This time, the controversy surrounds Microsoft Edge. While Edge is one of the best browsers on the market, some users might want to use, let’s say, Firefox as their default web browser. Till now, this was prohibitively hard to do on Windows 11.
Thankfully, things are now changing. Let’s see how.
Microsoft Is Testing an Easier Way to Set the Default Browser in Windows 11
Spotted by the Twitter user Rafael Rivera, Microsoft has pushed out an update to the Settings menu, allowing users to change default browsers with a single button click. The feature is only available for Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509 that was pushed out to the Dev channel last week.
Talking to The Verge, vice president of Windows marketing, Aaron Woodman, confirmed the change by explaining:
After forcing Windows 11 users to use Microsoft Edge, this is a welcome change from Microsoft. And while the feature is currently only available to Windows Insiders, it will eventually be made available to everyone.
Microsoft Still Needs to Work on Making Windows 11 Truly Open Platform
Allowing users to set default browsers easily is a small step on the road to making Windows 11 truly user-oriented. For instance, Microsoft is still trying to stop users from downloading Google Chrome.
Unless these practices are abandoned, Windows will never feel like the user-first ecosystem that the company wants it to be.
Edge Is a Great Alternative to Google Chrome
Microsoft’s shady tactics aside, Edge is an awesome browser. It does almost everything that Chrome does, including supporting extensions, while consuming far fewer resources. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go.
