Posted by ksec 4/13/2025
If you record a network packet capture, you will see it communicating with history.google.com. You might also notice that each time you load your browser history, that domain will be contacted to sync your history with Google's servers.
Much of your uploaded data can be seen from here, but you'll need to be logged in to see it: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?pli=1
It was sending a request to the domain "bingapis.com" with HTTP referer of the current page. Thus, sending your URL to Microsoft. It was a feature that could be turned off, but was on by default.
It's the "Show suggestions to follow creators in Microsoft Edge" feature.
But that's not the only time Edge has been caught with a feature that sends all your URLs to Microsoft:
https://x.com/scriptjunkie1/status/1152280517972299777 - "Anonymous" statistics sends your Windows SID along with the URL visited for the smartscreen feature
https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/147rdv4/microsoft... - an Image Enhancement feature sends image URLs to Microsoft
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNetsec/comments/96nwgd/microsoft... - With search suggestions enabled, search suggestions and URLs entered into address bar go to Microsoft regardless of which search engine is selected (Really, typing http: or https: ought to mean no suggestions generated at all)
I don't love Edge but at work I use it almost exclusively, because of the tighter integration with the Windows identity/authentication broker -- SSO flows are much less painful (read: effectively transparent) if your org uses AAD/EntraID as an IdP.
EDIT: I tested myself and it actually is ~4.8% faster than stock Chrome, using this benchmark anyway.
No one cares honestly, not even the hardest edge fan.
It would be more interesting to know how they improved edge performance.
MS seems unable or unwilling to make a decent browser. Edge can't be started until you click next through three screens where it tries to make you to create an account with them. The default homepage is full of ads on that website of theirs. I could go on and on, but seriously, I don't think anyone cares about Edge performance.