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
TIL there are places in the world where you cant just uninstall edge.
Lucky them! :P
Laughs in EU (we can uninstall Edge)
you can change region to English(world) or something like that (or an EU country) to remove edge and not have it auto installed again
Show-offs. When will modern Linux catch up to this level of customization? That looks so much easier than what I had to do in order to make my Biebian desktop open everything in Edge.
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.
Been using this for years
You can also just use Edge Blocker:
https://www.sordum.org/9312/edge-blocker-v2-0/
…And if you do any of those things that would launch Edge in your face (like ye gods forbid, press F1 in a File Explorer window) it simply won’t work. Depending on the object in question either nothing happens at all, or you get a sad easily dismissable dialog box complaining that Windows couldn’t open Edge. This is also immensely helpful for anyone who has users in their life who kick and scream and tantrum whenever you change their browser for some reason and keep totally “accidentally” pivoting back to Edge in your absence.
You can also block the Edge webview component if e.g. you would like Steam not to work.
The fact this exists is but a temporary concession to human weakness in a fallen world.
It exists because too many people install and use versions with edge
laughs in GNU Linux
Yay they revived it (I remember using a similar tool when I was on Windows)
You should know there are better operating systems to use now, Like Nobara
That’s easy to say, but not everyone has the luxury of switching to Linux and investing the time in troubleshooting it. I can’t even develop my plugins properly on Linux as it is, and I’ve already spent too much time trying.
The people working on Nobara project have done 95% of the troubleshooting. Ive yet to have any issues since switching, even added a video capture card in a windows system and it didn’t work, put it on my sys running nobara and it worked after booting.
Sweet, I’ll have a look! Mint isn’t doing it for me.
LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX
Please edit this with one more LINUX, it is bugging me!
Fix the half-assed HDR support, and port the Nvidia App and Nvidia Control Panel. Then, and only then, will I finally switch.
Works fine in Nobara. Maybe not use nvidia since they dont give a fuck about anything but money.
Nvidia porting their apps is on them. They could make it open source, like AMD, but until then I’d recommend not buying their hardware if you can avoid it. They make everything proprietary, so you’re shit out of luck if you want something they don’t care about.
I wish I could switch back to AMD GPUs, but unfortunately I like Ray Tracing and RTX HDR way too much to go back. But in the 2000s and early 2010s AMD/ATi was my GPU maker of choice.
AMD does raytracing too. Nvidia has a slight lead for RTX, but my AMD card handles basically all the raytracing needs I have. The only time it hasn’t been sufficient is with CP2077, but I don’t even think the best Nvidia cards can max everything out on that yet, especially with mods.
Yeah but I play at 4K and don’t accept anything less than 90-120 FPS (with DLSS, of course, since no GPU can handle native 4K gaming). Nothing from AMD can keep up with my 4090 in the RT department without sacrificing FPS, despite it being 2 years old now.
Sure, if you’re spending the price of a single computer on just the GPU then yeah, Nvidia has the best (only) option. For everything/everyone else, AMD is perfectly competitive. Personally, almost all the games that use the power my GPU has I don’t care for. It’s only the AAA games that really push my card usually, and they’re boring as hell, though they do look pretty —if only that made the game fun…
YSK that you can just install Linux (Mint)
Funny thing is, I have and it was a terrible experience getting the thing to work, but I’m slowly getting over the other side hopefully with a decent distro.
Can I ask what you found terrible? Ive been getting into some FOSS contributions (for my own weird bugs) this year and I’d like to start addressing some of the issues people come across when they try out Linux
The Mint installer crashed multiple times and for multiple reasons when installing.
One time was for selecting the video codecs along with some other settings I can’t remember.
Then it also crashed because I backed out of the installation once for being unsure what to do, so the window crashed on me, and I ended up having to rename files on my thumb drive to get it to work again (???).
I also had to go digging to find that Safe Boot needs to be disabled, because it’s common knowledge to everyone except newcomers. It would’ve been nice if the installer had mentioned it at some point.
All in all, it was a total of like 4-5 failed attempts on my laptop. Not to mention the times I couldn’t get it to install on my tower for other reasons.
And on top of that, my wifi keeps disconnecting every time the computer wakes up, and I need to do a full restart or I can’t use the internet.
I also can’t get the Figma desktop version to work right because it doesn’t load the fonts correctly, and it needs a hacky workaround that I don’t have the time and patience for right now. I can’t imagine what else I need to fiddle with just to get on par with my Windows setup, so Linux has been set aside for now.
Why doesn’t anything like this exist for windows 11?
This does work for windows 11
Win 11 has Talon, which just rips out most of the Microsoft specific bs anyway.
Note: I don’t know enough about the script to say for sure that it is safe. And even if I did, I’m a stranger on the internet so you should do your own research before using ❤️
I keep running into this same deadend in my attempts to maintain decent digital hygiene. I’m always in the need to do more research before trying, but there’s no way to pretend I’ve gone through every code line and audit either. Ultimately I’m always left with whatever solutions are most suggested–recurring suggestions becomes my true filter/litmus test but I know this itself is soon to become it’s own non-solution.
Sorry, I should’ve included 11 in the title! The minimum requirement is 10. :)
MsEdgeRedirect is the first thing I install (after Firefox) on a new Windows 11 build.
