Microsoft Windows Store: Google Chrome installer removed

[HEXUS]

In other news, from 15th Feb, Chrome will no longer show annoying or intrusive ads.

Read more.

[Sunderas]

Finally!
Just waiting for them to address the colossal RAM eating issue from Chrome.

[tag75]

good , I hate when it keeps popping up

[StaticLNX]

Eh... I'd rather use Firefox Quantum anyways...

[StaticLNX]

good , I hate when it keeps popping up

said every guy going through puberty

[shaithis]

Hopefully this won't get into a Goggle vs Amazon spat.....

I can already see the headline tomorrow: Microsoft apps removed from Play store......

[outwar6010]

This feels petty.

[lumireleon]

why not download it directly?

[shaithis]

why not download it directly?

One of the new defaults in Windows 10 is "Only install apps from the Microsoft Store"

[peterb]

One of the new defaults in Windows 10 is "Only install apps from the Microsoft Store"

Which is not necessarily a bad thing provided Microsoft quality control the applications supplied there - at the very least signing the code base.

[Wolfclaw]

I'm with Microsoft on this one, Google quick to kill apps in their own store for even less.

[Biscuit]

We really are looking at a future of "app store wars" aren't we?

I kinda side with Microsoft on this one to an extent. A tool which just installs the standard X86/64 version is a bit cheeky... at the same time, I'm still yet to get any use from the MS app store modern UI applications after using Windows 10 on multiple machines for a while. Awful lot of pure junk on there.
The only thing I have noticed is that from time to time it decides to install Candy Crush on my machine without any notification of said action. Im sure its hidden away in small print of a license agreement somewhere.

Im sticking with firefox for the moment regardless.

[watercooled]

I'd be really happy if the browsers would implement a way of preventing hijack popups - it really wouldn't be hard to do. Some seem to have found a way around the 'prevent additional dialogues' thing, I've not looked into why but presumably they're using iframes or something to send the popups from different URLs? All it would take is a 'disable EVERY JS popup for x seconds' option. Annoyingly you can't even get to Chrome's own task manager to close individual tabs. I've had that happen on a few fairly popular sites, including xtremesystems forums.

Some sites (not Hexus thankfully) have IMO completely the wrong idea about advertising - why would anyone care what's in a full-screen, pop-over, autoplay video on a mobile device? All it makes me do is either stop visiting the site altogether or use another browser with ad blocking especially for those sites in the sin bin.

[LSG501]

To be fair I don't actually see an issue here with what MS has done.

Google uploaded the installer which would then download direct from google, not the full program, as a way to bypass Microsoft store restrictions (they are currently applicable so no point arguing over these) on how a program needs to be 'coded' (ie using edge rendering etc for web browsers... just like apple requires them to use safari's on iOS for example).

Not only did this go against the rules imposed by MS but it still wouldn't install on Windows 10S due to it being blocked by it's setup.

There's also the minor detail that the ms store is supposed to 'protect' users from malicious downloads etc which they can't do if it's downloading from an outside source they have no control over. You could also argue that Google/Apple do the same with their stores too.

While I don't personally want a locked down desktop OS, I like to be in full control of what I can and can't do etc, I do feel that if you're going to make use of a companies store then you need to follow their rules....even if we don't agree with them, I'd want to run firefox for example but wouldn't be able to for the same reason I couldn't run chrome and thats because it doesn't use edge's rendering etc.