In the office again this afternoon, evaluating the new Microsoft Edge web browser, and setting up the new Acer desktop computer for Ashley, who's been too busy even to take it out of the box. As soon as the registration and initialization procedure was completed, the machine flagged up that it was immediately ready to upgrade to Windows 10, so I let it run, even though had to leave before it was completed.
Edge presents itself with a minimal interface, a like Chrome in the early days. Changing the default search engine from Bing to Google involves drilling down into the advanced settings menu. It's not wholly explicit. It doesn't list options, just gives you few greyed out empty menu options. You need to call up a Google homepage tab, then go into the settings menu before it displays a menu option that reflects the tab you've opened. Only then can your default setting be changed.
Come to think of it, the browser choice menu doesn't appear, giving you the option from the outset to choose between Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Does this mean that Edge as the default browser will be imposed until another round of litigation takes place? The enforcement of browser choice took place when Internet Explorer was presenting so many security problems that an argument for choice was reasonable and in everyone's best interests. Edge hadn't been born at that time, intends to provide the security Internet Explorer at once failed to do. So, part of the argument justifying browser choice no longer exists, unless advocates for software freedom once more take Microsoft to law, an expensive process, with less certainty of winning. Time will tell, I guess.
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