14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s new Edge browser is based on the Chromium engine, the same as Google Chrome, and this gives the company the opportunity to make a better case for its application when comparing it to all the other alternatives.
But the software giant is pushing even harder for Microsoft Edge, and more recently, the company has started showing ads in the Start menu whenever someone types the name of an alternative browser.
Microsoft calls these ads “recommendations,” and this is the reason the Microsoft Edge entry that shows up when typing “Chrome” in the Start menu is listed as a “recommended” app.
But as it turns out, this Start menu ad seems to target only a limited number of devices – no Microsoft Edge Start menu ad is offered on my laptop running Windows 10 (already updated to the May 2020 Update), but it does on my main PC running Windows 10 version 1909. If the new Edge isn’t installed on the device, it looks like users are provided with a download link to get it on Windows 10.
Cross-platform browser
The Chromium-powered Microsoft Edge is the new default browser on Windows 10, as it replaces the legacy version once it is installed. Furthermore, the new Edge is offered to Windows 10 devices via Windows Update.
The migration to Chromium allowed Microsoft to bring the new browser to more than just Windows 10, so Edge is now available on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and macOS. A Linux version is also in the works, but no ETA is known just yet.
This isn’t the first time when Microsoft is trying to steer people away from other browsers using such tactics. On Windows 10, a similar “recommended” tag is also displayed in the Default apps screen in Settings when trying to replace Microsoft Edge with a different application like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Via TechDows