Microsoft Edge web browser: A well-presented mea culpa Edge, the new web browser in Windows 10 that was released on Wednesday isn't just a browser: it's an atonement. Microsoft, it seems, wants to apologize not just for its recent Windows 8, but for the entirety of Internet Explorer. And, surprisingly, Edge turns out to be a great apology. Perhaps the most surprising and welcome …
Yes, it's worth uploading all this to Redmond so you can check restaurant times:
"Cortana is your personal assistant. Cortana works best when it can learn about you and your activities by using data from your device, your Microsoft account, third-party services and other Microsoft services. To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lock screen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more. You can manage what data Cortana uses, and what it knows about you in Cortana Settings and Notebook. More about the individual features, and how to manage them can be found at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=522360.
Location services. Cortana regularly collects and uses your current location and location history to give you the most relevant notices and results and to make suggestions that help save you time, such as traffic and location based reminders. Cortana can only work if location services are on, so if you turn them off, Cortana will be disabled.
Text messages and email. Cortana accesses your messages to do a variety of things such as: allowing you to add events to your calendar, apprising you of important messages, and keeping you up to date on events or other things that are important to you, like package or flight tracking. Cortana also uses your messages to help you with planning around your events and offers other helpful suggestions and recommendations.
Speech and Input Personalization. To help Cortana better understand the way you speak and your voice commands, speech data is sent to Microsoft to build personalized speech models and improve speech recognition. On Windows devices, Cortana can only work if Input Personalization is on, so if you turn it off, Cortana will be disabled. See the Windows Input Personalization section for more information.
Apps and services. Cortana uses data collected through other Microsoft services to provide personalized suggestions. For example, Cortana uses data collected by the MSN Sports app so it can automatically display information about the teams you follow. It also learns your favorite places from Microsoft's Maps app so it can offer better suggestions. Your interests in Cortana's Notebook can be used by other Microsoft services, such as Bing or MSN Apps, to customize your interests, preferences, and favorites in those experiences as well. Cortana also allows you to connect to third-party services for additional personalized experiences based upon information you shared with the third-party service. For example, choosing to sign into Facebook within Cortana allows Microsoft to access certain Facebook information so that Cortana and Bing can give you more personalized recommendations.
Browsing history. If you choose to send your full browsing history to Microsoft in Microsoft Edge (see the Microsoft Edge description in the Windows section of this statement), Cortana can provide suggestions based on the sites you visit in Microsoft Edge. Cortana won't collect information about sites you visit in InPrivate tabs.
Search history. Your Bing search queries - even if Cortana does the searching for you - are treated like any other Bing search queries and are used as described in the Bing section."
And this is what Edge uploads...
"Microsoft Edge is Microsoft's new web browser for Windows 10. Internet Explorer, Microsoft's legacy browser, is also available in Windows 10. Whenever you use a web browser to access the Internet, data about your device ("standard device data") is sent to the websites you visit and online services you use. Standard device data includes your device's IP address, browser type and language, access times, and referring website addresses. This data might be logged on those websites' web servers. Which data is logged and how that data is used depends on the privacy practices of the websites you visit and web services you use.
Additionally, data about how you use your browser, such as your browsing history, web form data, temporary Internet files, and cookies, is stored on your device You can delete this data from your device using Delete Browsing History.
New features in Microsoft Edge allow you to capture and save content on your device, such as:
Web Note: which allows you to create ink and text annotations on the web pages you visit, and clip, save or share them;
Active Reading: which allows you to create and manage reading lists including websites or documents; and
Hub: which allows you to easily manage your reading lists, favorites, downloads, and history all in one area.
Some Microsoft browser information saved on your device will be synced across other devices when you sign in with your Microsoft account. This information can include your browsing history, favorites, saved website passwords, and reading list. For example, in Microsoft Edge, if you sync your reading list across devices, copies of the content you choose to save to your reading list will be sent to each synced device for later viewing. You can control which information is synced (see Sync Settings). You can also disable syncing of Microsoft Edge browser information by turning off the sync option in Microsoft Edge Settings.
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer use your search queries and browsing history to provide you with faster browsing and more relevant search results. These features include:
AutoSearch and Search Suggestions in Internet Explorer automatically sends the information you type into the browser address bar to your default search provider (such as Bing) and offer search recommendations as you type each character. In Microsoft Edge, this feature automatically sends this information to Bing even if you have selected another default search provider.
Page Prediction sends your browsing history to Microsoft and uses aggregated browsing history data to predict which pages you are likely to browse to next and proactively loads those pages in the background for a faster browsing experience.
Suggested Sites recommends web contents that you might be interested in based on your search and browsing history.
Browsing data collected in connection with these features is used in the aggregate and you can turn off any of these features at any time. These features will not collect browsing history while you have InPrivate Browsing enabled.
In order to provide search results, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer send your search queries, standard device information, and location (if you have location enabled) to your default search provider. If Bing is your default search provider, we use this data as described in the Bing section of this privacy statement.
Cortana can assist you with your web browsing in Microsoft Edge. If enabled, Cortana will collect your search queries and full browsing history, associated with a user ID. Cortana and related Microsoft services will use this data to learn about you and provide you with timely and intelligent answers and proactive personalized suggestions, or to complete web tasks for you. You can disable Cortana for Microsoft Edge web browsing at any time in Microsoft Edge Settings. To learn more about how Cortana uses data and how you can control that, go to the Cortana section of this privacy statement."
By the way, Cortana and Edge an excuse for uploading just a small part of your personal data to MS, there are far more... E.g. Bitlocker's recovery key also gets uploaded to the mothership.
But you can decide not to download Chrome and the OS on the computer doesn't push you into having a Google account.
Edge is part of the OS and if you were mad enough to log in with a Microsoft account or create one or maybe even use the built-in e-mail client to log into Outlook.com then a load of apps promptly start uploading stuff to the mothership.
"But you can decide not to download Chrome and the OS on the computer doesn't push you into having a Google account."
That's not what I saw with my Samsung phone.
It wouldn't download any software updates without a Google account.
Edge is part of the OS
Thinking back over the years to when Microsoft insisted that Internet Explorer was part of the OS until somebody proved that it wasn't, and that beta (I love using that term. It really winds MS up!) versions of W10 didn't have Edge at all and still managed to work normally (as far as any beta does), I wonder how true that actually is?
The most interesting part:
"AutoSearch and Search Suggestions in Internet Explorer automatically sends the information you type into the browser address bar to your default search provider [...] as you type each character. In Microsoft Edge, this feature automatically sends this information to Bing even if you have selected another default search provider."
Why?
Like you said in a follow up post - if you don't like it, use a local account and disable the offending services.
There is a broad spectrum when it comes to opinions on privacy - ranging from "I have nothing to hide and don't give a shit if it gives a more personalized and efficient experience" to the tinfoil hat-wearing privacy extremists.
There are so many ways to track your activities online and tie it back to you personally (for someone suitably motivated and funded), and you need to go to incredible lengths to evade them - which is way beyond the knowledge and amount of effort most are prepared to invest.
So don't use Win10 and enjoy your heightened sense of privacy, but realize that it is largely an illusion :-)
Also doesn't Edge use cloud-based cookies, which you can't turn off and which will be of course available for MS to use as they wish. Hand in hand with Cortana, we also have
"...collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. ... also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lock screen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more."
And
"We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services"
I'm reasonably sure at least some of that is illegal under UK laws, and bits are positively Orwellian.
Does Edge support the "external requests reuse the current tab" option that IE has, and is sorely lacking in other browsers? (a large part of my life is running applications that show nice output in a web page, but like to "reload" that over and over again for the slightest change, rather than letting the page refresh - and in anything but IE, that leads to lots and lots and lots and lots of tabs)
Agreed. This is the least-persuasive review I've read in a long time.
Perhaps that's unfair. After reading it I'm largely persuaded that there's no reason for me to ever try Edge. What's it's great advantage? It's better than IE. If I don't use IE now, why would I care? Why pay the opportunity cost and cognitive load of learning a new browser?
hey kryptylomese your comments are improving!
Still senseless bile without a shred of factual basis, but at least your not telling us that Linux is the most used OS in the universe and we should all migrate everything to it. In a sad, perverted way, I kind of miss it ;-)
All those android devices running a browser but not running IE (or Edge) must really make you sad in a perverted way?
Long and the short of it is blah blah blah Microsoft propitiatory software - let them threaten Governments and we will watch them be told to get lost - their days are numbered because nobody needs to be tied in to their less than great software anymore!
"everyone ends up rebuilding their Windows machine because it has become really slow and annoying."
No need to do that anymore. If your Windows 8 or 10 OS gets slowed down by cruftware, you can just 'refresh' the install to clear all the crap without a full reinstall:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pc
Edge is a fast, pleasant experience at the moment. Will it be the same once they've implemented the rest of the standards, and start allowing plugins? Since my Widows box is really just a plaything, so I get exposure to the latest Windows (my main box is a Mac), I'll probably use Edge exclusively for the time being.
It was crap to start with but is now a lot better.
However, I found myself often running Internet Explorer because Edge was so slow to load some sites and was inclined to freeze on certain sites. I now have Icons for both on the taskbar.
In the end, though, IE wasn't enough and I installed Firefox so that I could use Noscript to keep the Ads down to a manageable level. It meant I could browse The Register more easily.
Not sure - a bunch of links and recycled speculation, but man it rendered fast on Edge!
"Unique advertising ID..." - FFS, who isn't using that and why is microsoft worthy of special mention?
Given that the EU has become the defacto litmus test and champion of online privacy, it will be interesting to see if they take issue and impose restrictions on microsoft. I would put more faith in that to see if this constitutes going above and beyond what everyone else is doing.
and spend my time disabling all the privacy-invading features I don't want and hope no-one turns them on again by default.
Or I could stick with what I have, using FF's "Search" box when I want to search the web and my local OS' "search" box when I want to search locally.
For a long time I've thought IE just looks like a dog. It is just too ugly for words. Forget the security flaws, quirky rendering, hated unified url/search box etc, I just thought it was kind of ugly and wasted desktop space. I felt as though some horrendous GUI-design errors were made but I just couldn't put my finger on them. Chrome slurps data too, but it was just a bit prettier.
I feel the same way about W10 (and W8). I don't feel the need for the extra features and oh my word how I hate the flat interface. In the interest of balance I dislike IOS' appearance more than I did too. I think we've got to the point where any OS will do the tasks required of it. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur, but I don't feel the need for social media integration, I think application-level and GUI-level file-storage integration is stupid (hello dropbox, hello KDE/SMB) and with a five mb/s net connection and a local server, the cloud holds little or no attraction for me.
So that leaves me with file-storage on a file server and a split-tunnel VPN, imap email (remember when email had its own protocol?) and sshfs. I feel slightly sorry for MS - I'm not sure that there is anything that would tempt me back. KDE is pretty, Steam and MythTV are entertaining, NFS may not be the most secure protocol, but its fast and its just my home network, MariaDB may not be the world's best database, but I've used it for years and never once had a problem. Netatalk provides OSX backups, SAMBA does Windowsy-type stuff, though I usually NFS-share and run Windows in a VM. I don't feel as though I'm missing anything except the odd game, but seeing as I haven't even played all my linux ones, I'm not too fussed. I do feel that if I went with Windows I might get a little more polish on some apps, but I'm likely to lose a lot of features. Its the same with OSX. Still no iscsi initiator, Apple? Work out what is actually important. Live simply, live cheaply.
Its not me, its you. You act as though we're married but we aren't. You're ugly to look at and your character has changed, its no longer my personal computer, you seem to think that just I allowed you to install some software on my hardware, you can take what you like and give it to your boss. Your data-slurping is uncouth. Just because all the other kids are doing doesn't mean you should too. Now, to quote Raymond Stevens, "Get your tongue outta my mouth, cos I'm kissing you goodbye."
"The only time I encountered this problem was with Google Docs, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, don’t work well in Edge. It's also surprisingly hard to change the default search engine from Bing to Google, which together with the Google Docs failure feels almost deliberate."
DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run?
Maybe Microsoft is spreading some nice gifts to get some people so pleased about the crap they are selling now...
Anyway Windows10 is just Windows 8.2 and it is beyond atrocious. The awful unusable Metro/ModernUI mess is still there and Microsoft added a lot of spyware stuff to the OS like never before.
The OS is beyond buggy. It is full of useless services active by default. The UI is a huge mess. Icons, windows... everything sucks.
And the Edge browser is a silly joke. Most of the times it just doesn't work.
The whole Windows10 thing is a an absolute awful shame!
It's also surprisingly hard to change the default search engine from Bing to Google
Click the ... button
Settings
View Advanced Settings
Search in the address bar with...
Not all that difficult to switch search providers?
My only issue with Edge is that it takes around 10 seconds for bbc news to load up.
My +++ of Edge is when you right click / view source, well, I won't spoil it but I assume developers are going to love that functionality.
How much of Windows 10 continues to work without an internet connection? It'd be very interesting to know what components of Windows beyond the expected browsing and auto-update start to break or refuse to work when they can't channel all your personal information to Microsoft.
And wtf is Microsoft planning to do with all of this data? Because I can tell you now that any company I suspect of using personalised targeted advertising at me is a company that will receive none of my cash.
Edge seems fine so far, what I don't like is the absence of choice for the downloads (default location and such) and the automatic loading of PDF documents in the browser whereas I'd rather use an external application.
More experience is needed, as it asked me one time after that if I wanted to use an external app, but then it went back to opening in the browser.
Most glaring omission is support for extensions.
I've been using Chrome and IE side by side for years for the simple fact that I need a spellchecking extension, which works only in Chrome and not in IE. Otherwise, with rare sites not working, I've been using IE without trouble and frankly did not see any downside compared to Chrome, or all the others that I use on and off: Firefox and Opera mostly
.
I guess I'll do the same now, swapping Edge for IE.
I'm not a Microsoft hater, like kryptylomesem, but as a marketing professional I wouldn't have released Edge. Releasing software before it is ready is what killed Blackberry. And Edge clearly isn't ready for primetime yet. I've found it pretty stable and very fast for corporate sites without ads. However, any news or shopping sites are generally much, much slower because of all the ad scripts. On balance then, Edge is slower for me in real life than IE. Advertising works best when it is true and Microsoft marketing this browser as faster compared with IE just isn't true.
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