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I fail to see how Linux distros that come with a browser would be a problem for anyone: I’m unaware of any Linux distro that tries to PREVENT YOU from uninstalling it and/or installing whatever browser you want.

No. But if you do decide to uninstall it you better be damn careful with your package manager and set up holds so it doesn’t uninstall half of your system, since in almost all cases FF is a dependency for other things. Like a Desktop Environment. Or X / Wayland…
Don’t let facts intrude on your bloviating:

# apt remove firefox
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
    firefox
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 59 not upgraded.
After this operation, 240 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Ahh, yes, lets not mention distro, Desktop environment, or installation method. It’s not like the Debian user forums were clean of topics where people tried that and lost entire GNOME installs. Nope nosirre.
Or how Gentoo at least used to completely fuck itself if you didn’t update your USE flags properly before an unmerge of Firefox.
We won’t even get into the mess that RPM distros used to be.
But it’s all OK now, user #658626 says so without noting anything about what they were using and it worked like magic
To be fair to his point, there IS a distro where it is fine, and you can choose a linux that doesn’t suck(according to your own definition). There is no un-suck distro of windows, that doesnt get sued or DMCA’d into the ground.
Customizable windows light installs, now that would be a dream. No telemetry, no windows app store, no xbox bar, no nothing but a start menu and enough code and kernel to run the programs YOU choose to install….. ahh what a dream.
>Customizable windows light installs
That sounds sooooo nice…that’s what I want. That’s what my school needs.
You want details? That was Mint with MATE.
As for Gentoo:

equery depends firefox
  * These packages depend on firefox:
[empty line]
So with my Gentoo install at least, nothing depends on Firefox.
Here is CentOS7 with vanilla Gnome installed:

Dependencies Resolved
  Package Arch Version Repository Size
Removing:
  firefox x86_64 91.12.0-2.el7.centos @updates 263 M
Transaction Summary
Remove 1 Package
As for Debian, it appears that:
1. When you uninstall Firefox, it installs another browser OR
2. The gnome packages it wants to uninstall are only metapackages, so no actual binaries and support files get uninstalled.
Gentoo is a joke. The last two times I tried to install it, it wouldn’t even build.
If you’re citing Gentoo as a reason why removing Firefox is hard then you’re lost in the woods in this conversation.
I know right where my firefox is. I download the tarball for Linux/amd64, cd to /opt, sudo tar xvfj ~/Downloads/firefox-version.tar.bz2, and then I sudo zfs snapshot rpool/opt/firefox@version and bingo, Firefox is installed. I thought about scripting this, but then I was like, why. Anyhoo if I remove /opt/firefox from my Devuan system then the only thing missing will be Firefox. I occasionally go back and prune the old versions when I’m satisfied Firefox is working correctly.
Consequently, I am neither lost,
Microsoft complies because the EU isn’t scared to issue fines.
The interesting part is that Microsoft claimed in the past that Edge is a critical component of windows 11, which is why so many internal links are opened with it even when it’s not a default browser.
I guess it’s not going to be that any more.
Oh and you can probably install “EEA version” by just setting your region to one of the nations within EEA during install, just like you can avoid pretty much all bloatware installation by choose “world” as you location now. Almost almost current win 11 bloatware is re

The interesting part is that Microsoft claimed in the past that Edge is a critical component of windows 11
No you’re conflating two issues. Only the icon for the browser and the ability to open the app you know as “Edge” is being removed. The underlying components of Edge will remain in Windows including WebEdgeView which very much is a critical component of windows 11 seeing how it’s responsible for rendering a large part of the GUI and most of the modern apps.
This is more like Android allowing you to “remove” apps that are baked in as part of the read only image by hiding the icon in the app launcher.

which is why so many internal links are opened with it even when it’s not a default browser.
No that’s
If true, that’s unfortunate.
I would hope that EU forces them to do away with exclusivity, i.e. web components could be opened in any chromium based browser that you choose to install.
But yes, I can see how that would be a compatibility nightmare.
That said, they’re also removing shit like Cortana, which we know for sure is removable because you can in fact remove it right now while keeping the OS functional. There are even installers that come with it completely removed from the installer ISO.
Ultimately it will have to. If Edge is removed as a user facing browser MS will have to provide an option to set another browser as the URL handler. At present I believe (not sure, haven’t looked since last year) the difference is that clicking a link from a Windows system component launches a URL: “edge://blah” instead of “https://blah” There are programs you can use to redirect edge:// but there wasn’t a windows setting.
I thought MS made an announcement earlier this year that this will change too, but hon
“Shit like” refers to a whole package of these extra features. There are custom windows ISO builders that have packaged windows without Cortana back when microsoft insisted that Cortana was the latest and greatest thing that will be present in all computers in a few years time and was getting integrated into everything very aggressively.
On the “edge” question though, I wonder if it would be fully functional to just have OS wide setting that translated all edge:// to http(s):// before it’s actually processed
As long as I can relegate Edge to being only ever opened at my command, and all the other BS disabled to the point where it never runs and it’s just a bit of disk space being taken up, I’m fine with that.
I’ll keep Edge around as a “clean” browser. Occasionally I can’t get certain websites I need to work, mainly airlines it seems, due to privacy and ad blocking in my main browsers. Edge seems as good as any for those situations, with everything declined and it set to delete everything when I close it.
Indeed I think the EU compliance will achieve that. Fuck MS for their “edge://” specific URI.
Oh and you can probably install “EEA version” by just setting your region to one of the nations within EEA during install
Approximately .02 milliseconds after these changes appear on a Windows release channel, someone doing $diety‘s work will release a registry hack utility to perform the necessary changes.
Problem being that modern windows already ignores a lot of registry changes if version doesn’t match. For example telemetry disabling via group policy still requires you to run commands that fool OS into thinking it’s sorta kinda enterprise edition before they will work properly.
Remember when you could install Alta Vista to search your hard drive? EU wants it back!
They went after apple and are forcing it to install a proper USB-C port in iphones and such. Arguably hardware compatibility change is more dramatic than just software compatibility change.
It would have been funny watching investors fire the CEO summarily for such a stupid move.

Funny how they don’t go after Apple and their crappy browser
No, funny here is your ignorance that you think that the EU isn’t looking into this right now. They are specifically investigating Apple’s forced browser as part of the DMA, and Apple even claimed Safari is 3 separate browsers to try and get out of it (and failed to do so).
For having such a low UID, I can’t believe you don’t know the difference between MacOS and iOS.
Either way, you’re post is 1000% factually WRONG.
sit1963nz wrote:
personally I would LOVE the USA to pull out of the EU
Huh? Perhaps you are confusing the European Union [wikipedia.org], with the United Nations [wikipedia.org]
Great! Now when will the EU release Google’s stranglehold on ChromeOS and let me uninstall Chrome on there?
Never, ChromeOS doesn’t meet the threshold for the Digital Markets Act. I.e. The EU are saying it’s *your* fault for *choosing* to run it.
All this is wonderful and all but ALL telemetry to the mothership needs to be eliminated.
Remember when Microsoft “accidentally” dropped the browser choice screen on installs?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/… [zdnet.com]
How long before Microsoft “accidentally” removes this option?

remember nobody even noticing for 2 years
I am impressed that you can remember that I didn’t notice when I did a Windows install at that time. However, I have to tell you that your memory is faulty, because I did notice at the time.
I only remember that Microsoft was convicted for anti competitive behaviour, forced to offer that choice, and then removed the choice without being punished.
There was nothing to punish them for. The settlement agreement from the onset was time limited and expired on the 31st December 2014. Microsoft literally had sunset code in this from day 1.
In 2011 a Windows 7 Service Pack “bug” caused the browser choice screen to not display for 14 months. Microsoft paid a fine of EUR 561million for that “bug” which sounds like a punishment to me.
They are. Why are 90% of the posts here on Slashdot about people asking the EU to do something they are already doing. I mean shit your post is 3 years out of date, The EU has already levied multiple $bn fines on Google for its grip on digital ads and disputes are ongoing.
Are you even paying attention?
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor… [slashdot.org]
https://yro.slashdot.org/story… [slashdot.org]
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor… [slashdot.org]
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor… [slashdot.org]
Why were they allowed to do basically the same thing that was determined to be illegal back in the early Internet Explorer days?
Isn’t the only difference the Windows version number, IE is now called Edge and MSN is called Bing?
Expectations. In the early days it was expected that a user chooses their browser as none was provided with the OS right until MS changed that. It’s not 1995 anymore. These days you expect your OS to simply be able to open a website and would consider any OS that didn’t ship with a default browser as defective.
So when will EU free iPhone users from the Safari browser?
Right, it’s just the rendering engine.
And only on iOS …
On macOS/OS X the browsers have what ever rendering and java script engine the developer wants …
Android already does let the user do this.
iOS is subject to a current DMA case that is ongoing (Hint: Apple and Microsoft are different companies)
MacOS isn’t popular enough to qualify as a Gatekeeper in the DMA.
Linux is not even remotely popular enough in the deepest depths of neckbeard’s wet dream to qualify as a Gatekeeper in the DMA.

Even if they’re pre-installed, nobody was ever forced to use either one.
False. There are many parts of the OS / web interaction in Windows 11 that outright ignore your browser choice and always open in Edge. Microsoft even has a dedicated URL for this within windows components: “Edge://”

In fact it is a good idea to have a browser that you never use sitting around to troubleshoot problems with the browsers you do use.
Let the user make that choice.
Now if we could only get the EU to finally free Windows users from Windows!
That would throw a wrench into the plans of all those fuckers who are doing their best to turn our computers into dumb terminals that require a full-time internet connection and a paid-up subscription to be usable. Just imagine! Autonomous operating systems whose updates and functioning aren’t at the whim of would-be slave owners!
Note that although I’d love for Linux to be that alternative, I’d happily settle for a Windows ecosystem
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