They fixed this with Windows 10, actually. Which of course, upset people because it defaults people to Edge, and asks people to give Edge a try when they change it.
The old hatred flares up every time Windows 10 asks me if I'm really really sure I don't want to default Edge as my browser, or "accidentally" changes it.
This happened to me at work recently and I genuinely lost my shit for a few minutes. Started ranting a bit with colleagues. We all hate it. There's an option in there somewhere to flip it back to the system default but then you need to make sure Edge doesn't magically become your default during some update or whatever. Hate it so much.
I'd be happy to give Edge a chance but honestly Windows has so many anti-user patterns that it's intentionally forcing me to not use Edge because of how mad it's making me.
It's all the more infuriating when you consider how Windows 10 throws a hissy fit if you should dare to change your default browser from Edge to something else.
I refuse to use it out of spite in response to how hard Microsoft has tried to force Edge down everyone's throat:
resetting the default to Edge after a windows update, making start menu searches go to edge regardless of the default browser, etc.
I use Windows 10/11 daily. The number of times Edge was "forced on me": 0 The number of times Edge launched when I expected or wanted my default browser (Firefox): 0 The number of times my browser default was reset to Edge: 0
I just don't understand this outrage. I spend 90% of my time in Firefox/Chrome - I've only started using Edge lately to play with Bing "AI" Chat. I had to search for it!
There's also the dark bit where changing your default browser in Windows doesn't apply globally.
That is, some UI widgets will still open Edge even if you change the default.
There used to be an awesome open source project called EdgeDeflector that would fix that. Microsoft got wise to it and found a way to neutralize it, which killed the project. https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector
Last time I tested an extension of mine on Edge, I counted four or five distinct ways Windows and Edge tried to convince or coax me into setting Edge as default. (Coaxing includes but isn’t limited to full-screen one-click “finish setting up your computer” on boot which includes adopting “Microsoft-recommended” browser security settings which of course means resetting the default browser. It appeared on every reboot until someone told me about a setting to disable it.) Mind you, the four or five ways I encountered were from using Windows 11 Pro normally or opening Edge briefly; I’m not even counting additional conditional shenanigans like special banner on chrome.com, or asking you to use Microsoft everything (including on mobile devices) to bump up your position in Bing Chat waitlist.
The brazenness and shamelessness is really appalling.
I'm pretty happy with the default app situation on windows tbh - sure a fresh install is loaded with edge and warns you about switching off of it... but once you do you can forget it even exists - ditto with pretty much everything else.
Sounds like some high level product manager from Edge forced this decision on the Windows team. It makes no sense why they wouldn't respect a user's default settings. People configure a multitude of addons and customizations in their default browser, to completely bypass that seems like a poor customer experience.
Even respecting the settings. Every time Windows gets an update it asks me if I want to change my Edge settings, the first couple of times I didn’t pay attention and it changed my default search engine and started showing the useless news thumbnails that I explicitly took the time to hide.
I’ll need to reconsider Chrome or Firefox, which is a shame since I really liked some Edge’s features.
For a while I was changing my browser back and forth between firefox versions. Every single time windows 10 would detect that change and 'protect' me from it by opening the default programs control panel and setting the default browser to Edge.
It makes sense if they want the default browser to require user confirmation to change. But setting it to Edge in the meantime? That's just being rude and anti-customer.
I hate this, though it is a kind of poetic justice for the way Windows 10 fights tooth and nail to keep you from switching your default browser away from Edge.
Considering how Windows 10 until very recently pitched an absolute fit when the user tried to change the default browser away from Edge, I'm gonna go with the latter.
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