If you finally got around to updating Windows- or it did it automatically without your consent, you by now would have been greeted by Microsoft’s new default browser, Edge.
Edge is a new browser much like Google’s own browser Chrome, that is built on a more modern, open-source browser architecture called Chromium. It’s what Google and Microsoft do with those browsers that make them unique. In this case, with Microsoft’s Edge browser being built into the Windows operating system, you are generally afforded better integration and speed.
Being built on the Chromium framework means all previous plugins used by other Chromium browsers such as Google Chrome work with Microsoft Edge. From Ad Blockers to better spell check- even the most obscure plugins seem to work just fine.
The only thing we don’t like is how purposely difficult Microsoft has made changing your default search provider. After digging around for longer than we would like to admit, we’ve come across a way to enjoy the benefits of Edge’s lightning-fast browsing while using an alternative search engine like google.com, duckduckgo.com and many others from the default search engine Bing.
Step 1: Into the Settings
Head to the top right corner of your Edge browser and find the three vertical dots, click that and scroll down to find ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the list
Step 2: Needle in a haystack
Now the convoluted fun part- Inside settings you’ll want to find the ‘Privacy and services’ tab. The settings page is responsive so make sure you widen your window if no menu items are visible on the left, this caught us out.
Step 3: Address bar
The worst possible label for what it actually does. Here we need to scroll down once again and find the oddly named item ‘Address bar’ (why not search ‘provider?’), under this we can see the description that reads ‘Manage search suggestions and search engine used in the address bar’.
Step 4: Choose a search provider
Here we simply need to choose which default search provider you would like to use from the dropdown options- we have chosen Google.
Another nice feature is having the ability to use more niche search engines. These can be added via the ‘Manage search engines’ tab and updating from there. Edge is compatible with every search provider available.
Thats it, you should now be good to go- no restart or re-launch required!
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