Microsoft has fixed an issue where its Edge browser was again misbehaving, this time by automatically importing browsing data and tabs from Chrome without consent, Tom Warren at The Verge reported.

He wrote: “I personally experienced the bug last month, after I rebooted my PC for a regular Windows update and Microsoft Edge automatically opened with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update.”

He asked Microsoft to explain why this behavior had occurred for himself and many other Windows users, but the company refused to comment. Microsoft has now quietly issued a fix in the latest Microsoft Edge update.

Here’s how Microsoft describes the fix:

“Edge has a feature that provides an option to import browser data on each launch from other browsers with user content. This feature state might not have been syncing and displaying correctly across multiple devices. This is fixed.”

The fix suggests that the setting for controlling the automatic import of browsing data wasn’t syncing and displaying correctly across devices. We’ve asked Microsoft for more clarity on the root cause of this issue, but we’re not holding our breaths for a response.

According to The Verge, Mozilla, the creator of the Firefox browser, recently commissioned a research paper “to investigate Microsoft’s tactics and the impact on consumers.” The paper explores Microsoft’s use of harmful design tactics that run contrary to the company’s own design guidelines, and can undermine competition from rival browsers.

These tactics include subtle ways to force Windows 11 users into Edge, ignoring the default browser if they clicked a link from the Windows Widgets panel or from search results. Microsoft also started forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge last year, angering IT admins.

9to5Google reported that recently, Microsoft Edge was caught sneakily grabbing data from Google Chrome, and other browsers following Windows updates, but there was also an apparent glitch going on where Edge would grab data even if you didn’t give it permission. Now, that bug has supposedly been fixed.

For the past couple of years, Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge browser has had support for pulling from other browsers (focused on Chrome) to keep Edge up to date if you used it. The feature has been pushed pretty aggressively as of late, with Windows updates showing a prompt that cannot be closed which tries to get your permission to do this.

However, for some, that update wasn’t the cause of Edge copying data from Chrome. A glitch within Edge would activate this feature for some users without their permission, which lead to a lot of confusion on how Edge was getting this data. In a recent changelog, for the latest stable version of Edge, Microsoft says (in a roundabout way) that the issue has been fixed.

Android Headlines reported that Microsoft’s past strategies include monthly Windows updates that automatically launch and pin Edge to the desktop and taskbar without user consent. Additionally prompts for polls occasionally appear to discourage users from downloading competing browsers like Chrome.

In my opinion, this situation was very likely not a “glitch”. There appears to be reason to think that Microsoft did this intentionally in an effort to discourage users from choosing the Chrome browser, instead of the Edge browser Microsoft clearly prefers them to use.