Opera is filing a complaint over Microsoft’s tricks that push you to use Edge

Microsoft has used a variety of tips to convince people to continue using Bing and Microsoft Edge’s default values in Windows over the years, including modification of chrome download sites and the use of malware popups. Now Opera is fed up with what he calls Microsoft’s “manipulative design tactics” and has filed a complaint in the Brazil competition today, alleging that Microsoft uses anti -competitive practices to orient people to the use of edge.

“Microsoft is countering the competition from browsers on Windows to each turn,” explains Aaron McParlan, lawyer general of the opera. “First of all, browsers like Opera are locked significant preinstallation opportunities. And then Microsoft frustrates the ability of users to download and use alternative browsers.”

The opera complaint relies that Microsoft ignores the choice of the default browser of a user in various ways, the opening of PDF files or links in Outlook and the teams, at the opening of links via Windows features such as research or widgets. Opera also notes that Microsoft uses “banners and invasive messages discouraging users from downloading alternative browsers at the same time they are looking for these browsers on Edge.”

Opera has filed its complaint in Brazil because it is one of the main markets of the company. “The opera is already a major success in Brazil: it is the third most popular browser in Brazil and has millions of loyal users in Brazil who actively choose it, despite Microsoft’s tactics,” explains McParlan. “The complaint, which concerns the practices implemented on a global scale by Microsoft, presents an opportunity for Brazil to be a leader on this international issue.”

If the opera succeeds with its complaint, it wants Microsoft remedies, such as allowing PC manufacturers to preload alternative default browsers, a stop to block consumers from the download of other browsers, and at the end of the “dark models that push users to Edge”. Opera also reveals that Microsoft demands that OEMs “provide S fashion peripherals as a condition for discounts on a Windows OS” license, which is another practice that it wishes to see prohibited.

Although the complaint is processed by the Brazilian competition authority, it is part of a broader effort from the opera to challenge Microsoft’s EDGE practices around the world. The Opera definitively challenged the EU’s decision not to designate Microsoft Edge as a guard under the rules of the law on digital markets (DMA) last year. Microsoft escaped the designation, but it had to make changes to Windows on the EU markets in response to the DMA. These changes led him to stop disturbing Windows users about Edge.

“We believe that the driving of Microsoft, including the changes it has announced in Europe, is insufficient to achieve effective compliance with the DMA,” explains McParlan. “In this context, and in the context of its global efforts to guarantee the free and effective choice of consumers, Opera appealed before the EU prices to the European Commission’s decision not to appoint Edge as a” guardian “service under DMA.”

Not only did Microsoft used Windows to urge people to switch to the edge in the past, but the company also created a Google Usurpée user interface to try to convince Bing users they used Google earlier this year. The search results looked a lot like Google, with a personalized search bar, a Google Doodle type image and a small text under the search bar just like Google Search. Microsoft quickly killed the branch on its Google usurped user interface once people started to notice.

Opera also has a history of complaints against Microsoft’s browser behavior in Windows. He initially filed an antitrust complaint with the EU in 2007, which ultimately led to the creation of the browser voting screen – allowing Windows users to choose one of the 12 most popular browsers rather than the Internet Explorer defect. Microsoft had to keep the browser choice screen in Windows for five years, but it was sentenced to a fine of $ 730 million in 2013 for having failed to include the ballot in Windows 7 Service Pack 1.