Microsoft experiments with pushing Office progressive web apps onto Win10 machines – without your permission

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I like PWAs, but this is no way to get the ball rolling. (There’s a good discussion of Progressive Web Apps on Wikipedia.) Microsoft has PWA versions
[See the full post at: Microsoft experiments with pushing Office progressive web apps onto Win10 machines – without your permission]

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CyGuy

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Microsoft seems to be begging for us to completely abandon Windows in favor of Linux. We’ve already done that with 70% of our enterprise. Looks like the remaining 30% will be following sooner than later.

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Different scenario but equally bad practice,  Chrome includes Google sheets, docs and slides as extensions. The same again in an apps tab plus some others.

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Still? I hadn’t seen that in a while, despite having done new installs recently. They would only come in if I installed their Google Drive backup programs. It makes sense there–they need them for some of the functionality.

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I don’t have google drive backup but do use Photos, which makes me wonder whether that may be the ‘invitation’. It shouldn’t be. My Google account is screwed down as hard as I can make it while still allowing the things I want to work. Regardless this is steering away from Microsoft’s apps. I may be tempted to use PWAs for free versions of Word and Excel 365, which I do use occasionally despite having Office 2010.

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While Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides do appear in the Chrome Apps tab (as they are technically PWAs), they don’t appear in my start menu on Windows, nor do they appear in my Applications folder on Mac, unless I right-click on them and create a shortcut for them, in which case their icons will appear as a regular program.

I tolerate this, as I do use Google Drive and their services quite a bit, and it doesn’t take up a terrible amount of space, still being web-centric and otherwise a set-and-forget affair. I do not use Google Backup & Sync, just Google Chrome. I think they come bundled with Google Chrome, but you can uninstall them from the Chrome Apps tab, and reinstall them if needed from the Chrome Web Store (or maybe it’ll prompt you or something).

Though I should note that there *does* appear to be a little bit of a confusing overlap… Even though I supposedly have a Google Drive… something… enabled in my Chrome Apps tab, when I visit the Google Drive website, I still get a + icon in my address bar with an option to “Install Google Drive”, the PWA. Not too sure what’s the difference between the two.

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Those seem to have been on my computer since I installed Windows 10 1909, my first foray into Windows 10. Even though I installed without an Internet connection so I could make a local account and avoid installing those games.

It sits on the nearly unused right side of my start menu, as a folder with all the apps in them. I’ve not touched them, and actually wound up installing LibreOffice–though admittedly it was for the SVG editor that could handle converting a PDF that Inkscape could not.

I’m surprised that everyone doesn’t have this since they upgraded to 1909. I assumed it was there since it’s only after an Install that I can use WinAero Tweaker to (among other things) disable all advertising in Windows 10.

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more joy to come…with regards to browsers, this time they are taking functionality away!!
https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/15/microsoft-begins-manifest-v3-tests-in-edge-that-impacts-extensions-like-content-blockers/

Mozilla, and some Chromium-based browser makers such as Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave, reassured users that they would not follow Google’s lead on this.

hurrah for freedom of choice.
Never 10, Never Chrome, Never Edge 🙂

Keep IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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Windows 10 2004. 32-Bit. 10 year-old+. Toshiba Netbook. Incredibly slow, doing anything. Takes all day to install a latest version of W10.
I noticed the Office PWA installed. Which raises a smile; I’ve Office H&S 2007 already installed. I only use Word & Excel.
You don’t get much choice with W10. Previous OS’s were much more user oriented.
If I ever need the disc space, I’ll ‘uninstall’ ’em; then, watch ’em come back in ?
WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND !

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Are you on the Insider Program?
Exactly what version of 10? Win R, winver, Enter.

cheers, Paul

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FWIW. W10 2004. 19041.572

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Insider Program? That’s the only place the forced install is reported.

cheers, Paul

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Not surprised. Why they could not bring another app to their service withour our permission, if we all agreed in EULA? Its Microsoft product and Microsoft can do whatever he wants. This could raise Microsoft’s income, its some sort of marketing to me.

What surprises me is, that there is another version of Microsoft office? Isnt already the forest of products/servicies dense enough?

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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[doriel]

Previous OS’s were much more user oriented.

Nailed it, mr. Anonymous. Maybe your notebook could use some SSD, thats the way to go with Windows 10. Enormous bloat that Windows 10 get has two or three reasons/goals:

– Bloat is intentional: To sell more HW because old computers cannot handle this seven-headed-hydra
– Advertise its own products thus making more money
– Someone in Microsoft really thinks, that these feature upgrades are good.

For someone maybe.

Lets wait and see, if this can make it to the public release! Does not seem too secure in this era of malware wainting behind every corner, but why not have the app in browser? Seems like good idea, since browsers became must-have on every presonal computer.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by doriel. Reason: keep being positive, dont swear so much :)

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Cybertooth

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This is the #1 gripe/fear/concern about Windows 10.  How you can you really trust it whenever Microsoft can just “push” something to it without warning or consent?  What else can they (or do they) do?

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What else can they (or do they) do?

I would say everything. And trust is still here. Microsoft gave you a way to operate your PC. They provide reliable service 99% of the time. And dont forget. You LEASE your operating system. You are buying license (right) to USE their intellectual property.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Why is everyone surprised?  Microsoft 365 is coming.
(I think that means Microsoft wraps itself around you 360 degrees and then some)

It is only starting here. Be patient.
Eventually, Edge (or something similar – the only thing installed on your computer), will connect you to Windows (or something similar), running in a VM on Microsoft Servers in the Cloud, and everything else will be PWAs.

Those of you old enough will remember the days of MainFrames, thin clients, dumb terminals.
History reminds us, if we don’t learn from the past, it’s bound to repeat itself.
Didn’t we learn anything?

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Cybertooth, lurks about, doriel

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Those of you old enough will remember the days of MainFrames, thin clients, dumb terminals.

I remember concept of Network Computers (NC, opposite of PC) back in 1997. And Also Cytrix terminals. It would be very “Microsoftish” if they turn 180 degrees and started to develop such terminals.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Please, don’t remind of those nightmares. When the mainframe went done you were toast. You were also toast if the connection was ever lost some reason.

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doriel

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Now we are toast just every first three tuesdays in the month, when patches are apllied.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Cybertooth

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Please excuse my ignorance–which is due in part to my excessive tendency to read things very literally–but:

If something is a “web page”, how is it even possible, or necessary, for it to be “installed” on a device? (I don’t consider adding link to a website to a bookmark or “favorites” list to be an “installation”.

I’m aware of the difference between applications that require a browser plug-in or even an installed program (such as various Citrix applications) but use the browser to host a GUI, and applications that are entirely on the web and accessed by nothing more than a generic standards-compliant browser (such as Google Docs). According to Wikipedia, a progressive web app is supposed to be the latter. But I’m also aware that people throw these terms around interchangeably at times.

Can someone enlighten me about what is really being done here?

Thanks.

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A PWA is, essentially, a webpage saved as an app that can be listed in your Windows 10 Start menu.

Microsoft is encouraging Office PWAs, which could change how you work with apps

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doriel wrote:

What else can they (or do they) do?

I would say everything. And trust is still here. Microsoft gave you a way to operate your PC. They provide reliable service 99% of the time. And dont forget. You LEASE your operating system. You are buying license (right) to USE their intellectual property.

Definitely thinking you’re being sarcastic here ( =) ) but if I wanted an OS where everything was web-based, I’d have bought a Chromebook.

Definitely concerned Microsoft is going this route, and then piping heavier stuff (AutoCAD, games) through some sort of alternate abstraction layer specifically for those things, or that it will become some form of thin-client/VDI for the heavy stuff. That will leave me with no incentive to stay with them for an operating system, and honestly, I’ve wanted to. It seems like they just keep doing things to make IT/tech people hate them to see where the limit is, and because (maybe) they want to go the lazy route, as well as the “everything is now a subscription” model.

Why do that when I can just go to Ubuntu LTS or Debian, and say “enough is enough”? There’s only a few things I really want to see Linux do to make it easier for the end user and support people. If Microsoft wants to drag people into the Linux world, they may be cutting off their nose to spite their face after all these years, and while I don’t dislike Linux, I’ve never been an evangelist of it for the average user. That could change.

We are SysAdmins.
We walk in the wiring closets no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no malware may pass.
We engage in support, we do not retreat.
We live for the LAN.
We die for the LAN.

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doriel, NaNoNyMouse

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The claim now is the the PWA push is a ChrEdge bug and will be fixed by Microsoft (probably after caught red handed)

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Whose claim? Links / references please.

cheers, Paul

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[EP]

Alex5723 wrote:

The claim now is the the PWA push is a ChrEdge bug and will be fixed by Microsoft (probably after caught red handed)

Edge stable version 86.0.622.48 came out a few days ago.
not sure if that fixes the PWA bug

edit – I did a clean install of Win10 20H2 build 19042.572 on a test PC and those Office PWAs were there. so the problem occurs on 20H2 as well

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by EP.

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Paul T wrote:

Whose claim? Links / references please.

cheers, Paul

Bug in Microsoft Edge causes Office PWAs to be installed without your permission

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