Microsoft Edge Gets New Anti-Chrome Pop-Ups - ExtremeTech

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Google Chrome owns the lion’s share of the browser market, and it’s been that way for years. It’s hard for anyone to carve out a niche when Google is on top, but maybe Microsoft’s lack of success has a little something to do with its own questionable decisions. In the latest installment of “Microsoft begs you not to download Chrome,” the company has added cheeky pop-up alerts that appear if you search for Google’s browser in Edge.

The pop-ups aren’t appearing in everyone’s browsers, but they are appearing frequently for folks running the latest Windows 11. Some Windows 10 users have reported seeing them as well. This isn’t the banner at the top of Bing — that’s been present for everyone since early in the Windows 10 era. No, the new alert is a system dialog box produced by Edge. So, it overlaps the content and looks important enough that people will pay attention to it. You can ignore it, but it’s on top of things and has alluring buttons to click.

The wording of the pop-up varies, but some of the common ones, as collected by Neowin, include:

“Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft.”
“That browser is so 2008! Do you know what’s new? Microsoft Edge.”
“I hate saving money,’ said no one ever. Microsoft Edge is the best browser for online shopping.”

So, there are some things to unpack here. First, Microsoft cannot simultaneously claim Chrome is “so 2008” and that running on “the same technology as Chrome” is a good thing. Well, it can, but it should not. And then there’s the money-saving angle. Edge already has reward points for searching and shopping, and Microsoft is working to add Zip purchase financing to the browser. If Microsoft is really going to push the shopping/reward angle, then the Zip integration starts to make a little more sense. Not for you — for Microsoft’s bottom line.

Microsoft is not new at nagging users about Edge. In the heyday of Windows 10, it added a number of pop-ups, warnings, and messages telling people to try Edge. When that didn’t work, it redesigned Edge with a Chromium base, and here we are again. Now Windows 11 is pestering us to use Microsoft’s browser. As if that’s not enough, it has also made it harder to change the default browser in the new OS. If Microsoft wants people to rely on its software, maybe it should stop making it harder to use just because it doesn’t like that Google’s browser is more popular.

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