Microsoft Edge and Browser Search Results – Give me a Break!

Breaking News!

Browser companies advertise their own wares when users visit their search engines in a competitors browser.

It happens every day and this is certainly not news or else it is only news when Microsoft does it with their own browser and search engine.

Just visit Google with Internet Explorer, Firefox or more recently Microsoft Edge and this is what you will see in the upper right hand corner of the window:

At other times you will see this prompt when visiting Google if they are not your default search engine in the browser:

So suddenly Microsoft offering a pointer to their new browser, Microsoft Edge, when someone searches for Chrome or Firefox at Bing.com is a controversy?

Here is the issue that is being trumped up:

Results of a search for Chrome on Bing with prompt for Microsoft Edge

Results of a search for Firefox on Bing with prompt for Microsoft Edge

Please put away the tin hats and take a deep breath.

As I showed you above, this is not an uncommon practice and is used by Google to offer their own browser and search engine to users of other browsers.

SOP - Standard Operating Procedure - but apparently only an issue when Microsoft does it.

This is very much like the other FUD which is out there about privacy and Windows 10. All of that despite the fact that other tech companies track anonymous information from your computer.

It is SOP.

Now if you really want this to be an issue then Microsoft would need to artificially insert their Microsoft Edge browser into the search results when someone searches Bing for Chrome or Firefox.

That is not happening though. Look at the above search result images for those terms on Bing. The first and primary result is exactly what was searched for. Even the big sidebar area is prominently showing info, images and links for that search term.

I browsed through the first five pages of each of those searches and there is no result that includes the term Microsoft Edge in it.

Take a look at the related searches for theses terms and there is no indication of Microsoft Edge there either:

This is a non-issue folks so back away from the keyboard and get some fresh air.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.