I never intentionally open Edge. But Microsoft has planted little landmines in my computer which causes Edge to open up without me wanting it to.
Ideally, I’d like to delete Edge from my computer and block Microsoft from downloading it back into my computer. But if I can’t do that, is there any way I can lock down Edge so it never opens?
Don’t delete it, that’s likely to cause problems, if MS even allows you to.
Can you tell us about some of these ‘little landmines’ so we can try to reproduce the problem? The only time Edge launches itself on my computer is if I click on a link within the Windows OS. For example, if I go into settings and search for something, then click on one of the links under “Related Support”. There may be a way to override that with some changes to the registry, but I can’t say I’ve ever gone looking.
Beyond that, make sure your chosen browser is set as the default browser as well as edge not being set for any of the App Defaults. For example, make sure PDFs launch with Firefox or Adobe, but not edge.
You may have already done this, but go to “App Defaults” and make sure that Edge is not the selected app to open any kind of file. If you’ve already done that and still hit boobytraps, can you describe what kinds of things result in Edge coming up?
It happens when I move my mouse cursor around on the screen. There are apparently some invisible spots that launch Edge when you pass a cursor over them.
I just use this:
This is the big one. Microsoft really wants you to use Edge, of course, and it can be a bit of a pain to find and change all of those defaults, so that no other app opens Edge.
Interesting. Just moving your cursor? That’s an odd behavior (for your computer to open an app just because you’re moving your cursor), and I’ve never experienced it myself; it makes me wonder if you are unwittingly clicking a mouse/trackpad button when you are doing that.
Does this happen shortly after you turn the computer on, or throughout the day? I ask, because if it happens in the first 10 minutes or so, it may be that Edge is an application set to launch at startup (applications that launch at Startup, in my experience, can launch several minutes after startup, when I’m innocently doing other stuff like moving the cursor)
It happens at any time.
Oh how I hate it. I’m cruising along and then all of a sudden I find myself in Edge. “Wait a minute. What happened to my search engine”
Does Edge open to any particular webpage? Honestly, this sounds more like malware than an Edge problem per se.
Thanks. I don’t have any other ideas at the moment.
Good question; if it’s not opening to the MSN page, it does sound like something malicious is afoot.
(Well, even more malicious than Microsoft pushing Edge in the first place.)
I’m also curious if it opens to any particular web page. Like ASL_v2.0 said, it could be malware, but it could also be something like a hotkey you’re not aware of. Maybe, for example, a certain way you click the mouse, is now set to launch edge.
For example, I set my mouse so that clicking the scroll wheel launches the calculator.
I would hesitate to delete it. I was having a problem with my online grocery order and I called their help line who told me to try a browser other than Firefox. I tried Edge and it worked. The grocery’s web site is still badly done, but it works with Edge–sorta.
Yeah, there’s never been—and as far as I know, shouldn’t be—anything for me that gets triggered just from moving the mouse cursor around.