Microsoft’s Edge browser is a speedy contestant in the browser games and has proven to be one of the best attempts the company has ever made in the history of launches. It is based on Chromium, which is the same framework that the Google Chrome browser (and so many others, now) is based on, resulting in a fast and user-friendly experience.
However, nothing is perfect, which leads to my little rant today. The company is a rockstar at creating popular gaming systems and operating systems (at least, every other one they launch into the world). But sometimes it makes poor decisions everywhere else.
One of these that I have noticed is within the Edge browser’s “new tab” page. Users are forced onto Microsoft’s “Microsoft Start” page (which is basically MSN). This page is filled with news from around the world of all sorts of categories. Handpicked by who-knows-what engine to deliver what it thinks the user may be interested in.
The problem, is that a majority of these stories come from third-party or well-known tabloid or propaganda websites. In fact, no matter what you do, Microsoft’s fancy little “new tab” page is filled with tabloids, propaganda, and spam.
It gives you an option to personalize your feed with key categories like world news, politics, science, sports, and more. However, it doesn’t matter how you configure it. You will still be slammed with all sorts of content you didn’t ask for, including political news and propaganda, tabloids, etc.
I opened the personalization screen and unchecked everything but “tech”, “science”, and “NHL”. I figured by keeping the selection as simple as possible, I’d gain the best chance at eliminating all of this noise. However, as you can see from the main header image above, it barely did a thing. Sure, the page experienced a little more weight on the three topics, but this is only mixed between all of the (again) tabloids, politics, propaganda, and spam.
If I wanted to know about the opinions between Russia and Ukraine, I’d seek them from a reputable source. Not a few dozen third-party websites I have never heard of before, all with conflicting outlooks about what is really happening (most of which are obvious embellishments or lies).
This sends me wanting to go right back to Google News where I am able to customize my feed to a much more engaging and valuable feed of content. There, if I want tech and science, I will get nothing but tech and science. Not tabloid stories about Putin’s secret lovers, sasquatch sitings, or other sources claiming alien motherships are hovering in our solar system.
What makes it worse, is that Microsoft locks the user into using the Microsoft Start site for the browser’s “new tab” page. You might think that you can customize this to a page of your liking, but this is not the case. You can “personalize” the Microsoft Start site (as i previously mentioned), but you cannot replace it.
You can customize Edge’s “home” page, but you have to hit the “home” icon to get to it each time. Each time you start the browser or open a new tab, it will still force you over to the “new tab” page where you are confronted with all of this trash content via the Microsoft Start site (aka, MSN).
