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Illustration by Stephen Shankland / CNET
For years, Google has placed prominent pop-up ads on its web properties, suggesting that people switch to Google’s Chrome browser, saying they’ll get better performance, features, and security. Now Microsoft is testing the same idea, leveraging its email service to try to push people to its recently revamped Edge web browser.
“Microsoft Edge + Outlook = Better Together,” says a promotional note at the top of the Outlook.com website. Clicking on the text sends it to an Edge download site, but the site doesn’t indicate how Microsoft thinks its technology works best. A variety of other ads can also be shown, according to Windows Latest, which detected the ads earlier this week.
Promotion is a new example of tech giants using power in a domain to promote their browsers. Microsoft has also asked people to switch to Edge using ads in the Windows 10 start menu. And while Apple allows third-party browsers on their iPhones and iPads, it requires them to create their software based on Safari browser technology. from Apple.
Microsoft Edge and Outlook are “better together,” says a Microsoft announcement.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland / CNET
It is unclear how widespread Microsoft’s Edge promotion is. I saw it in Chrome, but not in other browsers, and only on a computer. Microsoft and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Chrome dominates browser use, accounting for 64 percent of web activity, according to analytics firm StatCounter. Microsoft removed its Internet Explorer into a more modern Edge years ago, but when that was not generalized, Microsoft rebuilt Edge over Chromium, Google’s open source database for Chrome.
That new version of Edge is available to download now. Microsoft plans to distribute it widely through Windows Update later this spring.
Browsers are important to tech giants. They drive traffic to search engines that often share the resulting ad revenue with the browser. But when Chrome sends searches to Google or Edge sends them to Bing, browser makers don’t have to share the revenue with another company.
