Windows 11 is now blocking Edge blockers — seriously — but there's a workaround

Windows 11 is now blocking Edge blockers — seriously — but there'due south a workaround

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Last calendar month, Windows 11 Insiders got an early expect at Microsoft's move to block users fugitive the Border browser for sure functions. At present, the update has rolled out to anybody using Windows 11 in build 22000.376.

While Windows eleven now makes information technology easier to modify default browser functions, some functionality within the Os — such every bit the news and weather widgets — are hard coded to open in Microsoft Edge via "microsoft-edge://" links. Previously, apps like EdgeDeflector could redirect this to a browser of your choice, but that loophole has now been closed.

That'due south probably because Mozilla's Firefox reportedly planned to take advantage of the aforementioned loophole, something that Microsoft described as "improper." It'southward one thing for a small app with 500,000 users to take advantage, but quite another when a browser with some 198 million fans plans to follow suit.

"You can no longer set annihilation but Microsoft Border as the protocol handler for the microsoft-edge:// protocol," wrote EdgeDeflector creator Daniel Aleksandersen at the time. "Or rather, you tin cull between Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Edge (Insider Beta), and Microsoft Edge (Insider Dev). No 3rd-party apps are allowed to handle the protocol."

No registry changes, OEM partner customizations, modifications to the Edge package or OpenWith.exe edits could fix it, Aleksandersen wrote, and after the developer ceased work on his application as it would involve "more destructive changes to Windows."

The workaround

For now, in that location is a workaround: a new app called MSEdgeRedirect, which you tin download from GitHub here. Information technology, according to the description, "filters and passes the command line arguments of Microsoft Border processes into your default browser."

But it's not every bit elegant a solution as EdgeDeflector, because it has to be running in the background at all times to function.

Given that information technology uses unlike methods to reach the aforementioned goal, there'southward also every chance that this will likewise exist blocked by Microsoft at some point in the hereafter. Just for now, it's an selection for those that actually can't tummy the idea of using Edge for annihilation.

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing nigh tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth fourth dimension.