Microsoft Edge

File it under "what were they thinking". I've decided that I cannot stand Microsoft Edge. Well, not the home or welcome screen anyway.

A bug scare pulled me away from Chrome and, as only an occasional Microsoft Edge user beforehand, I never really thought much about it. Now I know. It's the platform for a hopeless, bullshit muddle of AI-curated non-stories and pointless adverts. It pretends to be helpful but is completely useless. Just tell me more about things that I don't care about and give me clickbait articles and pop ups that are of no interest to me. Are they of interest to any user? I doubt it. It's the most banal and low brow, insulting content you could imagine.

The thing that gets me is that it doesn't have to be like this. There could be good and interesting material on show, adverts that are subtle or at least well put together, credible news stories with meaningful headlines that aren't bulked out with what is, I presume, AI drivel. But no, it's a race to the bottom. Celebrity nonsense, crappy gossip, factoids and YouTube shorts links. Ugh. In summing up, this is how it all comes across ...

"Let's not even try to do anything good or even reasonable. We'll make everything as shit as we can. There you are. Thanks. Enjoy. It's what you all deserve. We could do better but you're just not important to us. You're only numbers and metrics and you need us. Of course there's good stuff out there, but we are the keepers of the gate and firstly you must pass through our pools of AI crap and multiple levels of clickbait ignorance in order to reach your desired destination."

While I'm on this mildly enjoyable rant I'd like to thank Admiral Car Insurance for a really unpleasant experience. It turns out that after being a good customer, no claims, paying up on time etc. but then cancelling a policy, one that's been running for about 20 years for good reasons, your final conversation is with a message bot who can't quite grasp that you're closing the account. Then when it does finally understand, it charges you £60 for the service. Nope. I doubt I'll be back - they do say customers can't be wrong.