How to use the Microsoft Edge sidebar

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ISSUE 20.43 • 2023-10-23 INTERNET By Lance Whitney The sidebar in Microsoft Edge offers you a handy way to access frequently used tools, apps, website
[See the full post at: How to use the Microsoft Edge sidebar]

6 users thanked author for this post.

ibe98765, DaveH52, abbodi86, doriel, lmacri, fisher75

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Re Customizing Edge sidebar. There is no ‘+’ sign under my Edge Bing icon.

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I have no ‘+’ sign under my Edge Bing icon, either. I don’t even have a Bing icon.

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Right clicking on any of the Top Sites that are there by default does nothing. There is no option to remove.

I cannot find any Customize pane where these sites show up. They take up a lot of space in the sidebar and, since I can’t get rid of them, I won’t be using Edge.

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Top Sites appear in the Customise pane. They aren’t in the sidebar. But if you click one it will be. Right-click there to unpin it from the sidebar.

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I guess I can see how the sidebar could be useful. My issue is that Edge has too much white in its UI. Honestly, for me, even Chrome could stand to have a more condensed version. (I already have to use a custom DPI setting in Chrome or the UI is too big.) The sidebar just makes the cramped space seem even worse.

They need a more condensed UI, made for mouse users, rather than touch users. That is one thing that might get me off of Chrome.

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I bought a new laptop with Windows 11. Edge was the default browser that opened as soon as the laptop booted. I set my default pages, which it ignored and opened on bootup with adverts.

Took me ages to stop this and get it to open when I asked it to with my saved pages.

Then Edge had an update.  Back to square one!

 

My advice: Don’t open Edge! I use Brave and my wife uses Firefox. Edge must never be mentioned in this house!

 

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shornoff wrote:

My advice: Don’t open Edge!

But you need to run Edge in order to download another browser.

I don’t use Edge but I do update the browser and my default browser setting never change.

Microsoft now wants you to take a poll before installing Google Chrome

..We love having you!

Can you please take a minute to tell us why you are trying another browser?

I can’t search Google easily
I can’t access my Google documents
I don’t have my favorites or passwords here
Too many ads and pop-ups
I don’t like the news feed
It’s too slow
My websites don’t work on Microsoft Edge
My reason is not listed..

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Which reason would you click?

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All of them

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You can only click one.

Why is Google search difficult on Edge?

Which of your websites don’t work on Edge?

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b wrote:

Which of your websites don’t work on Edge?

Most of websites don’t work on Edge as I get a little red x at the top : JavaScript was blocked on this page (even on Microsoft new tab)
I won’t allow JavaScript, so Edge is useless.

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Most sites work fine for me with JavaScript disabled in Edge, including the new tab page.

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Not for me.

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I’ve thought about trying some of the ‘features’ in Edge/CrEdge and it seems to work OK, BUT even if I never even opened it I’ll have multiple instances of it, 11 in this case, showing up in TaskManager. Why? What the heck is it doing? Why does it even have to be loaded?

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I started my computer. I didn’t start Edge.

Why does Edge have so many instances loaded?

What is it doing?

Is it spying?

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DaveH52 wrote:

Why does Edge have so many instances loaded?

That’s because it’s based on Google’s Chromium code and Google deliberately designed it to isolate (i.e. sandbox) each browser tab, plugin, and the display rendering engine by running them as their own separate processes so, if one crashes, the whole browser doesn’t crash/freeze up.

When I have Edge running on my system (with only one tab open), task manager shows 10 different instances of Edge.exe running and, each new tab I open, increases it by one.

BTW, it’s not just Edge that does this, all Chromium based browsers do the same thing.

DaveH52 wrote:

I started my computer. I didn’t start Edge.

If Edge “Startup boost” is enabled, Edge will automatically start every time you boot/login.

Also, if the “Continue running background extensions and apps when Edge is closed” is enabled, closing Edge won’t kill all those instances.

Go to Edge > Settings > System and Performance to disable them.

As the above screen shot shows, they’re disabled on my system and, when I close Edge, it also kills all the open Edge.exe instances.

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WCHS

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Caution; Outlook refers only to Outlook.com  Also, Microsoft 365 does not include MS Access.

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On my sidebar it has some ai chatbot.  I asked it a few questions, the answers seemed legit.  Don’t know if I’ll use it again since I don’t use Edge but it’s a thing I suppose.  Why not just use a search engine in a better browser?  They pretty much all have ai suggestions now.

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Biiljoy wrote:

Why not just use a search engine in a better browser?

Is there a better browser than Edge?

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Browsers are too damn complicated nowadays!  They all have hundreds of adjustments, settings, add-on’s etc.

Does anyone make just a simple web browser any longer?

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ibe98765 wrote:

Browsers are too damn complicated nowadays!  They all have hundreds of adjustments, settings, add-on’s etc.

Does anyone make just a simple web browser any longer?

https://windowsreport.com/lightweight-browser-windows/

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Good to see Microsoft Edge in that recent top ten list, with less CPU usage than most of the others.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

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