really. Just dual boot or use a VM to get your nix skills. I'm sure many won't agree with me and that's cool. There is nothing Linux can't do, yet there are apps (or games) that will simply require windows to participate. Sucks, but that's reality.
U didn't have to be so condescending lmao
Sorry yo, wasn't intended that way I promise! I don't have great people skills text based or otherwise. And actually I'm the one that sounds like an idiot anyway haha In my defense I'm quite tired and seeking excuses to not be working so yeah, my bad, no offense intended
I get that for sure! I'm also a bit uh, trigger-happy with people online. I definitely get that feeling, though.
Appreciate that but now I don't know how to reply without sounding condescending.. dammit! :) but you know, if you go back to 1995 bad boys that was how i communicated. Years later i relocated and nearly got killed for pointing out a funny and quite justified slight at a certain NFL team.
I'm not sure I have a point beyond stay trigger happy and call fuckers like me out! We all make mistakes and I have no problem being called out.
Shit, i still sound condescending don't I? It's just hard not to after a while. I don't know if it'll be Linux worthy but hit me up if you decide to try out borderlands 4. We'd be happy to have a new player in the group.
Nah, nah. I think it was just the "I bet I can guess your age" then the rest shifted in my mind. Sorry about the confusion
Yeah I got you.. that was a stupid thing to say. I never meant it like that. I mean hell at the end of the day you got me to look up a couple things.
It was a good lesson. And I'm usually banging heads with friends because they are judging and then i did it. Thanks for checking me.
I switched back in 2019. It was pretty good then and it's almost seamless now. Hell EAC works now and I can play Squad without any hiccups
I am glad squad works, haha
Linux gaming is even better than Windows in many ways now
How so?
Well, Elden Ring had a bug in it that killed performance, Proton was able to fix it without touching the game itself and resulted in Linux performance being markedly better.
Then with Starfield it performs about 30% faster than windows consistently.
I can force AMD FSR on any game (and I have an Nvidia card) to get a significant performance boost with no visually detectable loss in quality.
The list goes on.
Linux is still only compatible with 10000 games on Steams 70000 games store.
Windows is compatible with all of em.
It's 12,000 and those are rated as "playable". The majority of games on Steam would be playable out of the box, but Valve is being cautious with their verified program.
ProtonDB has over 18,000 user submissions for playable games.
There are many games in my library that aren't listed as Steam Deck verified or even on ProtonDB and they just work.
My game still does not support proton. Fuck that game.
I hope gaming on GNU/Linux were bad, so I wouldn't have wasted hours of my life :')
This joke was funny when Chrome was superior, but now Edge is actually better.
maybe, but they are both proprietry spyware and chromium based. firefox is better than both
I agree. But sometimes your pages won't load with Firefox. For you and me it's great. We can get around it. For your parents and grandma's, it's a nightmare.
ive heard of that, but ive never had that happen? stock firefox seems to load everything for me, but maybe its due to spoofing a chrome useragent, or bc i tend to avoid sites like that. librewolf with default setttings, or hardened firefox is admittedly pretty buggy for a lot of websites. i would say brave is an easy upgrade from other chromiums, for family members, but i still think stock firefox is alright for that too
Mozilla isn't exactly perfect either
or try librewolf.
Then try Waterfox
Edge is stuff tacked on Chromium. How can it be better?!
Isn't chrome also based on chromium? I would argue they are equally bad, because both are proprietary.
When I see the current version of Edge I'm reminded of those bloatware-packed OEM Windows preinstalls adding useless toolbars to Internet Explorer, except this time it's a sidebar.
I'm disappointed, and when asked by people I recommend replacing Edge. Preferably with Firefox, but even Chrome is better.
It's like saying Mac OS is just a Linux distro. It's similar but actually pretty different when it comes to how it manages its memory.
How it's on android? Have they added back extensions?
Yes there's extensions.
There's dozens!
But yeah, the important ones exist though and I haven't found a better option
Had they ever removed extentions?
the most useful extensions for android firefox - ublock origin, there is already (and many more). Also, mozilla is working on bringing all desktop add-ons to mobile and everyone can contribute.
In beta it does, Stable should get access to the entire addons list around December IIRC
Of course addons that weren't updated with mobility in mind might not work as well.
pretty awesome, especially with extensions. I use it everyday.
In fact, I have two firefoxes. one of them reserved for slack as I don't want to download the app and slack detects that I'm using desktop mode on android(on chromium-based browsers). but Firefox's(with chameleon) spoofing saves my device from one of the worst proprietary applications.
Android extensions work, even on ancient versions. Not all extensions of course, but the important ones.
The Mull version of Firefox has always had extension support, never even knew the official version had even removed it. Mull is otherwise identical with some hardening against tracking and removed telemetry. I've also never had issues with sites breaking which can be otherwise common with hardening
Sorry Gil, it's still chromium ;c
Y'all I dislike forced browser adoption as much as the next guy.
And I've been using Firefox for years and years and years now.
But, I'm forced to use edge for work. And, as a browser purely, none of the anti-trust baggage attached....
It's really not too bad. A lot of things work just fine. And sometimes, if I'm having weird performance on a website on a personal device, loading the same URL in edge has resulted in improved/expected functionality of the website
Yes, when I have used Edge it's been absolutely fine. Probably better than Chrome. I'd likely be quite happy to use it most of the time if it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft are so intent on forcing me to do so.
I mostly use Vivaldi now which I think is by far the best of the Chromium-based browsers.
IE was like that for a while too. Never again.
with the amount of updates I think Edge is better than chrome now,
but I still use firefox
Edge isn't terrible at all. That's why it's such a risk to browser diversity and competition
Yeah the problem with memes like this is (according to market share) that there are people that switch from Edge to Chrome and think they are actually using a better product
Change your job
I continue to use Firefox because I started using it a while ago and would rather not switch. I have to use Edge for school and it's legitimately equal to Firefox in many ways. With Bing AI added, Edge blows Firefox out of the water.
The only reason Bing AI only works on Edge is because Bing AI specifically checks for edge. There was an extension that made it work on Firefox by simply lying about the browser, but Microsoft DMCA'd the developer.
I switched from Chrome to Edge and initially was really impressed. But then Microsoft had to go and Bing it all up. So now it’s back to Firefox after a 15 year hiatus.
You want something even better? Check out LibreWolf. It's Firefox with all the privacy features preconfigured, uBlock Origin preinstalled and all the crap like Pocket and sponsored websites removed. And of course it uses DuckDuckGo instead of Google by default.
That duckduckgo default is the thing that aggravates me the most. Sometimes those results just don’t cut it but I don’t even have the option to chance my default browser. I had to bookmark google
Use Startpage or an instance of Whoogle. They are both meta search engines for Google, they allow you to search on Google without exposing your data to Google. If you are a user of Mullvad VPN, you can also use Leta, their own Google meta search engine.
I really liked Edge like a year or two ago. It seems they are trying to destroy it as fast as possible.
What did they do that you didn't like?
Have you used it recently? They've gone crazy with shitty toolbars, especially on windows
The right click menu has an entry to search what is highlighted with the default search engine next to an entry to search with bing.
Fuck no, I'm not particularly a fan of how it forces itself on you like Brock Turner (the rapist).
It can go and join IE in whatever pit of hell we threw IE in
If you wanna say that Chrome is trash and people should use Firefox, Opera, Safari or whatever else is currently trending among privacy focused people that I can agree with (Even if I personally won't make the switch)
But Edge is NOT the answer, Edge is NEVER the answer. At this point I'm starting to wonder if all these Edge people in here are being paid by MS
There are some things from reddit I hope never come over here, but shitting on the rapist Brock Turner is always welcome in my books.
Welcome to the boat, I tried edge from all the people recommending it on reddit and I hate it
And the rapist analogy is not enough for how bad it is, it'll copy everything from your default browser without your permission (or I somehow missed it)
Like I was caught by surprise when all my bookmarks, passwords, etc were just straight up copied by that privacy intruding piece of crap.
Fuck edge
Definitely missed it. It doesn’t grab everything without permission, but probably wants to stay out of the way so you do pull it all in
Edge is probably my favourite chromium browser. Seems like you care too much.
Gee Bing. You really are pathetic. Respect yourself dude.
The weirder thing is I was replacing a users desktop the other day and updating default apps. Edge did its usual "pleas love me" bit but then so did Windows Mail as I was changing it to Outlook 365 of all things..
noo dont replace me with another microsoft email program!
People might have used it if MS didn't try cramming it down peoples' throats, and if they didn't add so much bling.
I gave it a try because I kept reading how it's so good on tech subs on reddit, turns out it's worse than Chrome… and it only got worse (with the Bing AI stuff, which was supposed to be even better)
I now think those redditors might have been astroturfers.
I've been using SwiftKey, but they had to go and add a Bing button to it... I never use it, but just having it there feels gross.
And Bing
I've been using Edge for 2 years now. No problems whatsoever ever. You can stop begging MS.
The begging is considered a feature
Beg harder<3
Yes that's the good stuff
Bing chat has saved edge and bing search for me, it just works. I ask it a random question, like how many spiders you'd have to eat to have eaten a pound of them and it just tells me and shows the work. I don't need to look up how much a spider weights and then do math myself, it just does it.
Firefox is still my main browser, but I'll open edge to ask dumb questions and I have a lot of stupid questions and it has answers without me needing to dig through bullshit to find what I need.
Sounds like a great way to get a wrong answer
It shows it's work, you can follow it's citations to ensure it's not complete bullshit.
Also no seriously these are dumb questions, I was watching Fraiser the other day and it implied his ratings were in the millions, and I asked bing if that was even possible considering he was on AM radio in the 90s (it's not), but even if it was completely wrong it literally doesn't matter...
The great thing about Bing Chat compared to other chatbots is that it sources its claims. I always check the sources before trusting it.
Sounds like a regular search with extra steps
With regular search, I have to look through all kinds of results before I find something, and often I have to adjust my search parameters until the search engine even understands what I'm looking for.
The AI still needs me to actually confirm what it's saying, but that's checking 1-3 links, not entire search result pages.
It's also just waaaaay easier to talk to my search engine in natural language than keywords imo. I never know what keywords get me to my intended destination, I guess the difference is less big for people that do.
Get the extension that enables bing chat for Firefox
You really should reconsider your priorities if stupid questions like that are what causing you to stay with edge.
"Hmm do I need privacy, or do I need to know how many spiders are in a pound?"
Sounds like good opportunity for US and Europe to whip out some fines over Anticompetitive practices.
With Microsoft sort of being repeat offender the fines should reflect that.
Honestly with Edge being not too bad alternative for Chrome this sort of shady behavior from Microsoft doesn't do it any good at least in my eyes.
here i go....strangely enough i used edge for a while and did not switch back
I used and liked it for a few years, but now they started filling it with bloat ware again... switched to Firefox last month.
I use it at work all the time and frankly, it's completely functional. I also prefer the Bing image search over Google images search these days... And I was a hardcore googler back in the day!
Same. It worked great for me with the profiles (personal microsoft account + uni microsoft account) until my uni disabled the bookmark syncing feature for all our accounts. For some odd reason.
Then I switched to Firefox and I'm not turning back.
edge uses half or less of the system resources versus firefox with twice as many tabs open even on linux
plus edge allows microsoft office to run on linux without workarounds
For me, Firefox has better privacy and more powerful extensions, particularly variations of tree-style tabs.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Edge is pretty good now imo
It was. Now it's bloated with Microsoft's services and thrown in your face if you don't use it as your default. For example Outlook defaults to opening it for links in emails even if you have a different browser as you default. Bullshit move Microsoft.
Microsoft tried to make a browser that had an edge, and they just decided fuck it and gave it the name Edge.
there actually begging at this point
I use Edge whenever something needs to stream on a Windows PC, unlike other Chromium builds it is capable of hardware acceleration and therefor 4k streaming. Whenever you watch 4k on Google Chrome it isn't really that high quality.
As much as I hate Edge and Chrome, ,my 5.1 surround sound doesn't work in Firefox. So if I want to watch something in surround on Youtube I have to switch to Edge. Then the nagging starts.
I do use Edge as my main browser, for now.
But why?
Because my university is very Microsoft-centric when it comes to software and infrastructure. So using Edge allows me to keep myself logged in and not having to introduce my credentials every time i need to do something.
Maybe they haven't installed Firefox yet
You need something to download Firefox from right?
Next time edge is going to ask... what are you going to do? Install Google chrome? 😂
Honestly have been using edge on my work computer for a while now and see no reason to change. I use Firefox on my personal computer but for now Edge is just fine.
CTT Windows Utility -> Tweaks -> Remove Microsoft Edge
Idk, I really like Edge. It just has bad reputation due to Internet Explorer... It is actually very good imo.
It depends on what circles you're in I suppose. But I suspect you're right for most people that dislike it. For some of us it's the Chromium engine it runs on, and/or the company it comes from.
Edit: So more ideological reasons. I imagine the browser itself works fine.
Yeah you're right. I can see and I respect people's reasons for not wanting to use windows / Microsoft products.
I just wanted to point out this as I think many people still consider edge as a bad browser. At least in my experience it works really well and I personally like the style it has and overall the "windows 11 aesthetic" Microsoft is choosing for their products.
tried it up to when it asked to remember CC #s. not stupid
Ff has that feature too. It's if anything more secure than remembering passwords because at least you still need the expiration date and cvc (unless edge saves that too).
already using chrome for that. nothing but random passwords for about 300 sites. edge: import? no thanks
dis chrome if you like. G has been good to me so far. was ff for a spell, got bloated
I was getting a bit annoyed at Firefox and after recently formatting my PC, I decided to freshen things up. So after the mandatory new PC Edge Google, I must say I'm really enjoying the new UI of Opera.
Now I use Opera as my main driver, Firefox for the things that Opera struggles with, and Edge is there too.
Use an ad-filled browser controlled by a megacorp, with an engine built by another megacorp?
Hmmm, I dunno
Even better. After you've explicitly triggered the default change MS is like "have you tried the all new megacorp spyware? It's not actually new, but identical to the spyware we already installed and absolutely nothing has changed in the last 10 seconds since you made the decision, but we figured we'd throw another churn barrier at you because fuck you; we own your OS. You're our product now bitch, and that's all you'll ever be"
Sad but true
Don't forget the OS built by a megacorp snorkeling up all your data anyways
..that they ask you to actually pay for the privilege. Because remember, windows isn't actually free (and you pay for it if you buy a pre-built).
I feel it's important to point out that you can simply not activate Windows and use it indefinitely
Does make you wonder though where Microsoft is getting that money from
Corporate Users. My guess is, that almost any office job where you work on a Computer has Windows as OS. You have a license for your job. The license for home usage is bonus money to Microsoft.
At least I can mostly opt out there. Or use Linux
Sure if you trust that the opt-out switches actually work.
They must do something, or Windows wouldn't constantly turn them back on with every other update.
Maybe that’s just what they want you to think.
and don't get reset the next update.
Do you think Microsoft wants to get sued by the EU?
Those opt-out work. Or at least in the EU they do.
Well, on the other hand, said megacorp finances the only other engine (Gecko, Blink being a fork of Apples Webkit), so they don't have to bother with monopoly restrictions.
Current web is broken.
I realize this, but technically Mozilla is still an independent entity. They also fight some Google attempts at Web DRM, so it's still healthy competition
and web standards! chrome doesn't care much about web standards. they regularly add new nonstandard proprieties that eventually wins because of their market-size.
who needs a standard when you are the standard /s
I hope to see servo on my device next to Firefox some day.
aren't they the same megacorp
I think they’re referring to the fact that Edge runs on the Chromium engine which, as the name implies, is a Google product.
Edge started itself on boot after a recent Windows update. It even had a little pop-up about how "helpful" it was to have it start right when my computer turns on so I can "get to browsing" faster. It's never been set as my default. Uhg.
Make sure you go into the settings and turn everything off. It'll run in the background and do God knows what even though you've turned off startup.
And then on next update go turn it off again, since they'll enable everything again. Rinse and repeat for eternity. Or switch to Linux and be done with their shenanigans.
If you sped through edge's first launch wizard recently it's now scraping your browsing data from other browsers.
Yeah I think they learned that from wavebrowser
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
Run this after every update, specifically the tweak that uninstalls Edge. Makes things a lot easier. It also gives you the option to delay feature updates by two years and only install security updates on time.
Well, I switched to Edge for work with the latest Chrome update (since internal apps were Chromium only), and was pleasantly surprised. It actually let me turn off almost all the junk, and is responsive in a way I haven’t seen in a Chromium browser in years.
Safari and Firefox for personal use though, and nothing compelling to make me change that.
The performance is pretty on-par with other major browsers now, but it is the obscene amount of popups built into the browser that irritates me.
I use edge for work every day, what popups?
Once you set it up it's fine, but on first opening you have to click through a bunch of menus (no, I don't want to share data, no I don't want to sync my account, and so on). In other browsers it's a small popup in the corner which you can ignore, and just google what you wanted to google. In edge they're fullscreen and you have to click no on each one.
Probably a rather unique problem because I regularly set up new machines, most people just go through it once and never see it again.
You hit the nail right on its head! It's pretty bad that there is no skip all option, and for some of them you have to manually uncheck before continuing.
I'm in the same situation as you where I often work on fresh virtual machines, and so I see this a lot too.
May be worth building a default config to "install" for those setups; that's saved me quite some time when configuring new/spare machines at work.
Same I'm a developer who uses edge as my daily driver and once setup right I love it
I use arc on my mac and it’s nowhere near as nice as that, but I like the side tabs, the way it gets out of the way when I’m searching, and bing isn’t too bad; I’ve actually used it a few times. Once I found a customizable start page I haven’t looked back. Again, for work
There’s the shopping popup that tries to find better deals or vouchers for products you’re looking at. It’s easy to turn off though.
Searching the settings for “notification” does show others - a feature called Discover and sidebar apps seem to be able to send notifications but I’ve never seen either.
its based off of chromium, so one would expect it to be as fast as most modern browsers.
its the annoyances built on top of them, and user privacy that matters in a browser nowadays
Same, I'm only allowed to use either Chrome or Edge on my work laptop, so I chose Edge.
Librewolf on my personal laptop and Firefox on mobile tho.
Bonus for Librewolf!
I love Firefox... But the listicle ads are seriously tacky and annoying. I do not want Pocket. And I do not want Pocket randomly re-enabled after a set of updates.
Maybe look at
BromiteCromie? Open Source Chromium browser where you don't need to disable anythingBromite has not been updated since January.
One of the old Bromite contributors forked it: https://github.com/uazo/cromite
Yes, that one. Thanks for pointing it out
Mulch to
If you need to use Chromium, just use Ungoogled-Chromium or Brave. But Firefox/LibreWolf will always be superior.
What does "built for Windows 10" even mean? It's just a browser. It's even cross platform.
Almost everything that runs on Windows was built for Windows. So it's a true statement, but pointless. That's like BF Goodrich advertising their tires as "built for cars".
Relevant xkcd
another relevant xkcd
😂
"Designed for Windows Me Millennium Edition"
You're right, clicked it away so many times over the years and never stopped to think what a silly statement that was. I feel like it was for a time when 10 was a new shiny 'mysterious' thing, that it might convince people into thinking it needed something special, but has just aged like milk.
NO WONDER I CANT GET IT TO RUN ON SOLARIS!!
That unlike teams, which they didn't bother to build for windows and instead used a webapp, they actually bothered to use their own ui tools on their own operating system for a change? (But I guess they only did that so that teams could be a webapp, based on edge...)
It’s integrated into the OS
In what way is it "integrated"? Please, I'd love to know.
Microsoft Edge is integrated with File Explorer in Windows 10 through a feature called "Pick up where you left off". This feature allows users to resume their browsing session from Microsoft Edge directly within File Explorer.
Their other apps use it or part of it in the background.
Kind of like old Windows apps always used Explorer when they needed a browser
I wouldn’t be surprised if the start menu was using Edge for their search/ads
You're telling me, that Windows now shows ads in the start menu?
Sorry, it's probably a stupid question, but i haven't used windows since XP.
Most are in your system notifications but you’ll have “suggested apps” in the start menu for easy one-click installs
When you try to log out you’ll see ads for OneDrive and Office 365 apparently
There’s this
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-do-i-remove-ads-from-windows-11-start-menu/acee8751-31e3-4abd-8caa-28ae7ba486fe
Wow - that's really something.
It could almost be compared to Google's feed, included in the pixel launcher...
For some time now, every 5th or 6th card is an ad ... And over time they slowly look just like the normal news cards.
Yeah, nowadays we're getting ads forced upon us - one way or the other ads have to be seen, preferably clicked on, by us.
That's not really ads though.
Maybe they meant it integrates well with other windows 10 apps?
Integrates how?
Edge is pretty good...
...for downloading Firefox.
I wouldn't even use a proprietary browser if they'd pay me for it. Let alone a chromium based one.
You don't even need a browser
winget install Mozilla.FirefoxThat's a weird way to write
apt install firefoxWho needs to
sudo apt install firefoxwhen it already comes preinstalled on most distros?where my zypper fam at?
That's an usual way to write
snap install firefoxNo!
apt: ok
pacman: ok
flatpak: ok
appimage: ok
built stuff from source: ok
snap: over my dead body
True, I missed that winget is now preinstalled with newer windows versions. I don't use windows a lot though, especially not for browsing the web.
Edge was a win when it first came out. It had its own rendering engine, was fast and svelte.
Now it’s just another bloated Chrome clone overstuffed with privacy-invading marketing features.
Same story every time. Something good turns into shit because they need to add marketing.
I'm shocked Microsoft hasnt fucked up VS Code yet. Someone much smarter than average is running that team at Microsoft.
Oh now you've gone and jinxed it.
Nah the future for VS Code looks dark imo. They own VS Code, Github, NPM and Copilot and everything they touch turns into shit.
It turned bad because a bunch of users refused to use it because they remembered never updating past IE8 and made jokes about it lagging behind the competition
VS Code is the fucked up version of Code OSS
It's because they make their devtool money off of enterprise licensing costs, and they get those costs by getting developers to be okay using their devtools.
The tool is the advertisement for building software for Windows. If it gets too miserable to use the tools or build for the ecosystem, then some companies won't prioritize windows software, and developers will prefer jobs doing something else. It's got to be good enough so that decision makers at software companies don't start hearing that windows software takes three quarters longer to develop.
Web developers are already targeting their browser as an afterthought, and mobile developers are pretty pulled into to apple ecosystem, since you can develop android apps on a Mac, but you can only use a Mac to make iPhone apps.
Without developers, applications lag, and they lose business and consumer market share, which costs them more developers.
Hence: visual studio is fine, and they keep adding azure features to GitHub and tying it all to visual studio.
Windows put a full page ad for windows 11 before my computer started, I'm never upgrading. Hope to God Linux gaming gets better by 2025
linux gaming is basically there at this point proton can run most games flawlessly unless you wanna play games with hyper aggressive drm or anticheat it mostly "just works"
As a linux noob, I'd say it 90% there. I got a new computer recently, decided to only install linux to see if I could dump windows entirely, expecting to dualboot eventually. The only problems I've had so far are Curseforge, MC realms, and One Shot. I've got Modded Skyrim and modded Hollow Knight working, I'm incredibly happy with linux gaming.
yeah I'm also quite a noob with linux I've only been using it for about a year and also dual boot my pc for the few games I have to for me it's actually bethesda games mostly due to no mod managers on linux and I know there's the workaround for MO2 which is what I use anyway but fomods didn't work :/ I'm also actually playing through hollow knight on my deck at the moment though vanilla and that's been working flawlessly as for curseforge dunno what you're modding but if it's mc I used prism launcher and that worked flawlessly way better than curseforge on even windows with that being full of bloat
Prism is life, I agree. My friends don't, so I need a curseforge pack to distribute server updates with. The stupid part is curseforge has a working linux version, but it only does WoW.
The other one is playing on a realm. The desktop solution is supposed to be the Win10 version, but screw that. I'd love to see a mod that lets java join bedrock servers, but they all run the other way. The solution is running the android version with a third-party launcher.
As Phuntis said, curseforge is easily solved with prism launcher. They have a nice GUI to browse modpacks and set up everything automatically. For mods that don't allow direct downloads over the API, they give you a browser link you can open and automatically pull the downloaded files from your download folder.
The launcher also has integration into modrinth and a bunch of other useful features. IMO the better launcher compared to the official one, even if you don't play modded.
Love Prism, love Modrinth, still can't make modpack updates curseforge clients can use. Since everyone else on the server uses CF, I need to build the modpack on CF then import to Prism for myself.
I did see that making a CF modpack file might be possible soon though.
I still have many issues regarding VR games. Mostly related to the view being delayed from what I am actually doing, making me nauseous.
For me, that's one of the biggest issues holding me back from switching. I don't want to bother to dual-boot OSes just for a few VR games.
ah haven't tried vr too expensive for me and not enough space really wanna try it in future though alyx and beat saber look really cool hopefully that'll improve soon with all the rumours of valves deckard headset and them dedicating so much to linux I mean deckard will probably still be tethered to a pc so it's not a guarantee since most people will be on windows then but maybe it'll come with improvements to vr on linux
Man, I just tried for a few weeks and just had no luck on the games I was trying. It maybe is there for most people, but I still ended up in the "google for commands that might resolve these weird crashes / errors" and building random packages from source. However, I tried on a gaming laptop, which have notoriously had worse support than standard discrete cards. I wonder if my experience would have been different with a standard PC. I also recognize that Steam is the answer for a lot of people, but I just don't have that many Steam games.
What games/distro?
I was on Mint and primarily using Lutris, but tried many different WINE runners. I would have tried Ubuntu, which I think is a little closer to upstream updates, but I only had a 4gb USB stick to install from. For games, I tried Horizon: Zero Dawn (which I finally got to open, but it was running 0-3 FPS), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Baldur's Gate II (which seemed to work). I'm not giving up forever, my next gaming tower will likely run linux of some type. I do lots of self-hosting on a Ubuntu PC, so I'm pro-Linux. Just ran out of patience with the laptop!
Interesting. Got Horizon Zero Dawn to work out of the box myself but I'm using Garuda. Any chance you're using an nVidia GPU? They tend to be a lot more fussy with Linux than AMD
Yep, sure enough nVidia 1650 laptop GPU. I tried the proprietary drivers, forced so many versions of VKD3D and DXVK to try for better performance. Oh well, my next box will have an AMD GPU.
It needs a larger user base before companies will make the native version for it
By not switching you play into a self fulfilling prophecy
In 2016 you had 2 or 3 AAA games releasing Linux native versions. Now you are lucky if you get a working proton version. Linux has moved backwards. Honestly I think people tried it and hit a lot of problems with it then left. 2016 was the year of the Linux desktop but it failed to capture the market.
One of the biggest problems with Linux is simply additional hard drives. If you fill up your / drive you are basically screwed of you don't know how to use the command line. Even the easiest Linux distros suffer from this problem. With windows I just reinstall programs to a different drive. With Linux you have to learn about symlinks, create then in the right spot and even then it doesn't help unless you have a bigger drive. Alternatively you can learn about lvm and combine your drives in to one large monolith but this is even far more work for what's it's in Linux literally at worst a 10 minute fix and 0 second if you just install stuff to the right drives.
Genuinely no idea how Linux gaming could be better. I've been playing on desktop and Steam Deck for years, both "flat" games and VR games and it just works. Sure I don't try literally everything but with ProtonDB I'm confident it will work, or not, and decide accordingly. Obviously not all games work on Linux but definitely more quality games that I have time for. For me it just works, I spend at least 99% of my time gaming on Linux actually gaming, in fact I can't even remember when is the last time I tinkered. I don't even have problems with GPU drivers despite tinkering with containers with machine learning. I'm not trying to say nobody has problems or dismiss problems people do have, just sharing my experience.
I think this is overselling it a little. I still run into issues with Proton from time to time that require sigkilling it and its children, and some games (especially EA titles) are finnicky and can take a few tries to launch properly.
As for VR, SteamVR on Linux outright sucks. It virtually never works the first time I launch it and requires some combination of reconnecting hardware and restarting software and the computer, and it's plagued with bugs (most recently the UI rendering upside down in the new beta).
Don't get me wrong, Linux has been my primary platform for some 5 years and my only one for the last few and I'd never dream of going back to Windows, and gaming on Linux has progressed unbelievably in the time I've been daily-driving it. But it still isn't totally painless and there's definitely more room for improvement in the coming years.
Honest question - what is the current problem(s) in Linux gaming? And I don't mean that the way it sounds, I just haven't done it in a long long time. I mean back then it had to have a linux specific version and you had to deal with X11 mouse input.
Now with Wayland and things like steamdeck existing I'm surprised it's not more viable.
I'm sure it's a long list but what are the main factors? Just a curiosity. Unfortunately I just don't get to play games these days. Still GPU and sound driver issues? Publishers refusing to take the extra steps to make a multi platform engine work on it? Too many unknowns based on flavor of Linux installed?
Only reason I don't switch to linux is because of both riot games and easy anti cheat(you can kinda play league of legends most of the time)
but valorant's vanguard is just straight up built for windows so you can't cheat in their game, so you can't even open that game in linux
And 99% of games that use easy anti cheat are also unplayable (except elden ring somehow)
Tbh I haven't really played their any games that fall into this category lately, but I don't want to have to install windows every time I get a urge to play league and tilt myself
and I know that dual boot exists but I have a very limited storage right now (I'm only on a 480gb ssd since my hdd broke)
A lot of EAC games work just fine on proton now. For any game released and/or updated since September 2021 enabling EAC on proton for the devs is as easy as ticking a checkbox.
An interesting point.. i didn't even think about the anti-cheat engines nor considered they'd be bound to windows but yeah i get it, i deal with that on licensing services.
I feel your pain on storage. It's cheaper now but it's all relative. I'll save your UN and hit you up if i stumble into something that may help.
I'm not the guy you asked but I can answer for myself - it's still not nearly as effortless to use for gaming as windows. I work with computers all day, so when I sit down to game at night I absolutely refuse to debug shit. For Starfield as an example, it works via proton, but the protondb page is full of "to get around X issue use the following workaround", and I just can't be bothered.
I use Linux for work and hobby software development, but for me to switch my gaming pc over would require it to not just be "viable", but effortless
Thank you, that's the perspective I was looking for.
And while i understand, it's certainly not limited to games or Linux. I too just want things to work and it's become a struggle for one reason or another. I can find a common thread on that but probably not the place for that.
I am optimistic though that gaming will continue to get better and that will be helpful. Despite all the faults it's at least going in the right direction.
I will say this - nowadays I have to figure out maybe 5% of games I play on Linux, and often times those games have issues with certain windows setups too
That's actually pretty positive. Probably a multitude of reasons but in my very limited experience with recent games they are pushed out with tons of problems on any platform. Sometimes the game was just rushed out and this is what turned me off of games for the most part. "It's online, we can just patch it later!"
Also not a fan of paying for the privilege of being a beta tester. Open betas used to be fun times.
That said, based on yours and others replies i think it seems worth it to dig up an old ssd and try some of my games out on Linux on my main. Honestly it seems way better than what it was years ago so I should go see for myself. Thanks!
Absolutely. It's honestly the older titles that tend to work better as well, perfect for an older setup. A nice static target for the conversion layer. Proton was pretty good 3 years ago, now it's amazing.
Lots of Devs I've noticed tend to be happy to tweak things on their end to get something to work better with Proton as well, or if we're lucky they just use Vulkan out of the gate and make it a very straightforward job.
A good benchmark is seeing how steam deck users get along with that game. If they don't hit any snags it's a very good chance you won't either
Great info, thanks. Most of my hardware is old. But that's actually a good thing I think. I have a Lenovo ideacentre i plucked back from a friend as it was gathering dust. I upgraded the ram and SSD and installed neon on a whim and it's amazing.
That's what sorta started tracking me back.. have continued using Linux for servers but i was impressed at that desktop. Now I know neon is a bit bleeding edge so any recommendations on a distro? I started with freebsd back in the day, then gentoo for desktop, then Ubuntu minimal for servers if that helps. Not afraid to get my hands dirty but prefer simplicity.
I found a 256GB SSD that should be enough for some testing. I need to grab some files off it but then it's ready to go. Distro advice appreciated. Remember i just want to test :) TIA
My main issue is a lack of support from games like DCS, which will never get Linux support, and not having trackIR support, but I suppose that just needs someone who is experienced.
Also I can't play fortnite/cod and that's what my friends play.
Hah I had to look some of that up. I bet I could guess your age within a couple years. :)
DCS seems like a cash grab and travkir thing seems quite the gimmick. But i understand you wanting to play with your friends and so do they and they aren't going to bring Linux support despite it's likely built on it.
Windows is essentially free anyway these days so you'll just have to suck it up for now. You can disable things like realtime scanning for a performance boost. If you can't make your own DNS try quadr9 to block a majority of the telemetry and shit.
Being able to play with your friends is more important really. Just dual boot or use a VM to get your nix skills. I'm sure many won't agree with me and that's cool. There is nothing Linux can't do, yet there are apps (or games) that will simply require windows to participate. Sucks, but that's reality.
U didn't have to be so condescending lmao
Sorry yo, wasn't intended that way I promise! I don't have great people skills text based or otherwise. And actually I'm the one that sounds like an idiot anyway haha In my defense I'm quite tired and seeking excuses to not be working so yeah, my bad, no offense intended
I get that for sure! I'm also a bit uh, trigger-happy with people online. I definitely get that feeling, though.
Appreciate that but now I don't know how to reply without sounding condescending.. dammit! :) but you know, if you go back to 1995 bad boys that was how i communicated. Years later i relocated and nearly got killed for pointing out a funny and quite justified slight at a certain NFL team.
I'm not sure I have a point beyond stay trigger happy and call fuckers like me out! We all make mistakes and I have no problem being called out.
Shit, i still sound condescending don't I? It's just hard not to after a while. I don't know if it'll be Linux worthy but hit me up if you decide to try out borderlands 4. We'd be happy to have a new player in the group.
Nah, nah. I think it was just the "I bet I can guess your age" then the rest shifted in my mind. Sorry about the confusion
Yeah I got you.. that was a stupid thing to say. I never meant it like that. I mean hell at the end of the day you got me to look up a couple things.
It was a good lesson. And I'm usually banging heads with friends because they are judging and then i did it. Thanks for checking me.
I switched back in 2019. It was pretty good then and it's almost seamless now. Hell EAC works now and I can play Squad without any hiccups
I am glad squad works, haha
Linux gaming is even better than Windows in many ways now
How so?
Well, Elden Ring had a bug in it that killed performance, Proton was able to fix it without touching the game itself and resulted in Linux performance being markedly better.
Then with Starfield it performs about 30% faster than windows consistently.
I can force AMD FSR on any game (and I have an Nvidia card) to get a significant performance boost with no visually detectable loss in quality.
The list goes on.
Linux is still only compatible with 10000 games on Steams 70000 games store.
Windows is compatible with all of em.
It's 12,000 and those are rated as "playable". The majority of games on Steam would be playable out of the box, but Valve is being cautious with their verified program.
ProtonDB has over 18,000 user submissions for playable games.
There are many games in my library that aren't listed as Steam Deck verified or even on ProtonDB and they just work.
My game still does not support proton. Fuck that game.
I hope gaming on GNU/Linux were bad, so I wouldn't have wasted hours of my life :')
This joke was funny when Chrome was superior, but now Edge is actually better.
maybe, but they are both proprietry spyware and chromium based. firefox is better than both
I agree. But sometimes your pages won't load with Firefox. For you and me it's great. We can get around it. For your parents and grandma's, it's a nightmare.
ive heard of that, but ive never had that happen? stock firefox seems to load everything for me, but maybe its due to spoofing a chrome useragent, or bc i tend to avoid sites like that. librewolf with default setttings, or hardened firefox is admittedly pretty buggy for a lot of websites. i would say brave is an easy upgrade from other chromiums, for family members, but i still think stock firefox is alright for that too
Mozilla isn't exactly perfect either
or try librewolf.
Then try Waterfox
Edge is stuff tacked on Chromium. How can it be better?!
Isn't chrome also based on chromium? I would argue they are equally bad, because both are proprietary.
When I see the current version of Edge I'm reminded of those bloatware-packed OEM Windows preinstalls adding useless toolbars to Internet Explorer, except this time it's a sidebar.
I'm disappointed, and when asked by people I recommend replacing Edge. Preferably with Firefox, but even Chrome is better.
It's like saying Mac OS is just a Linux distro. It's similar but actually pretty different when it comes to how it manages its memory.
Finally someone talking sense.
It's funny how nobody talks shit about Apple.
Firefox FTW.
How it's on android? Have they added back extensions?
Yes there's extensions.
There's dozens!
But yeah, the important ones exist though and I haven't found a better option
Had they ever removed extentions?
the most useful extensions for android firefox - ublock origin, there is already (and many more). Also, mozilla is working on bringing all desktop add-ons to mobile and everyone can contribute.
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/09/27/test-firefox-android-extensions-and-help-developers-prepare-for-an-open-mobile-ecosystem-in-december/
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/
In beta it does, Stable should get access to the entire addons list around December IIRC
Of course addons that weren't updated with mobility in mind might not work as well.
pretty awesome, especially with extensions. I use it everyday.
In fact, I have two firefoxes. one of them reserved for slack as I don't want to download the app and slack detects that I'm using desktop mode on android(on chromium-based browsers). but Firefox's(with chameleon) spoofing saves my device from one of the worst proprietary applications.
Android extensions work, even on ancient versions. Not all extensions of course, but the important ones.
The Mull version of Firefox has always had extension support, never even knew the official version had even removed it. Mull is otherwise identical with some hardening against tracking and removed telemetry. I've also never had issues with sites breaking which can be otherwise common with hardening
Sorry Gil, it's still chromium ;c
Y'all I dislike forced browser adoption as much as the next guy.
And I've been using Firefox for years and years and years now.
But, I'm forced to use edge for work. And, as a browser purely, none of the anti-trust baggage attached....
It's really not too bad. A lot of things work just fine. And sometimes, if I'm having weird performance on a website on a personal device, loading the same URL in edge has resulted in improved/expected functionality of the website
Yes, when I have used Edge it's been absolutely fine. Probably better than Chrome. I'd likely be quite happy to use it most of the time if it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft are so intent on forcing me to do so.
I mostly use Vivaldi now which I think is by far the best of the Chromium-based browsers.
IE was like that for a while too. Never again.
with the amount of updates I think Edge is better than chrome now, but I still use firefox
Edge isn't terrible at all. That's why it's such a risk to browser diversity and competition
Yeah the problem with memes like this is (according to market share) that there are people that switch from Edge to Chrome and think they are actually using a better product
Change your job
I continue to use Firefox because I started using it a while ago and would rather not switch. I have to use Edge for school and it's legitimately equal to Firefox in many ways. With Bing AI added, Edge blows Firefox out of the water.
The only reason Bing AI only works on Edge is because Bing AI specifically checks for edge. There was an extension that made it work on Firefox by simply lying about the browser, but Microsoft DMCA'd the developer.
I switched from Chrome to Edge and initially was really impressed. But then Microsoft had to go and Bing it all up. So now it’s back to Firefox after a 15 year hiatus.
You want something even better? Check out LibreWolf. It's Firefox with all the privacy features preconfigured, uBlock Origin preinstalled and all the crap like Pocket and sponsored websites removed. And of course it uses DuckDuckGo instead of Google by default.
That duckduckgo default is the thing that aggravates me the most. Sometimes those results just don’t cut it but I don’t even have the option to chance my default browser. I had to bookmark google
Use Startpage or an instance of Whoogle. They are both meta search engines for Google, they allow you to search on Google without exposing your data to Google. If you are a user of Mullvad VPN, you can also use Leta, their own Google meta search engine.
I really liked Edge like a year or two ago. It seems they are trying to destroy it as fast as possible.
What did they do that you didn't like?
Have you used it recently? They've gone crazy with shitty toolbars, especially on windows
The right click menu has an entry to search what is highlighted with the default search engine next to an entry to search with bing.
Fuck no, I'm not particularly a fan of how it forces itself on you like Brock Turner (the rapist).
It can go and join IE in whatever pit of hell we threw IE in
If you wanna say that Chrome is trash and people should use Firefox, Opera, Safari or whatever else is currently trending among privacy focused people that I can agree with (Even if I personally won't make the switch)
But Edge is NOT the answer, Edge is NEVER the answer. At this point I'm starting to wonder if all these Edge people in here are being paid by MS
There are some things from reddit I hope never come over here, but shitting on the rapist Brock Turner is always welcome in my books.
Welcome to the boat, I tried edge from all the people recommending it on reddit and I hate it
And the rapist analogy is not enough for how bad it is, it'll copy everything from your default browser without your permission (or I somehow missed it)
Like I was caught by surprise when all my bookmarks, passwords, etc were just straight up copied by that privacy intruding piece of crap.
Fuck edge
Definitely missed it. It doesn’t grab everything without permission, but probably wants to stay out of the way so you do pull it all in
Edge is probably my favourite chromium browser. Seems like you care too much.
Gee Bing. You really are pathetic. Respect yourself dude.
The weirder thing is I was replacing a users desktop the other day and updating default apps. Edge did its usual "pleas love me" bit but then so did Windows Mail as I was changing it to Outlook 365 of all things..
noo dont replace me with another microsoft email program!
People might have used it if MS didn't try cramming it down peoples' throats, and if they didn't add so much b
ling.I gave it a try because I kept reading how it's so good on tech subs on reddit, turns out it's worse than Chrome… and it only got worse (with the Bing AI stuff, which was supposed to be even better)
I now think those redditors might have been astroturfers.
I've been using SwiftKey, but they had to go and add a Bing button to it... I never use it, but just having it there feels gross.
And Bing
I've been using Edge for 2 years now. No problems whatsoever ever. You can stop begging MS.
The begging is considered a feature
Beg harder<3
Yes that's the good stuff
Bing chat has saved edge and bing search for me, it just works. I ask it a random question, like how many spiders you'd have to eat to have eaten a pound of them and it just tells me and shows the work. I don't need to look up how much a spider weights and then do math myself, it just does it.
Firefox is still my main browser, but I'll open edge to ask dumb questions and I have a lot of stupid questions and it has answers without me needing to dig through bullshit to find what I need.
Sounds like a great way to get a wrong answer
It shows it's work, you can follow it's citations to ensure it's not complete bullshit.
Also no seriously these are dumb questions, I was watching Fraiser the other day and it implied his ratings were in the millions, and I asked bing if that was even possible considering he was on AM radio in the 90s (it's not), but even if it was completely wrong it literally doesn't matter...
The great thing about Bing Chat compared to other chatbots is that it sources its claims. I always check the sources before trusting it.
Sounds like a regular search with extra steps
With regular search, I have to look through all kinds of results before I find something, and often I have to adjust my search parameters until the search engine even understands what I'm looking for.
The AI still needs me to actually confirm what it's saying, but that's checking 1-3 links, not entire search result pages.
It's also just waaaaay easier to talk to my search engine in natural language than keywords imo. I never know what keywords get me to my intended destination, I guess the difference is less big for people that do.
Get the extension that enables bing chat for Firefox
You really should reconsider your priorities if stupid questions like that are what causing you to stay with edge.
"Hmm do I need privacy, or do I need to know how many spiders are in a pound?"
Sounds like good opportunity for US and Europe to whip out some fines over Anticompetitive practices. With Microsoft sort of being repeat offender the fines should reflect that.
Honestly with Edge being not too bad alternative for Chrome this sort of shady behavior from Microsoft doesn't do it any good at least in my eyes.
here i go....strangely enough i used edge for a while and did not switch back
I used and liked it for a few years, but now they started filling it with bloat ware again... switched to Firefox last month.
I use it at work all the time and frankly, it's completely functional. I also prefer the Bing image search over Google images search these days... And I was a hardcore googler back in the day!
Same. It worked great for me with the profiles (personal microsoft account + uni microsoft account) until my uni disabled the bookmark syncing feature for all our accounts. For some odd reason.
Then I switched to Firefox and I'm not turning back.
edge uses half or less of the system resources versus firefox with twice as many tabs open even on linux
plus edge allows microsoft office to run on linux without workarounds
For me, Firefox has better privacy and more powerful extensions, particularly variations of tree-style tabs.
Just use chromium then
Could it though?
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Edge is pretty good now imo
It was. Now it's bloated with Microsoft's services and thrown in your face if you don't use it as your default. For example Outlook defaults to opening it for links in emails even if you have a different browser as you default. Bullshit move Microsoft.
Microsoft tried to make a browser that had an edge, and they just decided fuck it and gave it the name Edge.
there actually begging at this point
I use Edge whenever something needs to stream on a Windows PC, unlike other Chromium builds it is capable of hardware acceleration and therefor 4k streaming. Whenever you watch 4k on Google Chrome it isn't really that high quality.
As much as I hate Edge and Chrome, ,my 5.1 surround sound doesn't work in Firefox. So if I want to watch something in surround on Youtube I have to switch to Edge. Then the nagging starts.
I do use Edge as my main browser, for now.
But why?
Because my university is very Microsoft-centric when it comes to software and infrastructure. So using Edge allows me to keep myself logged in and not having to introduce my credentials every time i need to do something.
Maybe they haven't installed Firefox yet
You need something to download Firefox from right?
Next time edge is going to ask... what are you going to do? Install Google chrome? 😂
Honestly have been using edge on my work computer for a while now and see no reason to change. I use Firefox on my personal computer but for now Edge is just fine.
CTT Windows Utility -> Tweaks -> Remove Microsoft Edge
Idk, I really like Edge. It just has bad reputation due to Internet Explorer... It is actually very good imo.
It depends on what circles you're in I suppose. But I suspect you're right for most people that dislike it. For some of us it's the Chromium engine it runs on, and/or the company it comes from.
Edit: So more ideological reasons. I imagine the browser itself works fine.
Yeah you're right. I can see and I respect people's reasons for not wanting to use windows / Microsoft products.
I just wanted to point out this as I think many people still consider edge as a bad browser. At least in my experience it works really well and I personally like the style it has and overall the "windows 11 aesthetic" Microsoft is choosing for their products.
tried it up to when it asked to remember CC #s. not stupid
Ff has that feature too. It's if anything more secure than remembering passwords because at least you still need the expiration date and cvc (unless edge saves that too).
already using chrome for that. nothing but random passwords for about 300 sites. edge: import? no thanks dis chrome if you like. G has been good to me so far. was ff for a spell, got bloated
I was getting a bit annoyed at Firefox and after recently formatting my PC, I decided to freshen things up. So after the mandatory new PC Edge Google, I must say I'm really enjoying the new UI of Opera.
Now I use Opera as my main driver, Firefox for the things that Opera struggles with, and Edge is there too.
Opera is spyware