# Any way to axe the Edge browser? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 21, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996 "2024-12-21T22:04:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/21 "2024-12-22T07:16:48Z")
Do you know what page is displayed when Edge mysteriously opens by itself? Is it on the Edge start page or some other URL? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/22 "2024-12-22T15:03:02Z")
Another vote for hitting the F1 button. It’s near the ESC key, you might be trying to hit it or another F key inside some program’s window but the focus isn’t where you think it is, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/23 "2024-12-22T22:23:00Z")
Seems to be some URLs she loaded before realizing it wasn’t Firefox and that asked for passwords she didn’t recall. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/24 "2024-12-22T22:51:42Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > > > She will go away for a while, come back and it has opened in the meantime. > > > [@Railer13](#): > > > > But this is bizarre. > > I agree. I can’t say for sure but sounds like the work of some malware or a virus. If your computer is doing things you never told it to do then something else is. > > Maybe her mouse is glitching and “clicking.” Hard to say without more info. Yeah. I use Windows 11 with chrome as my default browser. I also use edge for some stuff, so i usually have an edge widow up in the background. So my situation is different. But i never have edge randomly pop up. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/25 "2024-12-23T13:46:08Z")
Just want to pipe in that I will never, ever use Edge on principle alone, and on my Windows 11 machines I do periodically (like, once a month) find Edge randomly open on my machines (work and personal) and something asking me to make it the default. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/26 "2024-12-23T20:31:20Z")
I tried something different today. There are web sites that automatically update themselves\*. So when the edge browser showed up on her computer unbidden this morning, I closed every open site (there were a half dozen) instead of just closing Edge. Of course, at that point, Edge also closed. Will this work? Time will tell. If it hasn’t opened spontaneously by Christmas, I will assume that was it. - We get veggies delivered every Friday from a local roof-top farm operation at any time between 9 AM and 6 PM. They estimate a delivery time every Friday morning and continually update it through the day with no action on my part until it is delivered. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/27 "2024-12-25T20:45:07Z")
Can you not just make the appearance of Firefox distinctively different (themes, IIRC) so that it’s obvious which is being looked at? I did this with the work laptop, where the default browser has to be Edge in order to work certain programs, but I use Firefox for most other things. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/28 "2024-12-25T22:43:56Z")
I’d rather not get involved in that. So far, my latest fix (closing all the Edge tabs) seems to have worked. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2024, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/29 "2024-12-26T19:41:50Z")
I just was using **Mrs. FtG** ’s laptop. I was using the touchpad to hover over something to see what its popup was. Edge opened up, with that scary “Do you want to try Copilot? C’mon, all your friends are trying it. Or are you just chicken?” For some reason it also has a pane of “apps” that I never, ever use. (Gotta grab one of those debloat scripts to get rid of those.) I have no idea why using a touchpad to hover would bring it up. Must be moving my finger wrong. (As opposed to how I moved my finger after Edge opened.) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2024, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/30 "2024-12-26T19:49:13Z")
I wondered if co-pilot was triggering any of this, but I’m not sure. All the computers I have with co-pilot, I’ve disabled it in as many places as I can, down to disabling the co-pilot button on the keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2024, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/31 "2024-12-27T09:29:37Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Can you not just make the appearance of Firefox distinctively different (themes, IIRC) Not directly related to killing Edge, which is not my favourite browser\* but I succesfully used the “nuke it from orbit” option with my ex-girlfriends mother. Relationships might die, but tech support is forever. So her Windows was fucked. Too fucked to fix without a reformat/reinstall. But… I knew she only used it for email, Word, and internet. Therefore, i created a boot partition and installed Ubuntu Linux, and installed a theme that was based on Windows XP. I created symlinks to her Windows filesystem. I installed Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird. I then used some simple hacks to change the icons of those apps to be the same Windows icons as what she was used to, and … sorted. So easy, so satisfying. \* while Edge was not (and probably still is not) available on XP, she did have IE. I strongly suspect that much of her issues can be traced to one source: my girlfriend’s younger brother, at that time aged 13. Boys will be boys, after all. I did tell him the secret, and also about “private browsing” mode. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2024, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/32 "2024-12-27T12:58:45Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > So her Windows was fucked. Too fucked to fix without a reformat/reinstall. But… I knew she only used it for email, Word, and internet. > > Therefore, i created a boot partition and installed Ubuntu Linux, and installed a theme that was based on Windows XP. I created symlinks to her Windows filesystem. I installed Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird. > > I then used some simple hacks to change the icons of those apps to be the same Windows icons as what she was used to, and … sorted. So easy, so satisfying. I did that on my g/f’s xp laptop. Except i just totally zapped windows 'cos i couldn’t get it to dual boot. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2024, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/33 "2024-12-28T20:57:37Z")
Maybe if you changed the default Firefox colors and appearance to something very different from Edge’s your wife will see the obvious difference when an Edge window “randomly” opens and she can just close it. ETA: damn, damn, damn! @Mk_VII beat me to it. I thought since i had read about 25 of 32 posts I wouldn’t find myself “upstaged”. But no. Sorry. Still think its a good idea, though. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2024, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/34 "2024-12-28T22:35:54Z")
It is a good idea though. I will do it. My other idea of closing all the Edge windows (and not just the browser) did not work. Or maybe I will wait till my son visits in February. Believe it or not, he was on the Win-NT programming team and is now a Microsoft millionaire, so I cannot damn them too strongly. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996/35 "2024-12-31T10:08:55Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > > [@scudsucker](#): > > > > So her Windows was fucked. Too fucked to fix without a reformat/reinstall. But… I knew she only used it for email, Word, and internet. > > > > Therefore, i created a boot partition and installed Ubuntu Linux, and installed a theme that was based on Windows XP. I created symlinks to her Windows filesystem. I installed Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird. > > > > I then used some simple hacks to change the icons of those apps to be the same Windows icons as what she was used to, and … sorted. So easy, so satisfying. > > I did that on my g/f’s xp laptop. Except i just totally zapped windows 'cos i couldn’t > get it to dual boot. similar here … I am not certain, my kids all have it clear that they are using Linux Mint and not Windows … for 95% of all household use cases (browsing and netflix mostly) … clearly the better solution … once you get heavy into the office-suite - you are hosed and need windos [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-way-to-axe-the-edge-browser/1011996.md?page=1)