this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
3161 points (97.4% liked)
Technology
59598 readers
3719 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not really, it means less work and less risk for them if they have to support fewer software.
Back when Internet Explorer was still a thing you could configure it with group policies domain wide. If Microsoft implemented similar features for Edge in an active directory environment I can definitely see the appeal. Not to say similar isn't possible with Chrome or Firefox, but first party integrations in a corporate environment tends to be the path of least resistance.
Firefox does support GPO amongst other policy mgmt solutions, and so do Chrome and Edge. But yeah it's easier to only support Edge, apply policies recommended by the company which also supplies the OS and productivity suite, and call it a day.
It's curious because Microsoft owns the operating system and was more than capable of designing in such a way that would allow sysadmins more control over third party browsers and software. Firefox would have been willing to work with them to provide the necessary levers. They already do with group policy.
"Security" is a term that shuts down arguments and silences all accusation of anticompetitive behavior. And they absolutely abuse that. You don't think the bean counters are ecstatic about the fact that they have effectively been able to turn every IT department in the country into Edge salesmen? You don't think there was a board meeting where the benefits of that were discussed?
Of course. I hate MS as much as the next linux user, but unfortunately from the IT team's pov it makes a lot of sense now that MS' browser isn't a broken pile of shit anymore.