Windows 11 has been a hot topic ever since its release on October 5th, 2021. Many awesome new features make the user experience much better than on Windows 10. However, there are also a few things that users aren’t fans of, such as the difficulty of changing the default browser.
You may remember that with Windows 10, you could easily change your default browser with the click of a button. However, when Windows 11 was released, this feature was taken away. Microsoft probably did this to keep as many users on Edge as possible. However, it also stirred up quite a bit of anger among Windows users and competing browser developers.
Introduced in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509
Now, just a couple of months after the initial release of Windows 11, reverse engineer Rafael Rivera has noticed that Microsoft once again added this feature to their software in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509.
This feature still hasn’t been released to all Windows users. Only members of the Windows Insider Program can currently try it out, but Microsoft is expected to release the feature more widely in the near future.
Nobody is saying that Edge is a bad browser. It’s one of the best choices out there. It has a very nice design, plenty of great features, and is one of the most secure browsers out there (although to make your device as secure as possible, you might want to download some additional Windows Security apps).
However, users still want to have a choice as to which browser they have as their default, making this a very welcome change in Windows 11.
How does it work?
With this update, all you need to do to change your default browser on Windows 11 is go to settings > apps > default apps, and then choose whatever browser you want to be your default.
This is a huge relief for those who wanted to change their browser on Windows 11 before. To do so, you would need to manually change the default app for HTM, HTML, HTTPS, and other file types. Most people didn’t bother with this. So Microsoft’s attempt at keeping as many people on Edge as possible was successful for a while.
Microsoft continues to encourage users to choose Edge over other browsers
It isn’t surprising that Microsoft would prefer users to choose Edge over competing browsers. Even though it will soon be easier to change default browsers on Windows 11, Microsoft is not backing out on attempts to get as many users to use Edge as possible.
For example, when users visit the Chrome download page on Edge, they receive a bunch of prompts telling them why Edge is better than Chrome. One of the prompts says that “Chrome is so 2008” and that Edge is a much better choice.
Despite these prompts and other techniques Microsoft employs to attract a larger user base for Edge, this new update will allow users to make their own decisions regardless of Microsoft’s preferences, which is a big win for Windows users.
