I haven’t seen a recent post about this.
This is a handy tool to have for anyone sick of Microsoft’s shit and those who are slowly transitioning out of their ecosystem. It forces Windows to open your default browser instead of Edge every time you accidentally click on certain links in the Start menu, the toolbar widget, or open the help page by pressing F1.
It’s simple to install and also lets you customize other actions shown below:
As shown in the image, the additional redirections include Bing Discover, Bing Search, MSN News, MSN Weather, Bing Images, PDF Viewer. Additionally, you can disable CoPilot, redirect Spotlight, Bing Chat, and Windows Store Apps.
Official site: MSEdgeRedirect.com
Its sad Windows users have to hack their OS they pay for.
It’s not exactly our choice. I got 7 for a huge discount back in school and I’ve been upgrading it for free. That’s around the time when I switched to Linux the first time and realized it wasn’t for me. I tried again a couple of months ago and it’s been a bit of a headache trying to get things to work. Installing this is way easier in comparison.
What hardware are you using?
If you have the right hardware for Linux, everything just kind of works these days in my experience. Nvidia can be a pain, so I stick to AMD. WiFi also has to be the right chipset.
Codecs can also be an issue because some have restrictive licensing, but there are easy ways to handle that too.
It wasn’t hardware-related, but rather software-related, which is puzzling. The installer kept crashing for various reasons, and I ended up trying to install it multiple times over a couple of weekends. Once I did, I found out I can’t work on my plugins with Figma desktop because the port is fucky with the fonts, and I can’t put my laptop to sleep without breaking my wifi until I restart. That’s been a showstopper for now until I finish these projects. It’s taking too much time trying to get things to work.
If you need help, there are lots of people who will kindly do so. You have to describe what didn’t work though. What distro were you using, and what was the issue?
Garuda has been a great out-of-the-box experience for me as a gamer. I have obviously added and removed things over time, but it was a trivial install (easier than Windows by far) and has a tool to install anything extra you might need (again, better than Windows). I’ve heard good things about CachyOS being similar too.
If people need to go on forums for help then it ain’t easier than Windows. You’re just swapping one inconvenience for another.
I’m a software engineer and I listened to you lot and removed windows and tried Linux again a few months ago.
Absolute shit show getting my Nvidia 4060TI to work. WiFi also had issues and would just randomly stop working.
Went back to windows for the 2 games I play.
I think a lot about where I would be in terms of being able to use Linux if I hadn’t spent all these years just trying to make windows not cancer
Well the best time to start Linux was 15 years ago the second best time is now.
For me, Linux wasn’t viable as a daily driver until Valve made gaming work.
But now that they have, it’s great.
Or you can just uninstall edge.
It’s no different from installing different modules in Linux.
That’s the problem. Whole point of windows is “you don’t have to modify stuff in roundabout ways like linux.”
If you meant kernel modules, not really, because they’re made in a way in which you’re supposed to be able to add/remove them. This definitely isn’t that. If they wanted to allow you to do this they would have just made it a setting. This is a hack, to change the way existing system functions work, not intended by the developers.
If you mean packages instead, then no. In no way is it similar to installing packages. Are you saying every application you install is the same as hacking into your system to redirect commands to do something they aren’t intended to do, like this is? What?
I know it’s not for the same reasons, but hacking your OS is a totally normal thing to have to do. It just makes us look like the stereotype when we act smug about it (and not the flattering stereotype where we all get katanas and tickets to redmond).
Windows sucks, the fact there’s an edge takeover at all is proof of that, but it doesn’t suck just because you have to hack it to get it to work.
Yeah it’s just realistic to think if you refuse to modify your pc microsoft will just set default to whatever makes them money over what’s convenient for you.
Weird take, but OK.
I know it’s a meme retort, but what about that was weird? The perception of elitism is one of the biggest reasons people don’t adopt linux; criticizing windows for it’s many spectacular flaws is a good thing to do, but “hacking” the OS to get it working is something we in the linux sphere do all the time (and most of us enjoy it, even). Besides that, using Group Policy or a registry flag to disable the edge takeover is arguably less hacky than the ritual bloodletting ceremonies I had to go through to get ARC drivers working in debian. Windows sucks, let’s just tell people the real reasons for it instead of setting them up for disappointment when they do eventually try linux and find that you still have to put effort into it if you’re doing anything nonstandard.
The big difference is that hacky shit in Linux almost always happens because of oversights, whereas Windows actively fights you on things you want to do. This means that a solution that worked for some forum poster 10 years ago has a pretty good chance of still working today (if it’s even still necessary), whereas Microsoft would see that fix as a bug and try to “patch” it. You would never have the fuck around like this just to get your default browser to be, y’know, the default.
Not to mention trying to troubleshoot Windows always means having to browse through a half dozen forum posts of people having your exact problem, but the only replies are some IT script that takes 3 paragraphs to tell you to reinstall whatever program, with no follow up when that inevitably doesn’t work.