14 DAY TRIAL // Edge is now the default browser in Windows 10 after so many years with Internet Explorer, so Microsoft's working very hard to get this one right and actually deliver a more powerful alternative to Firefox and Chrome.
One of the ways to actually improve Edge is to concentrate on its security, and in a post today the company says that the security of the application has been significantly strengthened with the latest Windows 10 Threshold 2 OS release.
And the recent updates that Microsoft has rolled out for Edge browser bring new protection systems against binary injection, which basically means that toolbars and other browser add-ons can no longer be installed without you specifically selecting that you agree with it.
No other browser has such an advanced security system, Microsoft praises, which makes Edge one of the best options in this regard.
It's not a secret that nearly a decade ago, DLL injection was one of the main attack methods employed against Internet Explorer users, as this allowed for more complex browser exploits that in the end helped compromise a Windows computer. This is one of the reasons so many people described Internet Explorer as such an insecure application, and we all know that in the end, all this criticism significantly impacted users' perception over Microsoft's browser.
EdgeHTML 13
But browser add-ons such as toolbars are now a thing of the past thanks to the improvements that Microsoft made in EdgeHTML 13.
“Starting with EdgeHTML 13, Microsoft Edge defends the user’s browsing experience by blocking injection of DLLs into the browser unless they are Windows components or signed device drivers. DLLs that are either Microsoft-signed, or WHQL-signed, will be allowed to load, and all others will be blocked,” the company explained.
“'Microsoft-signed' allows for Edge components, Windows components, and other Microsoft-supplied features to be loaded. WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Lab) signed DLLs are device drivers for things like the webcam, some of which need to run in-process in Edge to work. For ordinary use, users should not notice any difference in Microsoft Edge.”
In other words, if you're already on Windows 10 Threshold 2 and using Edge browser, the new protection system is running in the background, and although you might not notice anything new, your computer is more secure against malicious browser add-ons.