Posted on 04/24/2025 2:45:47 AM PDT by Openurmind
"How can I help you today". That is what you see when you open Microsoft Edge's new tab page in the latest development version. Microsoft is replacing the traditional new tab page with a page that is all about Copilot. It is the second Copilot feature that has been added to Edge recently by Microsoft.
Currently, that is only an experiment, but there is a chance that this new AI-powered page is replacing the classic new tab page, at least as an option.
Snip....
Many of the interactions with Copilot redirect you to the Bing website where the results are shown. Pretty much anything that I typed was redirected to Bing. Any request to interact with the open tabs was ignored. It is possible that this is still in development and that interactions with tabs come at a later point in time.
(Excerpt) Read more at ghacks.net ...
Boy do they make it hard to not use it. Even if you change your defaults they try to get you coming and going. Then they added S mode which is totally superior to any other available source! NOT!!! I’m not sure how many times I had to abandoned S before it decided I was serious, but then they were forcing everything to open in Edge with Edge’s pdf file version. My hubby didn’t realize the laptop he bought had the S on it. But I’m getting it familiarized to my liking.
“don’t use Edge.”
I just bought a refurbished Windows 10 PC to help with my learning curve from Windows 10. It has Edge on it, which I hate.
When I open a link in email from my Outlook.com, it automatically opens in a format not familiar to me. I don’t know if it’s opening in Edge, or a basic Windows 10 page. In any case, I hate it and I want it to stop.
“I went on a serious de-Googling spree after the James Damore incident.”
I have degoogled too. The only thing we cannot get away from are all the embedded 3rd party Google spy services just about every website on the internet utilizes as an industry standard. THIS is where the true monopoly is happening from Google and they have yet to even mention or address this reality.
Congress talks about Advertisements and Censorship but they absolutely will not mention all the privacy and security data collection violations coming from hidden spy scripts. Why? Because then they would be also limiting their own government intrusions and hidden data collection.
Like LifeLog?
;-P
A few days ago, Hubby launched Outlook 365 like always, but it opened in an entirely different format. Copilot was everywhere! Not user friendly at all.
We contract with a tech support company so I called them. He said that MS pushed out their new format without notifying anyone. To return to the old format it was just a matter of a toggle switch, and it was fine again. He said everyone will be forced into the new format eventually.
I thought they discontinued edge.
Ping
Yep....Brave and Duck Duck GO for me.
Side note, at the time I left the DoD 5 years ago, our network provided Edge as the only browser.
Edge is alive and well my friend.
“Like LifeLog?”
Yes, it was never discontinued, it was just rebranded and renamed. Now they have dozens of these...
Not crazy about about all the new AI stuff but it is time to loosen up on the buggy whip and get with the times, personally like the ‘synch’ since I use my phone, tablet and 2 PC’s having the same exact speed dials etc. The others like MS use clouds and don’t care for that especially when the power goes out...frequently.
“Yep....Brave and Duck Duck GO for me.”
And unfortunately neither of these are actually private either. They claim to be but they are not.
I haven’t run into that problem yet - my concern will be with their plans to have the browser take periodic screen shots “for your convenience” in finding things you looked at - I thought that’s what history and the link bar were for.....
I have come to the conclusion that the only browser that gets close to being secure is MAC Safari in private mode. And you can build your own for Linux using the Webkit rendering engine. With a little more work it can be compiled for Windows...
I’m going to try to see how it goes for Linux.
https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit
Simple solution; don’t use Edge.
~~~
I reset my default browser in win11, including all related file extensions, but windows still finds ways to launch it. For example, when you ware waking up your homescreen, if you click on the background, it will launch Edge (not your default browser) to explain to you what scene you clicked on. I believe it also launches it if you have teams running (not positive about that one) but in the background. You can often catch it running as an app in the task manager even when it’s not showing in the task tray.
Brave and edge aren’t owned by the chicoms
Yeah they aren’t perfect but better than MS or Google products
Oh for sure!
The Microsoft AI enhanced searches have really screwed up the start button. Formerly when I clicked on start and type “not” the top of the list would be Notepad++ and Windows Notepad programs on my computer. Now it brings up various help sites instead of direct links to run the programs. Anymore I have to dig through the start menu to find which group it’s in rather than type three letters and click. Thanks, Microsoft, for making my life more difficult to allow you to push me to ad supported links.
I am currently using an older computer that is running Windows 10. It is too old to update to Windows 11, and I have been doing too much troubleshooting anyhow over the last couple of years. It is running just fine now, but it’s like my own health. It’s fine, until one day when it won’t be.
I have started to poke around to start scoping my options, given that Windows 10 support is ending this year and my nine year old computer is basically a major crash waiting to happen. I’ve always worked in a Windows environment and hate to figure out something new, but given all the grumbling about Windows 11 and Microsoft in general, I’m at least open to considering other options.
I spoke to one salesperson who seemed knowledgeable — not that I know enough to be a good judge of that — and he assured my that its easy to turn off Copilot and that the tech guys in the store could permanently block or remove it when I bought the machine. He was claiming that this kept Microsoft and the cloud at bay, not much different in that regard than earlier versions of Windows.
Is this true? Are there any words of wisdom from sophisticated users.
I back up files on an external hard drive, generally use Chrome, not Edge, on my existing machine, and I use DuckDuckGo and a VPN. That’s all pretty elementary, but I don’t want to go mucking around in deeper technical waters.
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