14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft trying to convince users to stick with its very own Microsoft Edge browser in Windows 10 isn’t a new thing, but it now looks like this approach has a received another silent refresh.
One reddit user has recently revealed that Microsoft is now trying to steer them away from Firefox using the built-in search feature in Windows 10.
As you can see in the screenshot here, searching for Firefox on a Windows 10 computer makes Microsoft Edge the first result, while Mozilla Firefox, which is actually the app that matches the searched keyword, is displayed the second.
Microsoft Edge thus becomes the “best match,” as the Windows 10 search tool lists it, with a right pane indicating it’s the browser recommended by Microsoft. Launching Edge obviously opens a set as default prompt that would essentially replace any other browser as the default in Windows 10.
Microsoft Edge in Windows 10
Such tactics have never been received well by the user community, though there’s a chance they might actually be effective in the case of beginners who trust Microsoft and its recommendations.
However, third-party statistics show there aren’t a lot of them, as Microsoft Edge has a share of a little over 4 percent, while leader Google Chrome tops the charts with more than 65 percent share. This means that the majority of Windows 10 users give up on Edge anyway, and Google Chrome and Firefox are their preferred alternatives.
I haven’t been able to reproduce this search suggestion in Windows 10 April 2018 Update, Windows 10 October 2018 Update, and the latest Windows 10 19H1 preview build, so there’s a chance that only a limited set of users actually see Microsoft’s recommendation.
Nevertheless, these tactics making the headlines can’t do anything good to Microsoft’s browser push, no matter if other companies do the same thing or not.