The Redmond giant strictly wants certain links to be opened using only the Edge browser in Windows 10 and Windows 11. If you click on a link in the Search taskbar, the weather widget, or other areas of the operating system, Windows will open that page in Edge even if another browser is set as your default.  Users were quick to express their dissatisfaction with the behavior given that everyone has their own preferred browser of choice.

In a recent Windows update, apps that redirect links such as protocol links, like those found in search in the taskbar, were blocked.  Now, when you click on a protocol link, the OS will not let any app intercept those types of links. According to Microsoft, this is a security measure but users always prefer to use the default browser instead of the recommended browser.

Here comes the new app

A new app called MSEdgeRedirect has emerged that is able to trick Windows into opening protocol links in Edge.  The app is different from EdgeDeflector and other apps that trick the operating system into thinking that you’re trying to open a link in the default browser when you’re not. MSEdgeRedirect uses command line arguments to get around this problem. On Github, the app description  The app is currently on beta mode so a few bugs here and there and some performance issues are expected. This tool filters and passes the command line arguments of Microsoft Edge processes into your default browser instead of hooking into the microsoft-edge: handler, this should provide resiliency against future changes. Additionally, an Image File Execution Options mode is available to operate similarly to the Old EdgeDeflector No Default App walkthrough or other steps, just set and forget.” So far, the app works well but it is still crucial that users approach it with a lot of caution when dealing with unfamiliar developers. Have you gotten to using the new MSEdgeRedirect app? Share your experience down below.

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