Latest update silently improves changing default browsers

Mar 29, 2022 15:57 GMT  ·  By

We’ve known for a while that changing the default browsers on Windows 11 wasn’t necessarily the most straightforward experience, and many accused Microsoft of deliberately making the process more complicated in an attempt to convince users to stick with Microsoft Edge.

While it’s impossible to tell if this is true or not, it goes without saying that such controversy isn’t something that helps Microsoft and Windows 11 in the long term.

In fact, it does exactly the opposite, as users end up even more frustrated, eventually giving up on more Microsoft software as a method of protest.

The good news is that Microsoft appears to have received the message, so the company finally resolved this major Windows shortcoming in the latest cumulative update shipped to Windows 11 devices this week.

Just a small part of a bigger problem

As discovered on reddit, all it takes to change the default browser on Windows 11 right now is just one click, as the setting takes care of all extensions (except for PDF) that would be typically handled by a browser.

But while this is clearly a welcome change, Microsoft still has a lot of work to do on this front. Windows 11 users should be allowed to change the default apps for handling all the other file types, no matter if we’re talking about audio, video, or documents.

Most likely, Microsoft is already aware this has to be done, but for the time being, the company seems to stick with baby steps even though, at least theoretically, this shouldn’t take too long to implement.

Meanwhile, it’s important to keep in mind this latest cumulative update that contains the change is just an optional release, so the new way of setting another default browser on Windows 11 will become available for everybody next month as part of the Patch Tuesday cycle.

If you want to try it out today, just head over to Windows Update and manually download this optional update.