💻-🖥️ Disable Microsoft Edge
| TYPE | AUDIENCE | PRIORITY | COMPLEXITY | EFFORT | COST | UPDATED |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preparation | 🧑 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐ | 🧑 | 🆓 | 2021-06-13 |
Rationale
Browsers are the applications by which we access the internet. By using a browser which excels in both security and privacy, our online activity and data are protected from third-party monitoring and theft. Brave or Firefox are two of the best performing browsers in these aspects, in addition to having great usability. That is why we recommend using either of them, and Removing Google Chrome (which collects your data), Disabling Microsoft Edge (trailing in security and features) and avoiding Apple Safari (trailing in security features).
Instructions
What you should know
- Microsoft Edge isn't nearly the worst browser anymore - but it's still trailing behind in some security features we recommend as part of our 💻-🖥️ Setup a Secure Browser guide.
- It's actually quite difficult to remove Edge from Windows 10, so this guide will just focus on disabling it so it doesn't accidentally get used.
- The solution presented here is not permanent - it needs to be replied every time Windows updates and reinstall Edge (every 6 weeks). But luckily the steps are simple.
What you should do
1. Rename the Explorer Folder
- Open "File Explorer"
- Navigate to "C:\Windows\SystemApps"
- Locate the folder named “Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe”
- Rename the folder; for example, by appending
_DISABLEDto the end of the folder name.
- If you followed this naming example, the full path of the Microsoft Edge folder should now be
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe_DISABLED
This should disable the browser in the short-term, but a future update to Windows 10 may revert this name change to the Edge folder and re-enable the browser.
advanced👩💻 - There are other ways in which Edge tries to sneak back in, if you want to prevent Edge from using recoursed in the background, follow the steps in Cloudwards Guide from "How to Stop Edge from Launching Automatically on Login" onwards.advanced👩💻 - If you have time and you still insist on removing rather than disabling Edge, you can follow one of the three methods in this Cloudwards Guide.
Sources : Cloudwards