Microsoft blocks other Internet browsers from opening Edge links

When Microsoft introduced the Windows 10 operating system on July 29, 2015, one of the things that was new was the classic version of the Edge Internet browser, which replaced the outdated and unpopular Internet Explorer. But somehow they seem to be making identical mistakes in the American company.

To give Edge a boost, Microsoft decided to create a "Microsoft-edge: //" protocol and began using it in some internal applications. The protocol is designed to open links exclusively in Edge, which would then display the content and at the same time ask the user to set it as the default browser.

In Windows 11, Microsoft introduced a brand new chromium-based Edge. Just like its classic version, it is "pushed" through the exclusive use of the "Microsoft-edge: //" protocol. That's not all, the "News" and "Interests" widgets in Windows 10 and the widgets in Windows 11 use only the "microsoft-edge: //" protocol. And here comes the problem. The ability to open these links by another browser has been blocked.

In addition, to make things even less user-friendly and complicated, Microsoft has changed the way you set up your default browser. In Windows 10, users could set another browser as the default, and it would open all the links that browsers can open, with the exception of locked Microsoft-Edge links.

In Windows 11, Microsoft removed that simple option. It is up to the users to enter each protocol individually. If the user wants to completely switch from Edge to another browser, he must manually set up HTTP, HTTPS, HTML, PDF, WebP, SHTML, FTP, HTM, Mailto, News ...

All of these changes have a simple goal - to increase the share of Edge browser usage. Because there is no technical reason to use an internal protocol.

Fortunately, programs like Edge Deflector or Search Deflector were created to "unlock" the "Microsoft-edge: //" protocol, so it's not all that bad. In addition, Brave and Firefox have begun implementing similar functionality to improve the process of setting them up as the default browser in Windows 10 and 11.

But these are incidental and complicated solutions, which are run because of problems created by Microsoft. The same moves took people away from Internet Explorer, but obviously, nothing has been learned from it. Therefore, the community will have to put pressure on Microsoft to make the necessary changes, adapt to the modern and more open age ...