Windows 10: Is Edge coming as new spyware?

[German]Let's  hope that the plans will quickly disappear into the drawer. In the latest Canary builds of the Edge browser, there is an option to share the history of visited websites in Edge with "other Windows features". True, reasons could be found as to why this is needed. But this feature would be the perfect way to monitor where you've been surfing.

Web browsers already record everything that the user does: Visited websites can be found in the history, reader characters or the URLs of recently opened pages are saved. And the whole thing can be synchronized between devices. Microsoft Edge already offers some settings to collect diagnostic data (used to improve Edge's performance and stability). Browsing history is used to display personalized ads or show search and location suggestions from user input in the Omnibox on input. 

(Source: Pexels, free use)

The colleagues at Techdows have now noticed that Microsoft has added a new setting to Edge profiles in the Canary version (91.0.831.0). This informs the user that Edge connects data from your profile to Windows.

(Source: Techdows)

The Share browsing data with other Windows features setting can be found under Settings> Profiles> and is pretty self-explanatory. It says:

Share browsing data with other Windows features

When turned on, Microsoft Edge will connect local browsing data from this profile with the rest of Windows. Turning this feature on will help you find information from your history, favorites, top sites, and recent tabs more easily using features such as the Windows Search box.

The setting reveals that it will be possible to find open tabs, history, and favorites from the Edge browser using the Windows Search box as an example. So far, the whole thing doesn't really work on Windows 10, the setting is currently still a placeholder. But it's clear that Microsoft wants to dovetail the new Chromium Edge and Windows 10 more with the new feature. The whole thing seems to be rolled out and activated as an A/B test only for selected users.