MSEdgeRedirect is a tool that allows to be the user and not Microsoft who selects the browser they want to use regardless of the content they handle in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Open source and free, it has just be updated and is available in your GitHub repository .
We start 2022 and continue with the same film as in previous years. Microsoft is leveraging Windows’ huge share of desktop computing to drive adoption of its own applications. And not always respecting the choice of users or complicating it through the known “dark patterns” or other techniques that by action or omission make it difficult to use alternatives.
In this case we are talking about Edge . Microsoft has adopted aggressive behavior to push its web browser. And we insist again: it was not necessary because the new version based on Chromium is the best browser ever created by the Redmond firm and has enough arguments to please any user without the need for tricks and opening what which is turning into a new browser ‘war’.
We have already informed you of the changes implemented in Windows 11 for the selection of applications that open each type of file by default and specifically for what concerns the web browser. In previous systems you only had to select your favorite browser. For Windows 11, Microsoft has made relevant changes, since it is necessary to make this choice for each type of extension and protocol associated with the browser. Something that very few of us are going to do.
In addition, the system forces to use the Edge browser for different actions such as the links of the news widget and other components. Here, only Microsoft’s browser can handle the protocol that controls it without allowing third-party applications to handle it.
MSEdgeRedirect
Alternative browsers such as Firefox and Brave implemented their own interception code to prevent Microsoft from forcing the use of Edge when opening links. And tools like EdgeDeflector were created to prevent this anti-competitive behavior. Both methods were blocked by Microsoft .
MSEdgeRedirect does something similar and has just been updated to be more useful. This tool uses a different method of interception and redirection of specific Edge links compared to others and that is why it continues to work. The developers explain that: “ This tool filters and passes command line arguments from Microsoft Edge processes to your default browser instead of connecting to the microsoft-edge driver.”
Although MSEdgeRedirect is an easy to use utility (“set it and forget it”), the Windows SmartScreen filter may try to block it. You can ignore any warning, as is a safe and open source tool to use .
How long will it work? Its execution mode should give it greater resistance than EdgeDeflector to changes from Microsoft. It is unheard of that the user has to be installing this type of software to be able to choose their favorite browser, but that’s how we are. Microsoft should not decide for the user himself . And it all starts from there, taking advantage of Windows’ huge market share to power its own applications.
We signed the Mozilla comment: «Users deserve options. They should have the ability to set default values simply and easily and their choice of default browser should be respected. ‘