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Microsoft is aggressively pushing the Edge browser on to users. With the present preview builds, it’s undone the little hacks users had in place to route Cortana’s searches through Google and their browser of choice. It’s more or less a tug of war at present with Windows 10 insisting that anything that Cortana searches for be routed through Edge and users consistently saying No to it. For many Cortana is just a fast way to look search for an app but it will often turn a query into a web search and if you accidentally click it, Edge will open. Edge Blocker is a portable app that will automatically close Edge whenever it opens either by accident or by Windows.


Download Edge blocker and run the app. Click the ‘Block’ button and minimize the app. Any time Edge opens, Edge Blocker will close it.



To be fair, Edge Blocker is not without its faults. When you minimize the app, it continues to appear on the Taskbar instead of minimizing to the system tray. It’s also a bit slow at closing Edge. The browser window will open and you will see the big blue loading screen before Edge Blocker closes it.

There’s room for improvement but if Microsoft is going to persistently push the unwanted browser on to users, these little apps are going to become popular fairly fast despite their shortcomings. The current state of Edge on the preview builds is not too encouraging. Granted the browser is going to be a half-baked version on a preview build, it’s still disappointing. In the Preview Build 14342, it’s almost impossible to use and for a browser that’s been around for almost a year now that isn’t encouraging in any way.

Download Edge Blocker For Windows