We therefore analysed key user journeys across two OS versions (Windows 10 Home and Windows 11 Home) and four regions: the USA, India, the UK, and Germany, acting as a representative country within the European Economic Area.
We find that Microsoft still employs a number harmful patterns, including Trick Wording, Obstruction, Visual Interference, and Preselection across these user journeys. The effect is that Microsoft does not, in our expert opinion:
- allow users to download and install an alternative browser,
- allow users to set an alternative browser as their default, or
- respect users’ choice of default browser and allow them to continue using it,
without harmful interference. We find that these conclusions hold across all regions in our test cases. However, we find some regional variance exists, in particular that fewer harmful patterns were observed within the EEA region. This appears to be the result of regulatory pressure. Nevertheless, we note that some harmful patterns remain even in this region.