Microsoft Edge
Ranked 11 of 53 web browsers by recommenders
A Chromium browser that keeps Chrome compatibility while adding strong vertical tabs, good speed and uBlock-friendly extensions, though Microsoft pushes Bing, Copilot and telemetry hard.
A Chromium browser that keeps Chrome compatibility while adding strong vertical tabs, good speed and uBlock-friendly extensions, though Microsoft pushes Bing, Copilot and telemetry hard.
328 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 102
- criticize it
- 226
- approval share
- 31%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 102 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Chrome compatibility without Google
“with Chrome and Edge I have support of newest web APIs rather with Firefox and Safari don't”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Chrome had the highest idle CPU and RAM usage in a 5-browser benchmark” “It's basically chrome but without the 'make this your default browser' shenanigans.”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO” “Edge is actually decent product and viable replacement for Chromium based browsers”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems” - Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “Leaving Google has actively improved my life”
- Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload”
Ad blocking and extensions work
“The Edge browser for has the best ad-free experience I've found so far on Android.”
Comment from 15 Aug 2026 in “Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin” “I use Edge as my default browser, with uBlock installed and it all seems to work.”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Microsoft's "Fix" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating” “I switched from chrome to edge so I can continue using ublock origin”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Google Chrome is killing all uBlock Origin bypasses, Edge, Opera to follow” - Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo”
Fast performance
“I liked a few of its built-in features, and it felt pretty fast. But then they started tricking me into changing my default search engine to Bing.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo” “a proof of concept port of Microsoft edge to IOS significantly outperformed safari”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Apple: Switch to Safari (From Chrome)” “It was faster than Google Chrome and had some unique features”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race” Best vertical tabs implementation
“The sweet spot for me is vertical tabs that autohide into a narrow strip of icons until hovered over”
Comment from 22 Jun 2026 in “Why I had to stop using vertical tabs” “They have what I think is the best implementation of vertical tabs”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Microsoft Edge stores all passwords in memory in clear text, even when unused”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Pushes Bing, Copilot and services
“Edge is better, with only downside is that MS keep pushing Bing on its users.”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: How to escalate a rejected Google extension?” “I liked a few of its built-in features, and it felt pretty fast. But then they started tricking me into changing my default search engine to Bing.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo” “Whoever curates the Edge homepage knows they have mere seconds to capture a new recruit before they manage to escape to a different browser.”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Windows 11½” - Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft CEO warns AI must 'do something useful' or lose 'social permission'”
- Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March”
Telemetry and privacy concerns
“all your searches, preferences and and browsing history is linked to your Microsoft + Windows account so you can be targeted by ads better”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: How to escalate a rejected Google extension?” “Microsoft repurposed Google's adware in Chrome into Edge telemetry/spyware to feed your browsing directly into windows telemetry”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “Microsoft Edge is about to lock out older ad blockers, just like Chrome did” “Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favourites, web content, and other browsing data”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Microsoft Can Track Users via a Windows Device ID” - Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Microsoft Edge stores all passwords in memory in clear text, even when unused”
Forced on Windows and work users
“i cannot even enable Backspace = go back on Edge. I am forced to use Edge on my work computer and i hate that this feature is gone.”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven” “Microsoft has also tried hard to push Edge, annoying nearly every Windows user on the planet, with no real success.”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems” “forcing edge on me constantly to the point where even when I change the default browser, things still load in edge”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload” - Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Microsoft Edge is about to lock out older ad blockers, just like Chrome did”
Other web browsers people recommend
The four most recommended other web browsers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firefox | 1,572 | 1,371 | 53% | 12 | 16 yrs125 owners | — |
| Google Chrome | 503 | 1,086 | 32% | 12 | 10 yrs11 owners | — |
| Brave | 397 | 248 | 62% | 12 | 4.9 yrs16 owners | — |
| Safari | 307 | 577 | 35% | 12 | 13 yrs27 owners | — |
| Microsoft EdgeThis page | 102 | 226 | 31% | 12 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 366 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a proof of concept port of Microsoft edge to IOS significantly outperformed safari”
“forcing edge on me constantly to the point where even when I change the default browser, things still load in edge”
“MS Edge (basing on chromium, same extensions, same dev platform)”
“the firefox people refuse to implement the memory limits logic that say Edge has”
“Whoever curates the Edge homepage knows they have mere seconds to capture a new recruit before they manage to escape to a different browser.”
“Not what I would usually recommend, but when work only allows those two options...”
“practices similar to those Microsoft gets lampooned for doing the same with Edge”
“Brave, Opera, Edge, etc are all Chromium and will all deprecate Manifest V2 eventually”
“It's basically chrome but without the 'make this your default browser' shenanigans.”
“i cannot even enable Backspace = go back on Edge. I am forced to use Edge on my work computer and i hate that this feature is gone.”
“The Edge browser for has the best ad-free experience I've found so far on Android.”
“Microsoft has lobbied our company to remove firefox and chrome from all computers so we must use edge everywhere”
“Microsoft repurposed Google's adware in Chrome into Edge telemetry/spyware to feed your browsing directly into windows telemetry”
“Simple, easy tools are already there, such as the Clear Browsing Data menu item in Chrome, Edge, and Safari.”
“Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favourites, web content, and other browsing data”
“The sweet spot for me is vertical tabs that autohide into a narrow strip of icons until hovered over”
“with Chrome and Edge I have support of newest web APIs rather with Firefox and Safari don't”
“all your searches, preferences and and browsing history is linked to your Microsoft + Windows account so you can be targeted by ads better”
“I switched from chrome to edge so I can continue using ublock origin”
“Edge is better, with only downside is that MS keep pushing Bing on its users.”
“Edge and Chrome could both be eliminated tomorrow and those trillions would be safe.”
“User privacy is not a thing at MS and hasnt been for decades. Plaintext passwords in a MS product is just another monday.”
“They have what I think is the best implementation of vertical tabs”
“Edge has done a lot to improve credential security, even DPAPI's existence itself is huge.”
“nearly impossible to avoid 'services' you realy do not want but will keep popping up regardless of your wishes”
“I use Edge as my default browser, with uBlock installed and it all seems to work.”
“Even F9 on Edge is pretty good at figuring out what you really want to see/read”
“I liked a few of its built-in features, and it felt pretty fast. But then they started tricking me into changing my default search engine to Bing.”
“I also adopted it as a personal alternative to Safari for when I need Chromium”
“Edge is actually decent product and viable replacement for Chromium based browsers”
“Microsoft has also tried hard to push Edge, annoying nearly every Windows user on the planet, with no real success.”
“I am sometimes using Edge browser on android and when I want to put in a website adress I'm blasted with copilot instead.”
“Edge is a slightly worse version of it due to Microsoft incompetence/lack of taste”
“Edge has by far the best encrypted streaming playback using their PlayReady DRM”
“Edge also OCR'd everything very well - just didn't do the translation part automatically.”
“It is probably the most no-code configurable browser out there if you go through Group Policy”
“the Chromium browser with good extension support on Android is Edge”
“It was faster than Google Chrome and had some unique features”
“My Teams client for Linux is MS Edge for Linux with the web app, works pretty well except for slow navigation.”
“There's deeper Windows-specific platform integration (including audio) that makes it a better option”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.