Latest Windows 11 and 10 Patch Tuesdays are trying to coax Chrome users to switch to Edge

It is probably not unfair to say that Microsoft really wants people to use its Edge web browser. The company has often adopted somewhat desperate means to coax more users into trying Edge and choosing it as their default browser.

Just considering the Windows 11 era, the company first came under fire due to the way it set up the default app options as it was seemingly quite tedious to go through the process. There have been aggressive ads and promotions as well, like the time Microsoft called Google Chrome "so 2008" and suggested that Edge was more secure than Chrome. This kind of ad once again appeared when trying to download Chrome, only this time it took up the full screen instead of being just a tiny prompt in the corner up top, which kind of showed how much it wants users to notice it exists. And of course, from time to time Edge also wants you to choose it as the default browser.

And if you thought Microsoft would try and pull something similar sooner rather than later, you'd be absolutely right. According to user reports online, the latest April Patch Tuesday updates for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 are now triggering the Default Apps Settings page when a web link is opened with Google Chrome. Hence when a user is opening a link with Chrome, the default app settings is trying to make users want to switch over to Edge instead.

Joris Geutjes posted this issue on the Google Chrome forum:

Since today, we have noticed on several Windows 10 users (version 22H2 with the latest updates from Microsoft that they released on patch Tuesday of April 11, 2023) that when starting the Google Chrome browser, the Default Apps settings are opened every time.

We have already set Google Chrome as the default browser several times. But that makes no sense at all. Restoring all Google Chrome default settings also has no effect.

Even uninstalling Google Chrome and reinstalling it does not provide a solution.

The issue is pretty widespread. It seems as if 387 people have upvoted this by choosing the "I have the same question" option. Over on the Microsoft forum, a user Todd Fuhrman1 posted the same question and it too has been upvoted by 87 people. On the same Google forum thread, a user offers a solution which is basically to uninstall the updates (Windows 11 22H2: KB5025239, Windows 11 21H2: KB5025224, and Windows 10: KB5025221). This seems to resolve the issue, indicating that Patch Tuesday indeed messed something up, perhaps even deliberately.

Via: Gizmodo