14 DAY TRIAL // The Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser is still a work-in-progress, but both the official releases in the Dev, Canary, and Beta builds and the leaked versions making the rounds occasionally provide us with an early look at what’s to come when the app reaches the final development stage.
For example, the leaked installer for the stable version of the browser appears to suggest that Microsoft might actually block users from removing the application from Windows 10 devices when this release finally lands.
Discovered by TechDows, the lack of an uninstall option for Microsoft Edge could make sense at some level, especially when thinking that this would become the new native browser in Windows 10, replacing the existing version of the browser already bundled in the OS.
However, it’s worth emphasizing that this is just a leaked build of Microsoft Edge stable and a lot could change by the time Microsoft finalizes the development of the browser.
Microsoft Edge coming in early 2020
At this point, Microsoft is offering Windows and macOS preview versions of the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, and the stable build is expected in the coming months.
It’s believed that the new browser could replace the existing Edge as the new default in Windows 10 in the 20H1 feature update which is due in the spring of 2020.
The existing preview builds of Windows 10 20H1, currently available for Windows insiders in the Fast ring, however, do not come with such a change, as the original EdgeHTML version of the browser is still the default option.
While Microsoft will make it more difficult to uninstall Microsoft Edge from Windows 10, getting rid of the browser certainly won’t be impossible. It remains to be seen if Microsoft wants to go for this extreme approach, but given that the discovery is based on a leaked build, everything can change overnight by the time the new browser launches.