- Microsoft could get the Windows 11 process line search box to shoot your default browser and search engine, rather than edge and bing
- This is based on tracks in an early test version of its edge browser
- The EEA region already has the advantage of this change, so hope is very much that Microsoft is considering rolling this globally out
Microsoft may just make a much-post-asked change to Windows 11 in terms of having the search box open an inquiry in the operating system’s standard web browser rather than edge.
Windows latest reports that there are flags in a test building of the edge browser (in the Canary Channel), which is a tip that Microsoft is working on this functionality, although it may never be executed.
The flags in question are for features related to ‘WSB’ or Windows Search Beam – which means that the search box on the taskbar – or then Window’s latest theorizes, and this seems likely (although technical WSB could refer to Windows Sandbox that does not fit the context).
One of the flags indicates that the standard browser will be used from the search box instead of the edge, and there is also a flag for the standard search engine to be used instead of bing. On top of this, Windows latest a further flag to invoke both of these performances.
In the latter case, it would mean that if you were running a search in the taskbar that produced a web result, instead of using Edge and Bing automatically, Windows 11 would bring your chosen default browser and search engine (Chrome and Google Maybe or Firefox and Duckduckgo – no matter what you have chosen).
Note that this is hidden development at the edge so far, but they would theoretically be linked to wider changes in Windows 11, where the said standards would be respected by Microsoft.
Analysis: Smoothing of Windows playing rule
Of course, respecting your standard service and app selection is exactly how things should work, but they don’t. Microsoft would rather summon his own browser and search engine in Windows 11 when it can. If it annoys Windows 11 users, please – things have been like that for a long time.
It’s not entirely true for everyone, so especially, not so long ago, Microsoft Windows 11 fine -tuned in EEA (European Economic Area) to follow this behavior. Yes, people in Europe have their standard browser and selection of search engines complied with the Windows search field due to EU legislation (ACT Digital Markets).
So what this step – if it happens – will be about, brings everyone else in the world in line with these European countries. It would be a big step forward for Microsoft in my book, and undoubtedly a popular feature that helps reduce the perception of Windows 11, which begins to become a two-layer OS based on what you live in. (This is a point I recently discussed about a useful change to extended free updates to Windows 10 that happens in the EEA only.
Before we are led away with the notion of this great leveling of the search box, this is still a nebulous tip. Flags hidden in an early testing of the edge are a very vague impact and even more because we guess something about their meaning.
Still, this is a tempting suggestion that Microsoft may be moving in the right direction, even if I only want to believe it when I see it.
