How did Mozilla beat Microsoft’s default browser protection on Windows?

Mozilla recently made the switch to Firefox on Windows easier, and while Microsoft offers a way to change your default browser on Windows 10, it’s more complicated than a simple one-click process to switch to Edge. This one-click process is only officially available for Microsoft, and Mozilla seems to be fed up with the situation.

In Firefox version 91, which was released on August 10, Mozilla reversed the way Microsoft sets Edge as the default in Windows 10 and allowed Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Prior to this change, users of Firefox will be sent to the Settings pane in Windows 10, then they should select Firefox as their default browser and ignore Microsoft’s call to keep Edge.

Reverse engineering Mozilla means that you can now set Firefox as default from the browser, and it does all the work in the background without any additional prompts. By hacking into default apps, Microsoft is telling us that this is not supported by Windows.

Mozilla is clearly tired of the heavier way of configuring a default browser, a process Microsoft makes more difficult in Windows 11. Said in a statement to The Verge “All operating systems must offer official support by default by developers so that users can easily set their apps as default apps.

Since this did not happen in Windows 10 and 11, Firefox relies on other aspects of the Windows environment to provide users with an experience similar to that provided by Windows for Edge when users choose Firefox as the default browser. “

Mozilla has been trying to get Microsoft to improve the default browser settings in Windows since its open letter to Microsoft in 2015. Nothing has changed and Windows 11 now makes it difficult to change the default browser. began implementing its changes in Firefox shortly after the reveal of Windows 11 in June.

So far, Google, Vivaldi, Opera, and other Chromium-based browsers haven’t followed in Mozilla’s footsteps, and it’s unclear exactly how Microsoft will react. Microsoft has real security reasons to protect itself against malware with anti-piracy software, but by allowing Edge to easily change default settings, it compromises competing browser vendors who just want a level playing field. Windows 11 makes those rules of the game more complex, and the competition doesn’t feel happy.