Oh boy, Microsoft’s cooking up some changes with Windows 10 and 11, especially for folks over in the European Economic Area—EEA for short. It’s all because of this thing called the Digital Markets Act. Sounds fancy, right? Basically, they’re trying to be less pushy with their own apps. So, say goodbye to those annoying nudges to make Edge your default browser. Only if you open Edge now will you get that little poke. Thank goodness, because who wants another notification? Like, seriously. I’m just here trying to check my emails or something, and boom—pops up Edge again.
And here’s a twist—if you pick a different browser to be your main squeeze, Windows will pin it to your Taskbar. I mean, neat, right? A bit over-enthusiastic, maybe? But hey, it saves a click or two. Plus, it’ll use that browser for more stuff by default, which is less hassle for us.
Oh, and here’s an odd bit that caught me by surprise. Now, you install a third-party search provider, and bam—automatically enabled. No more fishing around in settings. I kinda like that. It’s the little conveniences that get you through the day, you know? Also, you can uninstall the Microsoft Store now. Whaaaaat? I didn’t see that coming. It was like this immovable object, and now it’s gone, or can be. But don’t stress—your apps will still get updates. Magic, probably. Or just Windows Update doing its thing.
Okay, let’s veer off a bit. Remember Bing? Yeah, still around, but it’ll open stuff with whatever browser you’re using by default now. No more tricky tricks to get you back to Edge—not in the EEA at least. And Widgets! Well, Windows 11 will play nice with your browser choice when opening stuff from those. Windows 10 kinda misses out, though. No Widgets Board there, but you can do some fun dockable window stuff, which sounds geeky cool in a way.
One more juicy tidbit before I get totally sidetracked—Microsoft won’t bug you to reinstall Edge if you kick it to the curb. At least, not in the EEA. This rollout is happening soon-ish, and preview versions are already tiptoeing around. More to come, so keep an eye out if you’re into that kind of thing.
And to wrap this mess up, Microsoft’s making a bunch of moves in 2023 to stay on the EEA’s good side. Who knew there’d be so much drama in browser defaults and app uninstalls, right? Anyway, see ya in the next update!
