Microsoft Edge Security and Privacy

Microsoft Edge offers a comprehensive set of integrated security and privacy protection features that can help keep you safe online.

Many of these features work in the background and don't require any configuration or oversight. For example, a technology called Microsoft Defender SmartScreen provides reputation-based protection against malware, phishing attacks, malicious advertising, and potentially unwanted applications.

But there are other Edge security and privacy features that are disabled by default or should be configured differently than Microsoft's defaults. And these are the features we focus on in this chapter.
Examine the security and privacy features in Microsoft Edge
The front-end for Microsoft Edge's security and privacy features can be found in Edge settings under Privacy, search, and services. (Or, just navigate to edge://settings/privacy).

Some features to consider here include:

Tracking prevention. This is discussed in the next section.

Clear browsing data. Here, you can clear your browsing history---optionally including your download history, cookies and other site data, cached images and files, passwords, autofill form data, site permissions, and more---or configure the browser to always clear some or all of this data each time you close it.

Privacy. It's curious that there are only two features here. Do Not Track is configured by default but ignored by virtually the entire web, so this feature is inconsequential. And by default, Microsoft Edge lets websites see whether you have a payment method saved in the browser; you can safely turn that off.

Diagnostic data. Like Windows 11, Microsoft Edge tracks your actions and you cannot completely disable this behavior. You can, however, disable so-called optional diagnostic data tracking under "Optional diagnostic data."

Search and service improvement. Set this option to "Off." You should not help Microsoft by sending it the results of your web searches.

Personalization & advertising. Set this option to "Off."

Security. For the most part, the default settings in this section are fine. But two features---secure DNS and enhanced web security---warrant further discussion so we discuss them both later in this chapter.
Limit online tracking
You should prevent online trackers from collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers and malicious actors. To this end, Microsoft Edge includes a feature called tracking prevention that provides a limited level of protection against this behavior.

But it's not enough, so you can ignore this feature. Instead, you should use another web browser or, at the very least, bolster the protections in Edge with one or more tracker blockers extensions. We discuss this topic in Set Up Microsoft Edge Correctly. This will provide you with the level of protection you need and that Edge does not supply.
This issue, in case it's not obvious, that tracking protection does not work very well and it d...

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