Don't Like How Microsoft Sets Default Browser On Windows 11, Mozilla Do This!

Users can set Firefox as the default from within the browser. (photo: firefox)

JAKARTA - Microsoft will release Windows 11 to the public on October 5. But users should be aware that the company only gives users the option to use the default Edge browser, as opposed to Windows 10.

However, Mozilla did not stay silent to see Microsoft's cheating. Now, the company is quietly making it easier for users to switch to Firefox on Windows.

While Microsoft offers a method to switch the default browser on Windows 10, it's more complicated than the simple one-click process to switch to Edge. This one-click process isn't officially available to anyone other than Microsoft, and Mozilla seems to have grown tired of this situation.

In Firefox version 91, which was released on August 10, Mozilla has reversed the way Microsoft set Edge as the default in Windows 10, and allowed Firefox to quickly make itself the default browser.

“People should have the ability to simply and easily set defaults, but they don't. All operating systems must offer official developer support for the default state so that people can easily set their apps as the default," a Mozilla spokesperson told The Verge, Tuesday, September 14.

Microsoft made a complicated way for users of third-party browsers. Where users have to open Windows 10 Settings first to change browsers, then they have to select Firefox as the default browser and ignore Microsoft's request to keep Edge.

With Mozilla's current engineering, users can now set Firefox as the default from within the browser, and do all the work in the background without any additional instructions. In fact, it circumvents Microsoft's anti-piracy protection that the company builds into Windows 10, to ensure malware can't hijack default apps.

Microsoft says it's not supported on Windows. Mozilla has been trying to convince Microsoft to increase the default browser settings in Windows since its 2015 open letter to Microsoft. Nothing has changed, and Windows 11 now makes it even harder to switch default browsers.

That seems to be the ultimate challenge, as Mozilla started implementing its changes in Firefox shortly after the launch of Windows 11 in June. So far, Google, Vivaldi, Opera, and other Chromium-based browsers haven't followed Mozilla's lead, and Microsoft hasn't responded to this either.

Microsoft had some genuine security-related reasons to protect users from malware with anti-piracy capabilities, but allowing Edge to easily override the defaults deters rival browser vendors. Windows 11 made them even more complicated, and competitors weren't happy.