Here is something you may not be aware of if you’re an Edge insider. By downloading and installing Microsoft Edge insider builds you’re agreeing to send info about your browser usage and websites you visit to Microsoft, yep! That’s true unless you uncheck “Help Microsoft improve products …” option before clicking “Accept and download’ button, continue to read on for more details.
So far, Microsoft Edge insider builds are available for Windows 10 and MacOS. When you visit Microsoft Edge insider home page and try to download of either Dev or Canary build for Edge browser, you’ll notice an option in download dialog at bottom pre-selected saying you’re agreeing to help Microsoft improve their products by sending info “about how you use the browser and websites you visit”.
The learn more link points to Edge insider download page and Privacy Statement in the download dialog takes you to this page, which doesn’t covey what information Edge collects and how you can opt-out of sharing that info. But we’ll tell how you can if you’ve downloaded Edge with the option checked.
Stop Edge Chromium from sending browser usage and visited websites info to Microsoft
1. Click on Edge menu > Settings
2. Privacy and Services, turn off these settings
- “Send data about how you use the browser”
- “Send info about websites you visit to Microsoft”
Sending crash reports setting is tied to Windows 10 diagnostic & Feedback, if you’ve set it to Full, change to “Basic”, done. Next time, when you download any Microsoft Edge insider build be sure to uncheck the information sending option and click the download button.
Edge follows Chrome, but Google provides clear instructions for opting out
We know this has been inspired by Chrome browser, Chrome shows similar dialog when you download it and asks to “Help make Chrome better by sending usage statistics and crash reports” with learn more link pointing to how to start or stop automatically reporting errors & crashes to Google.
The help page clearly states you need to turn off “automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google” setting in Privacy and Security for that.
Here when coming to Edge Chromium, similar transparency or information has not been provided via the learn more link to users,
Tip: Old Edge too sends browser history too Microsoft you can prevent that by turning off Page prediction and have Cortana assist me in Edge Settings.
What do you say on this? Do you take this lightly?
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