The FBI just issued a new warning about email attacks, advising users how to stay safe as attacks pile up during the holiday season. Alarmingly, phishing emails and malicious internet sites are now being aided through new artificial intelligence equipment that makes everything more likely to deceive. Users become suitable victims. Multiple warnings in recent weeks have shown that this is the most damaging holiday season ever for email and Internet attacks.
In this context, Microsoft is once again pushing Windows users to move to Edge, which it says “helps you stay while you browse by blocking phishing and malware attacks. ” It has become a recurring theme: formulaic messages advertising Microsoft products under the guise of security. It’s definitely a gray area.
As discovered via Windows Latest, “new references to possible new pop-ups in Edge are encouraging users to return to Microsoft Edge. ” One reference is titled “msNurturingDefaultBrowserBannerUX2OneBtn” and most likely refers to a browser button that encourages users to set it as the default browser. This, he says, “is part of the tech giant’s efforts to attract more people to Microsoft Edge. ” Although those most recent adjustments are still in progress and have not yet been released.
While Edge has been creeping up on Chrome—to an extent, Google’s browser still dominates the Windows desktop market with four-times the number of Edge users, even as Microsoft’s browser has grown its market share a couple of points in 2024.
“Could this support replace gaming and inspire more people to try Microsoft Edge? Last Windows Request. “It’s imaginable. ” Yes, imaginable but unlikely. Despite crusade after crusade, and even with multiple privacy and security stories in recent years, Chrome’s user base has proven to be just as hard to shake as Windows 10’s.
But there will be an update in the coming months and it has nothing to do with Microsoft’s pop-ups or its protection and security campaign. The biggest risk to Chrome remains regulatory, and the Justice Department is still at risk of forcing its divestment from Google. According to Google, a resolution would be an “extreme” remedy.
In the meantime, Windows users will probably have to forget about the most recent pop-up campaign, even with the giant slider in the most recent Windows screenshots. “What the hell,” they say, and rightly so. The biggest problem, even beyond the huge slider, is the button selection. “Confirm” sets the default browser to Edge, while “Set later” means “basically confirm your approval for some other tracking pop-up in Microsoft Edge. “This doesn’t mean you don’t need Edge as your default browser, and unfortunately, it’s unimaginable to delete those messages.
Almost all of Microsoft Edge’s pushes have used security as a driving theme. The same was observed in the Chrome setup process on a fresh Windows installation. While Edge arguably has security advantages over Chrome, Google is the last one in the breach. Its latest AI Google-based scam detection echoes the same feature introduced in Edge.
Where Microsoft is most likely to see the most good luck is in the enterprise market, where it says a combined solution that adds up its other security platforms is a safer bet for a CISO than a combination of offerings. Obviously, if other people get used to Edge at work, they may do the same at home.
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