Over the Edge 2.0: Microsoft’s Design Tactics Still Undermine Browser Choice - Mozilla Research
Two years ago, Mozilla published Over the Edge: How Microsoft’s Design Tactics Compromise Free Browser Choice, a report by independent researchers Harry Brignull and Cennydd Bowles documenting how Microsoft used harmful design patterns to steer Windows users away from rival browsers and toward Edge. Today, we are publishing an updated investigation by the same researchers — and the picture in 2026 shows that Windows users continue to have their choice undermined and overridden.
Microsoft Continues to Deploy Harmful Design to Undermine People’s Browser Choice
The new report, Over The Edge 2.0: Do Microsoft’s Design Tactics Still Compromise Free Browser Choice?, examines key browser-choice journeys across Windows 10 and Windows 11. And, this time, it compares the user experience across four regions: the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Germany (as a representative country within the European Economic Area). The researchers find that Microsoft continues to deploy a range of harmful patterns — Trick Wording, Obstruction , Visual Interference , Preselection , Nagging , and Forced Action — at almost every step of the user journey. As a result, the researchers conclude that Microsoft does not allow people to download and install an alternative browser, to set it as their default, or to continue using it as their default, without harmful interference. These conclusions hold across every region tested.
Windows 10 to Windows 11 Migration Defaults Back to Edge
One finding is especially timely. With Windows 10 support having ended in October 2025, over 1 billion people have PCs running Windows 11. Microsoft markets its Windows Backup utility as a way to make this transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 seamless. But the researchers found that when they backed up a Windows 10 machine with an alternative browser installed and set as default, then restored to a new Windows 11 device, the alternative browser was not actually transferred — and Edge was silently set as the default. The upgrade itself becomes a quiet reset of a user’s browser choice.
New AI Interfaces Also Fail to Respect User Choice
The report also breaks new ground on the role of AI. Microsoft’s Copilot assistant overrides a user’s chosen default browser and opens links inside Edge instead. And the researchers suggest that a sequence of seemingly minor consent requests across Windows and Edge may combine into a "pipeline" funneling browsing data — potentially including data originating in rival browsers — into Microsoft’s advertising and personalisation systems. As AI products become further woven into operating systems and browsers, the surface area for harmful design only grows.
Findings Hold Across Four Jurisdictions — Although the DMA Represents a Bright Spot
While the overall conclusion holds across all jurisdictions tested, the report finds clear regional variation. Within the EEA, Microsoft has dropped a number of the harmful patterns documented in our original report — a change the researchers attribute to regulatory pressure, not to a genuine shift in Microsoft’s approach. The Digital Markets Act has had a measurable effect, but a narrow one: several harmful patterns persist even in the EEA, and users in the US, India, and to a lesser extent the UK remain exposed to the broadest set of tactics. Where compliance ends at the border, so does respect for user choice.
We again urge Microsoft to abandon these harmful patterns worldwide. And we urge regulators in the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and beyond to consider this report as evidence that regulatory action works — there is much still to do.
Download the full report (PDF)
Download the global comparison image (PNG)
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