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  • Microsoft Edge will no longer trick you into thinking it's Chrome

Summary

  • Microsoft Edge copies Chrome tabs after Windows update, without user consent, harming Edge's reputation further.
  • Users should be cautious of Microsoft's prompts during setup to protect privacy and decline unwanted features.
  • Microsoft claims the behavior was a bug and has fixed it, but may struggle to convince users it was unintended.

Microsoft Edge, by itself, is a pretty good browser. However, as much as the company does its best to add new features to it, Microsoft ends up shooting itself in the foot with Edge. Now, the company may have harmed Edge's reputation even further, after it was caught copying user's Chrome tabs and opening them within Edge after a Windows update.

Microsoft Edge caught "stealing" Chrome tabs

As reported on The Verge, people have noticed that Microsoft Edge will sometimes automatically boot itself up after a Windows update. Microsoft Edge will then open all the tabs the user had open in Chrome before they applied the update. These people claim that they had Chrome set as their default browser and did not knowingly enter any agreement saying that Microsoft Edge was allowed to look at and copy their Chrome browsing data.

In a reply to an X post about this strange occurrence, someone posted an image showing how Microsoft gained access to third-party browser data:

The original author of the Verge article stated that they had no recollection of enabling such a feature, but "the prompt appeared but disappeared in less than a second, so it’s possible this dialog crashed and Edge decided to do the import anyway." As such, whether you're updating Windows or setting up a new laptop, it's worth keeping note of all the dialogs that Microsoft shows you during setup. Declining features like this is key for any privacy-minded user; that is if you get the chance to decline it.

UPDATE: 2024/02/16 19:07 EST BY SIMON BATT

Microsoft Edge will no longer trick you into thinking it's Chrome

If you've noticed that Microsoft Edge has been stealing your Google Chrome tabs lately, never fear. Microsoft has announced that this behavior was a bug, and has already fixed this behavior on Microsoft Edge's stable version. This will prevent it from happening on the regular version of the browser.

As reported by The Verge, Microsoft did not respond to questions on why Microsoft Edge was doing this in the first place. However, in the patch notes posted on Microsoft Learn, the company states the following:

Edge has a feature that provides an option to import browser data on each launch from other browsers with user consent. This feature’s state might not have been syncing and displaying correctly across multiple devices. This is fixed.

This explanation does track; as stated in the original article, Microsoft Edge does have a feature that imports Chrome's data into Edge. And the original author of the X post claimed that a dialog box did crash, which may have been the bug that Microsoft claims it just fixed. However, the company is going to have a hard time convincing people that this was unintended behavior, and not just another one of Microsoft's shady acquisition tactics for Edge.