Escaping from Edge's Dictatorship (TIL)

Random Thoughts

Before we start, let me share some random thoughts—my markdown skills are gradually improving. Indeed, the power of a blog written in markdown! I recommend you create a GitHub Pages blog too if you're reading this.

The Problem to Solve

We use Windows for many reasons and excuses. Internet banking, Windows-only programs, the convenience of WSL, convenience from winget, games. However, every Windows user encounters a certain existence at some point, called MS EDGE. Speaking of our Edge browser, it's the default Windows browser, and it's fast, and the recent update added inactive tab feature to save a lot of memory, and being based on Chromium means you can use almost all Chrome extensions... etc it's a great browser, but I don't need it. Therefore, we want to delete Edge. (It must be done) However, Windows search features, Cortana, and various other Windows features I don't even know about are integrated with Edge, and deletion is almost impossible. (I've seen posts about deleting it from the registry—let's not try that)

Actually, it's fine to just install Chrome, set it as default browser, and use that. But there's one setting that doesn't change—Windows Search. Windows Search defaults to Edge, and it can't be changed in the settings panel. This is clearly a dictatorship. It would be best if Microsoft would kindly stop the dictatorship through an update, but that's not going to happen.

In this post, I'll introduce how to change Windows Search to use Chrome.

How to Escape Edge's Dictatorship

The method is easier than you think. Using a program called EdgeDeflector, we trick Windows to pass the search URL to the default browser instead of Edge. Then, a Chrome extension called redirect bing changes the Bing URL to a different search engine URL. This way, search results open in the default browser.

1. First, set a browser other than Edge as your Windows default browser. It doesn't have to be Chrome—just set Opera, Whale, or whatever you want. Setting the default browser is a bit more complicated in Windows 11 compared to Windows 10. Follow the link below to set your default browser. how set default web browser windows 11
2. Next, you need to install Edge Deflector. It's an open source program available on GitHub. Download the latest EdgeDeflector_install.exe file from the page below. github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector/releases After installation, a page explaining how to configure it will appear. Follow the steps carefully—it won't take long. (An easier way is to just search once and click edgedeflector always use -> confirm)
3. Install the Chrome extension. Actually, it works with Chrome even without installing this. But the search results are Bing... This is installed to automatically change it to Google or another search engine. Use the link below to install. Chrometana Pro Or search for "redirect bing" in the Chrome Web Store and download whichever you want. For some reason, search results only appear when the store region is set to US. It seems Google blocked Korea.

Result

Now try searching! You'll see it opens in Chrome or your other default browser. Now we've escaped a bit more from Edge's dictatorship. Thanks to Daniel Aleksandersen and the contributors for making this great program—I'll use Windows a bit more comfortably now.

References

EdgeDeflector Chrometana Pro Comterman's Computer Stories - How to change Windows 10 search box Bing search to Google. Changing Cortana's Bing search

Later I end up using Edge as my main browser because I actually liked it :D