Mozilla CEO Chris Beard has written an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella complaining about the decision to make the Edge browser the default browser in Windows 10. The Edge browser, previously known as Spartan, is the default browser in Windows 10, even when upgrading from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 in which another default browser was set.
Mozilla's CEO states that the company is "deeply disappointed to see Microsoft take such a dramatic step backwards". Beard also argues it's an aggressive move of Microsoft to ignore the choice of its users and that the Windows 10 upgrade process has been designed to make users to switch to the Edge browser and keep using it.
"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. It’s confusing, hard to navigate and easy to get lost", according to Beard.
Although Microsoft clearly has made some effort to promote Edge in Windows 10, the upgrade process doesn't remove Chrome, Firefox or Opera. It does change the default browser setting of the OS from which it is upgrading. When users start their browser of choice they are prompted to set them as default again, but this has become a bit more complicated than before.
Instead of changing the default browser with a single button press, the browsers now have to open a window in which users have to select their browser of choice as the default browser.
Also when users to upgrade to Windows 10 and don't use the Express Settings, they can still change their default browser. Unfortunately the option is likely mainly used by more advanced users.
Edge is the successor to Internet Explorer and should be faster, safer and more stable.
