Mozilla makes it easy to set Firefox as your default browser on Windows by bypassing Microsoft's security

We already know that Microsoft is making it hard for users to change their default apps in Windows 11. Browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are affected by this change. To make the process of changing the default browser easier on Windows, Mozilla has found an unofficial way.

With Firefox 91, Mozilla now offers a single click solution to set Firefox as your default browser on Windows 10 and Windows 11. Mozilla was able to do this by reverse-engineering the way how Microsoft allows Edge browsers to be set as default in a single click. With this method, Firefox is bypassing Microsoft’s anti-hijacking protections and it sets a dangerous precedent for other developers.

Here’s Mozilla’s comment regarding this approach:

“All operating systems should offer official developer support for default status so people can easily set their apps as default. Since that hasn’t happened on Windows 10 and 11, Firefox relies on other aspects of the Windows environment to give people an experience similar to what Windows provides to Edge when users choose Firefox to be their default browser.”

via: The Verge