Microsoft’s Cheap SEO Tactics May Have Pissed Edge Users Even More

Posted on the 19 August 2020 by Thiruvenkatam Chinnagounder @tipsclear

As many SEO experts have said, if you want your content to rank higher on search engines like Google and Bing, be sure to include the most searched KWs. Since the inception of Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, the number of people searching for "Uninstall Microsoft Edge" or "Cannot Uninstall Microsoft Edge" has also increased.

The reason is simple; Once the browser lands on your system, there is hardly any way to remove it from your Windows PC ( there is a long one) unless you choose to ditch Windows and switch to Linux or macOS. The case is similar to how you cannot remove the legacy Edge browser.

Either way, the Windows maker seized the opportunity and created a Microsoft Edge support page titled "Cannot Uninstall Microsoft Edge," giving users a glimmer of hope, except that it was from short (Fun fact: MS page support is above Google SERP).

They got us in the first half

The support page describes how the Edge Chromium has been deployed in stages and that it is "better in performance, privacy, security, productivity and support features it offers."

It even says that "Microsoft Edge gives users full control over importing personal data from the legacy version of Microsoft Edge."

But that's all. This is where the check ends, and MS reveals that users cannot remove Microsoft Edge or revert to the legacy version because the browser is part of the latest Windows update.

The height of criticism Microsoft faces across the entire Edge browser is quite significant. One user even labeled the browser as malware after landing on his wife's Windows 7 PC without warning through Windows Update.

Interestingly, Windows 7 reached end of life earlier this year and won't be receiving any security features or updates (at least that was true until that happened). But one reason could be that the new Edge browser will support Windows 7 until July 2021.

Besides, MS Edge is also known to copy data from Google Chrome.

Also Read: 10 Best Web Browsers For Windows 10

The other side

Now flipping the coin reveals that the new Microsoft Edge browser is actually good enough to be an alternative to Chrome. I actually started using it as a browser outside of work. It's the latest offering from Microsoft and is destined to hit almost any Windows PC sooner or later.

Additionally, a web browser is a primary application that is often preinstalled on most operating systems. So in a way, it would be a bit too much to ask an operating system vendor to provide a way to remove their beloved browser.

If you forget, the default browser is the one you use to download your favorite web browser, which can still be Chrome or Firefox. However, this is not the only way, but it is the easiest. And of course, you can remove Edge after installing the other browser.

We are also talking about Microsoft here. While the company loves open source more than ever, it still isn't open enough to give users such extensive control over Windows. If this is what you expect, you are probably living in an illusion.

But the way he promotes Edge can easily be called too pushy. Probably, Microsoft shouldn't have just created a page titled "Cannot Uninstall Microsoft Edge" and blatantly telling users that they can't uninstall Microsoft Edge at all. Surely, a user browsing the web for a solution would not dance for joy after reading it.

If you think your product is good then you need to publish it correctly and at least trust your users that they will end up using it. But not just Edge, Redmond is known to force its other products on people (read Windows 10) even though a lot of them would end up using it anyway because that's the only option.