Mozilla CEO claims Windows 10 browser defaults override user choice

By Kris Wouk Published July 31, 2015

mozilla ceo open letter windows 10 browser defaults chris beard — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The adoption rate for Windows 10 has been fairly swift, with the operating system making its way to 14 million systems already, with more on the way. Along with the new OS comes a new browser, Microsoft Edge.

Mozilla CEO Chris Beard doesn’t have a problem with the brower itself or Windows 10 — after all, the company is busy working on a new UI for Firefox that looks and works better with the OS. What Beard has a problem with is that Edge is set as the default browser in Windows 10, even on upgraded systems where Firefox or Chrome were previously the default choice.

Recommended Videos

“It is bewildering to see, after almost 15 years of progress bolstered by significant government intervention, that with Windows 10 user choice has now been all but removed,” Beard wrote in a post on the Mozilla blog. Instead of remaining quietly upset, Beard posted an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“When we first saw the Windows 10 upgrade experience that strips users of their choice by effectively overriding existing user preferences for the Web browser and other apps, we reached out to your team to discuss this issue” Beard wrote. “Unfortunately, it didn’t result in any meaningful progress, hence this letter.”

Of course it’s possible to simply change the default browser to one of your choosing, but the steps to go about this have changed in Windows 10. While in previous versions of Windows, changing the default browser was usually as easy as clicking a button in a prompt from your favorite browser, the change is now made within Windows 10’s settings.

“It now takes more than twice the number of mouse clicks, scrolling through content and some technical sophistication for people to reassert the choices they had previously made in earlier versions of Windows,” Beard wrote. “It’s confusing, hard to navigate and easy to get lost.”

In previous editions of Windows, it might have been unlikely that Beard’s open letter would have any effect, but with Windows 10 Microsoft has made it clear that the OS will continue to evolve long past its initial release. In the meantime, Mozilla has posted a guide on how to change the default browser settings in Windows 10 on its blog.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Computing

Windows 11 will finally respect your default browser — in Europe

Microsoft Edge appears on a computer screen with plants and a window in the background.

Microsoft makes it easy to change the default browser in Windows 11. That's important if you require special features specific to one of the many web browsers that are available on a PC. Unfortunately, it's not as simple to be rid of Edge entirely.

Microsoft Edge will still load to open some other file types. When opening a link from Windows Settings or other system components, the webpage will load in Edge. That's now about to change, however, according to a recent Windows blog post.

Computing

Top 10 Windows shortcuts everyone should know

An individual using a laptop's keyboard.

Windows 11 shortcuts are a constantly-used feature by practically all PC users. Apart from saving you time from carrying out the specific command without having to perform a few extra clicks on your mouse, it’s simply more convenient to refer back to shortcuts via your keyboard.

Although you may be satisfied with the Windows shortcuts you already know about and utilize on a daily basis, you can enhance your general Windows experience in a big way with these 10 shortcuts everyone should know.
Ctrl + Z
Tired of always having to use your mouse to find and click the Undo button on a program like Microsoft Word or, say, entering details on a website or editing images? Ctrl + Z will basically undo whatever your last action was, providing you a convenient way to reverse edits and changes within a second. From personal experience, this shortcut proved to be especially useful for productivity applications.
Ctrl + Shift + T
We’ve all been there. Nowadays, our browsers are inundated with multiple tabs, and as such, it’s hard to keep track of at times. Eventually, you’re going to close a tab on accident when trying to select it. Instead of trying to remember what it was or spending a few seconds accessing it and reopening it via the Recently Closed feature (on Chrome), simply hit Ctrl + Shift + T to restore the last closed tab. Similarly, Ctrl + N will open a new tab.

Computing

After 10 years of headaches, I’m finally a believer in Windows on ARM

The Microsoft Surface 3 with its blue keyboard.

Almost two years in, Apple is on the verge of completing its transition to ARM. It might surprise you to know, then, that Microsoft started its own journey to ARM chips long before Apple.

But Windows' support for ARM has been far less smooth. There aren't many more Windows devices with ARM chips than there were five years ago -- and I can attest to having personally used every failed attempt along the way.