If you have been following Neowin or other news outlets for the last few months, you are probably aware of Microsoft's seemingly aggressive tactics in order to persuade people into using its Edge web browser.
In a recent blog post by Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner titled "Microsoft back to its old tricks to get an edge on the competition", the Edge rival has slammed Microsoft over this "blatantly anti-competitive" practice, calling it "openly abusing" and "desperate".
it is frustrating in 2021 to find Microsoft blatantly engaging in anti-competitive practices once again
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Microsoft’s moves seem desperate. And familiar.
[..] This is not the behavior of a confident company developing a superior browser. It’s the behavior of a company openly abusing its powerful position to push people to use its inferior product, simply because it can.
The post has been headlined with the image (above) showing Microsoft's Edge in the form of the Devil with two horn-like projections protruding out from the top of Edge's logo.
Other than the prompt and popups we had highlighted already, Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner also points out another annoying hurdle when one is trying to switch away from Edge. He writes:
But I was determined to set Vivaldi as my default browser, so I ignored Microsoft’s nudging and chose to “Switch anyway”.
Not so fast. The next time I started Edge, I saw this:
That’s right, Microsoft once again pushing me to use Microsoft’s recommended browser settings. Now, which settings could those be? As I click through, I find that Edge is yet again the default browser.
Vivaldi boss then explains his idea of what the promotion of browsers should be like without hurting the end user's choice:
Naturally we encourage you to choose Vivaldi, because we think it offers you the best options for privacy, productivity and customization. But, unlike Microsoft, we firmly believe that the choice should be yours.
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