The changes to Windows for DMA-compliance include:
- You can now uninstall Edge and Bing web search using the built-in settings. Earlier, the option was greyed out.
- Third-party web search application developers can now utilize the Windows search box in the taskbar using the instructions provided by Microsoft and choose any web browser to show results from the web.
- Microsoft will no longer sign-in users to Edge, Bing, and Microsoft Start services during the initial Windows setup experience.
- Data collected about the functioning of non-Microsoft apps, primarily bug detection and its effects on the OS, from Windows PCs will not be used for competitive purposes.
- Microsoft, from now on, will need explicit user consent before combining data from the OS and other sources. It will also deliver new consent screens where required.
These changes are only applicable to users in the EEA. For those outside the region, Windows will continue to function as it is!
But I thought this was a crucial part of the operating system?!
It is, specifically MS Edge WebView. For example new MS Teams and new Outlook client are using WebView. Widgets are using it as well as do many other things.
This uninstall will most likely still keep Edge present, it will just be somehow hidden / not as easily accessible.
The Internet Explorer system stuff is still there, the difference is that when it launches as a normal browser, it automatically opens Edge instead of IE. (iirc)
Yeah, internet explorer is integrated deeply in places you wouldn’t expect.
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No, it’s because IE was just a modified File Explorer to begin with. It was never its own independent software, but something cobbled together from already existing code. It’s these constant dependencies that are the problem due to laziness and bad practice.
Look into League of Legends and how Skarner and Minions are a structurally important part of the games entire code for another example.
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And yet it’s code is still in there doing work. Way to fail t reading comprehension
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Nah, mostly it’s just done stupidly many many years ago but MS being MS wants backwards compatibility.
Even MMC needs internet explorer or some stupid reason. It uses it to show HTML files or some shit.
I’d say that everyone should use Linux but that is materially impossible for many folks. Microsoft should just make consumer friendly products instead of this bullshit.
Well it’s good although only for EU, for the rest of the world still need to use Windows debloater script for doing same thing (or just install micro win 11 if you hate the hassle)
I live in the US and my windows 11 doesn’t have any of them. It doesn’t even have the ability to log in with a Microsoft account. It’s so easy nowadays to install programs from GitHub that nuke all the bullshit.
That’s funny because Microsoft owns GitHub.
There is exactly one piece of software that I am using Windows for and that is camtasia.
I feel like I’m on Coruscant after the second death star was blown up.
Seriously we did this in 1998, why this again??
after ‘repairing’ my edge, enabling ‘get updates as fast as you can’ and updating everything, I was able to uninstall edge. Rejoice.
Does this EU’s Digital Markets Act also applies for Android and all the preinstalled apps by Google and the phone manufacturer?
Microsoft now permits
The benevolence! Letting people do what they want with their purchased software. wow!
You don’t buy the software. You buy a license to use their software.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted because you’re right. You don’t really own hardly any of the software you buy. You don’t buy the software, you buy a license to use it in almost all commercial cases. It would be financial suicide for companies to revoke those licenses in most cases, but it still is what it is.
Just because software vendors legally made it that way doesn’t make it right. Also probably the main reason, many people don’t have any qualms pirating.
Right. This is only “right” because tech corporations were allowed to undermine the meaning of ownership without any attempt to protect customer rights. The concept of “buying a license” is fundamentally contradictory, because without the transfer of ownership, nothing was “bought”. Yet they still present this licensing process as if it was a purchase, which is deceptive.
Many take it for granted that this is just the nature of digital purchases, but the digital market simply created the opportunity for companies to redefine purchases with less resistance. Now they are trying to do the same with physical objects: physical media, technological devices, vehicles, so forth, trying to establish that people didn’t own what they bought.
And the basis of all of this is simply that they wrote some text that they said so. Can you imagine if customers tried something like this? They would be laughed out of the room. It’s a sham. The flimsiest possible pretense of legitimacy. Yet it’s treated as valid because they have the lawyers to defend it while the average customer does not, and governments often neglect their role to advocate in favor of the public.
Sure, but I’m not making a statement about the ethics of it. I’m just stating that that’s the current reality. That’s how commercial software is sold. I’ll freely agree it’s a bullshit practice and we should actually be able to own things, but that’s a whole different discussion.
K, but conquer4 certainly seemed to be either implying it or making an irrelevant distinction, since the comment they replied to was a “should” kind of comment.
A license subject to the law. Which can easily say that “license” is no different from a physical object you buy.
That’s what it’s become. But, hear me out, what if I want the hardware without the software? Tough luck? Both are so tied together that if the company pulls the rug you don’t have reasonable access to the hardware.
You don’t need Windows to use a computer. There are tons of flavors of Linux among other options. There are plenty of manufacturers who sell Linux boxes and you can always build your own. Microsoft just pays a lot of manufacturers to bundle Windows in the cost, but not all.
What are you talking about? Most suppliers allow you to buy the hardware without forcing Windows on you.
Laptops and desktops? And these OS free machines, are they in the room with you now?
I see hive mind stupidity is alive and well as your completely factual statement is downvoted by absolute morons.
Welcome to lemmy. You’ll hate it here.
Please leave then lol.
I’m baffled by all the downvoting. It was also my first thought that we rarely own the software we use.
Yeah and with Apple, it feels like we buy a license to use their hardware.
Right, and the consumer protections and ownership rights for that licence are grossly insufficient compared to what you would get if you bought a physical object.
We’ve allowed ridiculous compliance requirements and forced updates to become normalized when we never should have, and we’ve accepted the undermining of user authority because we refused to fight for it.
Props to EU keeping these assholes in check
Brussels effect ftw!
I was surprised I was able to uninstall Media Player on Windows 11. I played a video file on my laptop and accidentally selected “always open with”. Lo and behold Windows Media Player doesn’t play HEVC encoded files (not sure if it was 264 or 265). I thought I would have to tinker with the default program settings but tried “add or remove programs” on a lark and it worked. I then opened the file with VLC as one normally does and life is back in balance.
If I set my region to an EEA country is that good enough or do I need to reinstall windows to get this?
