When Microsoft launched Windows 11 in late 2021, it did not only block millions of Windows PC owners from updating to the operating system, it also made the use of Microsoft Edge mandatory for certain operations.
Want to open support articles? Edge is required. Web search results? Edge is required. Links to articles and other content in Widgets? Edge is required.
Setting another browser to the system default did not change any this.
Then came MSEdgeRedirect. An open source tool that promises to redirect hardcoded content for Edge to another browser. While Microsoft did try to make the tool unusable, it did survive.
A new version of MSEdgeRedirect is now available. It comes just a week after the integration of Europe Mode. Europe Mode enables everyone to set the geographic location of the operating system to one of several European countries.
Along with the change come abilities to remove Microsoft Edge and Bing Search, and gain control over other areas as well.
The newest update as another redirect option to the application: the ability to redirect MSN Discover content to another browser.
MSEdgeRedirect: modes explained
The application supports a wide range of redirect options. Before you get access to these, you need to select the mode of operation. There are three main options to choose from:
- Europe Mode — This mode makes native changes to the system to set the region to a country in the European Economic Area. It gives you more control over Windows and includes the option to remove Microsoft Edge for good.
- Service Mode — The application runs in the background to pick up any Edge link and redirect it to the desired target. Quite taxing for the system (developer says 1-10% CPU usage while running).
- Active Mode — Runs the app instead of Microsoft Edge when links specific for Edge are opened.
If you picked Service or Active Mode, you may configure redirects on the next screen.
All Redirects
The application supports all variants of Microsoft Edge — Stable, Beta, Dev and Canary — and may do its magic regardless of which variant is installed.
Here is the list of available redirects:
- Bing Discover — content that “Bing” believes is of interest.
- Bing Search — web searches using Windows Search.
- MSN News (Alpha) — news content displayed as a widget in Windows Widgets.
- MSN Weather — weather content displayed on the taskbar and as a widget.
- Bing Images — images provided by Bing.
- PDF Viewer — change from Edge to another PDF viewer on the system.
- Bing Chat — option to redirect Bing Chat.
- Disable Windows CoPilot — turn the feature off.
- Redirect Windows Store ‘Apps’ — don’t open them in the Microsoft Store.
You may configure all of these individually. Note that replacements vary depending on the type of content. Usually, you get multiple options to choose from, including a custom option.
Verdict
MSEdgeRedirect is an open source tool that gives users control over certain functionality that Microsoft decided to restrict. There aren’t any technical limitations for these restrictions. It appears to be an attempt by Microsoft to push its services over others, even at the expense of user control and choice.
Apart from not using these services, which works really well, you might give MSEdgeRedirect a try if you use some of them.
The latest version is available on the project’s GitHub repository. Note that you may get a SmartScreen security warning when you run the program on Windows. It is safe to use, so don’t worry about that.
Now You: do you use Windows 11?