Microsoft Edge feels like a billboard more than a browser, which is why I’ve never used it as my default. Recently, though, I installed Windows on a laptop that was too old to run even a regular browser, so I ended up spending some time with Edge. Turns out, it can be a solid browser with a few tweaks.
Remove the Junk from Edge First
On the first launch, Microsoft Edge throws an entire flashing MSN feed at you with weather, video, and news. There is a default background with some default site shortcuts you probably don’t care about. Click the gear icon on this page to get rid of this mess. Select “off” for quick links to disable those site shortcuts. This gets rid of ads too.
Next, turn off “Show Content,” “Show Widgets,” and “Show Feed.” You can disable the weather here too if you like. You can even set a custom page that opens here instead of the Microsoft dashboard. Click the three dots, open Settings, and go to “Start, Home, and New Tab Page.” Click Open Custom Sites, and add your site.
Microsoft also embeds Copilot (its AI assistant) into Edge by default, but does not provide an easy way to disable it. The toggles for the Copilot AI are scattered across the entire UI, so the best way to turn it off is to search for it.
Click the three dots on the top to open Settings and then search Copilot in the Settings search. Alternatively, you can go to Appearance > Copilot and sidebar to access most of these settings. One toggle is in the New Tab Page menu too. By default, Microsoft has enabled a shopping service on Edge that tracks your browsing habits to suggest coupons and deals. Search shopping in the settings menu or go to Privacy, Search, And Services > Search and Connected Experiences to disable it.
Finally, under Settings > Profiles, disable Microsoft Rewards.
Customize Edge and Make it Yours
The default search engine here is Bing, but you can set it to any search engine you like. In Settings, open Privacy, Search, and Services > Address Bar and Search. You can use the drop-down menu to choose a default engine.
If your favorite search engine doesn’t appear here, you can add it yourself. Click “Search Engines” and then “Add Search Engine,” and give it your search engine’s URL. I’m adding Ecosia here.
Now when you go back to the search engine selector, your newly added web search engine should show up. Make it the default. Edge gives you a ton of flexibility in terms of themeing, down to changing the context menus and toolbars. Let’s start by changing the theme. Open Settings > Appearance. For a simple color change, you can use the color picker or the preset colors to apply a basic theme. You can also visit the Edge Add-on Store and browse the selection of themes available there.
There’s a link to an AI theme generator too, but it never works for me. The link is always down. The customization I actually appreciate is the way Edge lets you rearrange the UI itself. It’s something like Vivaldi’s UI building, but a little less robust. First thing, let’s switch to a vertical layout for the tabs. Either search for vertical tabs in the settings menu and toggle them on or click the grouped tabs icon and enable vertical tabs.
Go to Settings > Appearance > Toolbar to change which shortcuts appear next to the address bar (on the right). I like keeping Extensions, Downloads, and Screenshot here.
You can also decide the bookmarks bar behavior here. Go back to the Appearance menu and scroll down for other settings. You can also change the fonts and font sizes here. Change the default zoom size to fit your monitor more comfortably.
Under Appearance > Browser Behavior and Features, you can set up some mouse gestures too, for closing tabs, scrolling, refreshing, and going back and forth between pages. I prefer keyboard shortcuts, but it’s pretty handy when I’m using the touch screen.
Limit Telemetry and Tracking
Out of the box, Edge has a loose tracking and privacy configuration. To harden its privacy settings, open Settings > Privacy, Search, and Services > Tracking Prevention, and enable it. Choose “Strict” for the standard.
Now navigate back and open the Privacy menu. Disable every toggle you see here. We will also disable background activity for this browser. Navigate to Settings > System and Performance > System and toggle off “Continue running background extensions and apps when Edge is closed.” Also, disable Start Up Boost if you don’t want it to launch every time at boot.
Next, click Settings > Profiles. Here, disable “Share browsing data with other Windows features.” If you want a truly privacy-hardened browser, try something like Librewolf. However, these tweaks should limit at least some of the telemetry and tracking.
Some Bonus Stuff
Other than the obvious ones like Sync, Microsoft Edge also has some neat features you might have missed out on. If you like saving articles, videos, snippets, or notes for later, try the Collections feature. You can download the Collections app on your mobile phone too and send web pages back and forth.
There’s also a split-view feature that lets you tile browser windows side by side. If you tend to create multiple windows and manually stack them, this is a huge time-saver, and way more seamless.
Edge has a built-in VPN too. I can’t speak about the security of it, but it ties to your Microsoft profile and lets you browse the internet through a tunneled connection.
I’d only ever used the default browsers on Windows to download a different browser, but Edge isn’t half bad, especially once you set it up right.