To help make Edge feel like your browser, you can customize what opens when you launch Edge, and you also customize what is shown when you create new tabs. Not only does this make your browser more personal, it can also boost productivity by removing the time it takes to get to sites you frequently visit.
Here's how to customize launch and tab options in Edge for Windows 10.
How to change what opens when you launch Edge
When you launch Edge, you can set it to open with a blank page, pages from your last browser session, and even specific pages you like to visit everyday. Here's how to change what happens when you launch Edge.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the More button — it is located near the top-right corner of the window and looks like ..
- Click Settings.
- Click the dropdown arrow beneath Open Microsoft Edge with.
- Click a launch option. You can choose from:
- Start page: you'll be shown a feed with local weather and top news from around the world.
- New tab page: a new tab will open.
- Previous pages: pages from your previous session will be restored.
- A specific page or pages: you can add a page or pages to open every time you launch Edge.
If you choose A specific page or pages as the Edge launch option, you can add a page or pages to open every time you launch Edge. Here's how to do it.
- Click the Enter a URL field.
- Type a URL.
- Click the Save button. It looks like a floppy disk and is located next to the URL field.
- Click the More button to close the menu.
How to add more than one website to open when you launch Edge
The page you added will now open each time you launch Edge. You can add more pages to the list if you aren't satisfied with the one page.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the More button — it is located near the top-right corner of the window and looks like ..
- Click Settings.
- Click Add new page.
- Type a URL.
- Click the Save button. It looks like a floppy disk and is located next to the URL field.
- Click the More button to close the menu.
How to stop websites from opening when you launch Edge
If you're tired of seeing a page when you launch Edge, you can remove individual pages from the list.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the More button — it is located near the top-right corner of the window and looks like ..
- Click Settings.
- Click the X next to the URL you'd like to remove.
- Click the More button to close the menu.
How to change what opens when you create a new tab in Edge
To boost productivity or to make Edge seem just a bit more like your own, you can customize what opens when you create a new tab. Here's how to do it.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the More button — it is located near the top-right corner of the window and looks like ..
- Click Settings.
- Click the dropdown arrow beneath Open new tabs with.
- Click a new tab option. You can choose from:
- Top sites and suggested content: the sites you visit most and current news stories will be displayed.
- Top sites: the sites you visit most will be displayed as thumbnails.
- A blank page: A blank page with an address bar will be displayed.
- Click the More button to close the menu.
How to customize your suggested content
If you choose tabs to open with Top sites and suggested content, you can customize the suggested content.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the New tab button (+) at the top of the window or use the Ctrl + T shortcut on your keyboard.
- Click the Customize button. It looks like a gear and is located to the right of the window above top-site thumbnails.
- Click the dropdown arrow beneath Select language & content.
- Click a country and language option.
- Click the switches beneath Information cards to toggle whether or not you want to see Weather, Sports, and Money information.
- Click any favorite topics to see more related content in new tabs. You can click any selected topics again to deselect them.
- Click Save.
How to restore customized tabs to their default settings
Tired of what you're seeing in new tabs? You can completely reset what tabs open with to start fresh.
- Launch Edge from your Start menu, desktop, or taskbar.
- Click the New tab button (+) at the top of the window or use the Ctrl + T shortcut on your keyboard.
- Click the Customize button. It looks like a gear and is located to the right of the window above top-site thumbnails.
- Click Reset to default settings.
- Click Reset.
Your launch options
Do you set certain sites to open each time you launch Edge? Let us know in the comments section!
While the Microsoft Edge browser is definitely a compelling upgrade to Internet Explorer in Windows 10, it's struggled against aggressive competition from Google, Apple, and Mozilla. But with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Edge has had two and half years to mature and improve. Let's see how it stacks up.
Pros
A fundamentally fluid and snappy browser: On release day, Edge loaded pages quickly and scrolled smoothly. About a year later, Microsoft added support for add-ons, so you have things like LastPass, Reddit Enhancement Suite, Evernote, Pinterest, and ad blockers -- but they don't slow down the browsing experience like add-ons have been known to do. While Firefox may struggle with HD video streaming, and Chrome may eat up a lot of system memory, Edge has neither of these problems and is a night-and-day improvement over Internet Explorer.
Android and iPhone integration: When this browser launched alongside Windows 10 in mid-2015, it lacked a way to smoothly sync your activity to mobile devices. With no Android or iOS version of Edge, Google Chrome has ended up dominating on Android, and Apple's Safari browser has a deeply integrated presence on Apple devices. Now Microsoft has finally come out with mobile versions, albeit in beta testing form. When you log into your Microsoft account in Edge on Android or iOS, it will now sync your open tabs, browsing history, and saved website passwords with your desktop version of the browser.
Built-in, high-quality PDF reader: In the past, a PDF reader was something that Windows users had to get themselves -- or they wrestled with the version in Windows 8 that had a frustrating UI that took over your whole screen unexpectedly. In Windows 10, Edge is actually the default for PDFs, and it works well. These documents open quickly and scroll smoothly, and you can treat them like any other tab in your browser.
Plus, you can now annotate your PDFs; there's highlighting, copying sections of text, underlining, and integrated Cortana AI (Microsoft's competitor to the Google Assistant and Apple's Siri). For example, you can highlight something and ask Cortana for more information.
Cons
Add-on support is still relatively limited: Edge currently has only 71 extensions available for the desktop version, which is a drop in the bucket compared to Chrome and Firefox, and no extensions for the mobile versions (though to be fair, the mobile version of Chrome does not have add-ons either). While raw numbers aren't everything, variety is important.
If you want an add-on to download videos for offline viewing, Video Downloader Professional is the only game in town. There's one add-on for mouse gestures, none for taking screenshots or switching a site to a dark mode, and no official add-ons from Google for things like Gmail, Translate, or image searches. Microsoft has added a lot of the popular add-ons, but there are still some noticeable gaps.
Not available for Windows 7 or 8: According to the latest numbers from NetMarketShare, about 47 percent of Windows users are using Windows 7, while Windows 10 sits at 29 percent. Yet Edge is expanding to Android and iOS instead of older versions of Microsoft's own operating system, leaving hundreds of millions of already loyal customers untapped.
Granted, Edge may be deeply connected to programming code that's specific to the latest version of Windows (the Android and iOS versions are based on code from Google and Apple, respectively), but it's not good optics, and it effectively shepherds hundreds of millions of users into alternative ecosystems where they'll be difficult to win back.
Edge doesn't compete with Chrome or Firefox at the level where it could be a carrot to entice users to upgrade to a new OS, so this just looks like a missed opportunity to win over people who are already inclined to check out their offerings.
Bottom Line
Edge still suffers in the add-on department, and its continued absence in Windows 7 and 8 is a puzzler. But it provides a very smooth browsing experience in Windows 10, Android, and iOS; its modest add-on collection includes a lot of popular tools and services; and getting on iOS and Android is a big step forward for users who prefer the Microsoft ecosystem over Google's and Apple's.
What do you need to know about free software?
Right now, when I'm done with a tab and want to reuse it, I have to close it and open a new one to see the top sites page. (I have new tabs set to open the top sites page.)
I have the home button enabled, so I'm wondering if there's a way to set the home page to the top sites page.
If possible, how is it done?
user3071284user3071284
3 Answers
In most browsers, including Edge,
about:tabs
shows the top visited sites.If you set this as your homepage, you're set.
LPChipLPChip37.9k55 gold badges5757 silver badges9292 bronze badges
To set your home to frequent pages, open setting, click
View advanced settings
and change the text box under show the home button
to about:tabs
. SilentVoidSilentVoid
it is possible to open the top sites page when clicking the home button by doing the following: Click the three dots -> Settings -> View advanced settings -> under the 'Show the home button' checkbox, there is a dropdown list, from that list choose 'New tab page'.
Top Sites List
Hope it helps!
John LaszloJohn Laszlo
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I am not a big fan of the 'pinnable' taskbar feature that was introduced in Windows 7 and which has carried through to Windows 10.
I tend to customise back to classic taskbar items. However, in Windows 10 there seems to be default items (Microsoft Edge and File Explorer) pinned which cannot be removed (normally which I do through a right click -> Unpin):
Is it possible to remove these?
EDIT:
Right clicking produces a menu with no 'unpin' options. I also do not have Edge or File Explorer running:
Mark Cooper3,92655 gold badges4444 silver badges7878 bronze badges
Dave NewDave New16.8k3434 gold badges140140 silver badges315315 bronze badges
closed as off-topic by crashmstr, Flexo♦Aug 12 '15 at 21:50
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:
- 'Questions about general computing hardware and software are off-topic for Stack Overflow unless they directly involve tools used primarily for programming. You may be able to get help on Super User.' – crashmstr, Flexo
2 Answers
Whilst I see that you have tried to right click, the Unpin option is available for me when I right-click:
There's a chest in the back of the cave with the diagram.Feline Armor SetLocation: Find the cave in northwest Novigrad, then continue left into a room with statues. Witcher 2 dark mode guide.
I have tried this in Win 10 Enterprise RTM. Edge is running, with a couple of tabs open.
- What version of Win10 are you running?
- Can you try same again with Edge running and a few pages open? (long shot)
This also 'works on my machine' for unpinning folder explorer too:
Mark CooperMark Cooper
3,92655 gold badges4444 silver badges7878 bronze badges
August 12th.. I can't right click on any icons in the taskbar. I currently have the search icon, File Explorer icon, Firefox, Chrome, CCleaner, and 'Edge'.. no menus appear for any of them. I will never use Edge or whatever the latest incarnation of IE is. No unpin option, no menu at all. Just installed Win10 last night.
edit: Restarted, turns out there were updates I was unaware of. I am able to pin and unpin as usual.. problem is fixed.
egretegret