Microsoft Edge, the default internet browser that comes pre-installed on roughly 1.4 billion Windows PCs, is pretty darn good. Over the previous couple of years Microsoft has invested numerous money and time in increasing its options to compete with Chrome. So it’s a disgrace that I’ve to inform you, as soon as once more, that Microsoft is abusing its place because the writer of Windows to attempt to power its customers onto its first-party browser.

Earlier this week, some Windows customers discovered that each time they opened Chrome, the Windows default app settings window would open too. Some of them reported that the window would open each time they clicked a hyperlink within the browser, as long as Chrome was set to the default. The difficulty gave the impression to be particularly widespread for Windows Enterprise customers. Apparently it was an issue with the KB5025221 Windows replace issued in April, which broke Chrome’s one-click possibility to alter the default browser, a function Google launched final 12 months. Gizmodo stories that merely altering the title of the Chrome executable was sufficient to keep away from the problem, indicating that Microsoft’s replace particularly focused Chrome’s default button habits.

But that’s not the tip of the story. Just this morning Microsoft introduced {that a} new replace to the desktop variations of Outlook and Teams will force links to open in the Edge browser, ignoring the consumer’s default settings in the event that they’re assigned to a different browser. Not solely is it a flagrant abuse of Microsoft’s place because the writer of Windows and its related instruments, it’s blatantly ignoring Windows’ customers potential to set customized app associations with recordsdata and hyperlinks.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Pushing Edge (and previously Internet Explorer) on customers with these passive-aggressive techniques is nothing new for Microsoft. In reality it tried precisely the same tactic with the default Mail program 5 years in the past. The Settings menu for apps nonetheless begs you to strive Edge the primary time you alter the default browser, and making internet searches from the Start menu will ignore your default browser setting if it isn’t Edge. Edge nonetheless periodically nags you to alter your default while you open it, which is especially cheeky since apparently Microsoft has deliberately hamstrung Chrome’s potential to do precisely the identical factor.

But there’s a sure irony in these newest makes an attempt to push Edge on customers, only a few weeks after a Microsoft representative said, “We have taken and will continue to take steps to mitigate unrequested modifications to a user’s choices.” It doesn’t assist that final week Edge was caught sending user traffic data to Bing — an alleged bug that Microsoft patched shortly, however not shortly sufficient to offer a black eye to the corporate’s boasts of safety and privateness on the browser’s promotional page.

Microsoft, within the sensible if uncouth phrases of my Texan grandpa, “Don’t piss on my boots and tell me it’s raining.” Eight years after its introduction, and regardless of being put in on over a billion machines, Edge has just 10.95 percent of the desktop browser market — even lower than Apple’s Safari as of this month. It’s clear that no quantity of manipulative tips are going to power Windows customers off of their most popular browser, so it might be sensible to cease attempting.

To paraphrase another great Texan philosopher, “You’re not making Edge better, you’re just making Windows worse.”