Microsoft is aggressively stepping up its strategy to keep users on Edge. After making it more difficult to choose another browser by default in Windows 11 and blocking EdgeDeflector, Redmond now shows annoying warnings when a user tries to download Google Chrome .
As Neowin explains, and we have been able to verify in Hypertextual, when someone accesses the download page of the Google browser from Edge, the Microsoft browser displays a warning. Its content changes, but basically tries to convince users that Chrome is not the best option .
“Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft,” reads one of the advisories. It provides two options: click close or “Browse safely”. In case of choosing the second option, the user is redirected to the Edge welcome page.
It shows some of Microsoft's most prominent browser features divided into three categories: productivity, performance, and privacy. It also displays a tab called “Get Started”, which provides information for importing data from another browser and downloading the clients for iOS and Android.
The heart of Microsoft Edge is Chromium
The truth is that, if there is something good about Microsoft Edge, it is that it is based on Chromium, Chrome's open source project. In other words, it has all the compatibility advantages of the Google browser and receives a series of improvements, plugins and specific functions from the Microsoft ecosystem.
However, Microsoft's insistence on promoting its built-in browser, Microsoft Edge, to try to prevent users from using Chrome does not put them in a good position. Even more so with messages that qualify the Google browser as “Very 2008”, as Neowin points out, although that specific message has not appeared to us.
This campaign is running natively on Microsoft Edge for Windows 11. At the moment it is only intended for users trying to download Google Chrome. We have done tests with the Firefox and Opera download pages, but Edge has not shown the aforementioned warnings.
Google also has its share in the browser wars. When browsing some web pages from Edge, ads try to convince people to switch to Chrome. The negative of this whole situation is that the user is in the middle of this battle of giants.
