I’m on a mission to eradicate Microsoft Edge from my PC.

This isn’t a slight against Microsoft – I just don’t particularly like the Edge browser compared to some others. best browsers over there. But Edge is different because Microsoft has tried – and mostly failed – to woo its huge Windows user base, with some unsavory tactics, including which makes it almost impossible to set another default browser to massive popups that overtake the screen when searching for the Chrome installer.

Most of these issues have been fixed, but Edge still appears everywhere in Windows, from the weather to widgets to the Windows search box. But don’t worry, I finally found a way to get rid of Edge for good and replace Windows features with the browser of my choice.

Get the advantage out of here

If you don’t use Edge, I guess you probably don’t know about it. It’s because uninstalling Microsoft Edge it’s a bit painful. If you open the Add or remove programs window in Windows, you will find Edge among your other applications, but you cannot uninstall it. The option to uninstall it is actually there, but grayed out – almost as if Microsoft is teasing you for what you’ve done. can’t made in your operating system.

There are several ways to uninstall Edge with Windows Options – check out the link above – but they involve a few registry edits, a bit of PowerShell, and a bit of maintenance to make sure Edge doesn’t reinstall with Windows Options. Windows updates or updates for your other browser. If you don’t want to do everything manually, you can download the Edge removal batch file from AveYo on GitHubwho will follow the process for you. It removes some other items, like game services for the Xbox app, but you can edit the file before running it.

Here’s the problem with removing Edge this way: It disables a lot things in Windows. Search will no longer display web results. Weather on Windows will not work. This will completely disable widgets. Basically, any built-in Windows function that requires an active Internet connection is routed through Bing Search and Edge, and without them, these functions won’t work. That may be what you want, but there is a way to have the best of both worlds.

At the helm of research

Enter MSEdgeRedirect – one of the most popular options, among a surprisingly long list, of apps that redirect normal Windows Edge functions to your browser and search engine of choice. The big deal is that it works with the Edge Removal file. There are actually several components of Edge that are buried deep in Windows, even after removing the browser. MSEdgeRedirect leverages these dormant components and manipulates them to run with your search engine and browser of choice instead of Edge and Bing.

This is important because even if you change your default browser on Windows, these additional features will still use Bing and open in Edge. I’m sure I’m far from the only one who has opened something in Edge through Windows and felt like a fish out of water when half a dozen pop-ups asking me to import settings from my browser invaded my screen.

At a high level, MSEdgeRedirect simply redirects these requests. It tells Windows: “instead of Edge, use this other browser I have installed.” It connects to the “microsoft-edge:” handle, which means the tool should still work even with new Windows and Edge updates. You can see it yourself in action. Open the Run utility with Windows key + R and enter “microsoft-edge:” followed by the URL of your choice (with It will open in Edge. Install MSEdgeRedirect, and it will open in your browser of choice instead.

That’s great, but it doesn’t really solve the main problem with these built-in Windows features: the fact that they use MSN and Bing instead of Google or alternative services. This is where MSEdgeRedirect really comes into its own. Besides just redirecting these functions to open in your browser of choice, it can also redirect services used by Windows.

You can use the service of your choice for Bing Discover, Bing Search, Bing Images, MSN News, and MSN Weather. There is a list of predefined options, but most redirects also support custom services: just enter the URL you want. MSEdgeRedirect not only removes some Windows annoyances; it actively enhances them by giving you control over the services you interact with.

The two that make a major difference for me are search and weather. I now use Weather.com, which works fine with the Windows 11 weather widget. For search, MSEdgeRedirect not only uses Google to populate my results in Windows Search, it also displays my Google search history in Windows so I could quickly return to whatever I was doing online without manually opening another browser tab.

As has been the case in the past, I’m sure Windows or Edge updates will break these apps in one way or another in the future. I hope they remain useful for at least a while. At least they’re easy to install and give you some control over how Windows works rather than forcing you to use Microsoft’s own services.