Begin browsing instantly: Chrome can now launch when Windows starts.

The UI and UX were taken from IE for user familiarity, but under the hood Edge was never based on IE. It launched in 2015 as proprietary thing before Microsoft threw in the towel and switched to Chromium in 2020.

Edge was supposed to replace IE almost immediately, but Microsoft hadn't finished phasing out Silverlight and IE was the last (popular) browser that still supported it natively. IE couldn't go until Silverlight did, and that bitch clung to life until 2021!

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Arudinne@reddit

Ah right, I forgot they had something else before it was chromium. I didn't touch it until after they switched.

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MrJoeMe@reddit

Yup! I've dropped Chrome for Edge awhile ago. Starting to get my users on board too.

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CyberHobbit70@reddit

I have personally not used Chrome for quite awhile

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PrincipleExciting457@reddit

Chrome makes no sense in a professional environment. Edge all day baby.

At home I chose whatever I want, and it’s not chrome.

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Akamiso29@reddit

I mean, it depends if you are running O365 or GWS. You should be promoting whichever one matches your employee’s productivity suite.

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energy980@reddit

In our environment we allow either, the manager says its "good customer service" so just install both. no standardization btw

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MDL1983@reddit

That just means another avenue of attack

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

We're both! Not actually that uncommon in K-12. Staff email in M365, student email in Google, both use Google Docs heavily, but some staff also use OneDrive and Teams. Students are all Google, they don't generally touch M365. Except when signing in, everyone who signs into Google gets 2 hops of SAML ending at Entra... it's a complicated patchwork...

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marblefoot@reddit

When I taught high school, I'm pretty sure I was the only one in our entire district that used Microsoft Teams for assignments and classroom activities and even teaching. I would force them to use the Office Suite.

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shit_liquid@reddit

Completely wrong mate. But go off

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gta721@reddit

Make sure you set Google as the default search engine. They will riot otherwise.

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ohyeahwell@reddit

Same, and can target it like chrome so it’s best if both worlds. Works great with entra sso.

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Grouchy-Nobody3398@reddit

Our cloud based ERP provider only officially support Chrome and have some specific extensions for certain functions.

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Classroom_Conscious@reddit

Just remember to remind your users to not use the build in password manager in edge.

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ka-splam@reddit

Edge doesn't anymore from version 148.

but it did, because Chrome does (or did).

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ThrowAwayTheTeaBag@reddit

GPO to turn that nonsense off.

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HotTakes4HotCakes@reddit

I get this from the It perspective, but the suggestion just makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit as a rule

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

We're dual platform, heavily in M365 on the back end (Entra, etc) and for staff email, but most staff use Google Docs. Students almost entirely use Google, but sign in with Entra.

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rootofallworlds@reddit

Yeah, that’s actually a decent use case. My old workplace had to use both our own M365 accounts and accounts provided by our client on their tenant. Now we could have tried to teach users about profiles in Edge - but I’d say it was easier to just tell people to use Edge for one account and Chrome for the other.

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Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

We are in a very similar position

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awit7317@reddit

Yup. We’ve just started the removal process. Pushback from staff has been amusing when they try to explain to management why they are saving to Google instead of Microsoft 365.

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TimetravellingElf@reddit

Removed from all devices as well except for 1 team so down from over 1000 installs to 20. Pretty much no user complaints either.

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Brraaap@reddit

It has different bloat, but has better enterprise controls

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tejanaqkilica@reddit

And that's the sweetspot.

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Previous-Low4715@reddit

Likewise, we dropped chrome for edge years ago now.

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Jealentuss@reddit

I prefer to set my users up with Edge so I can easily sync bookmarks. I hate having to request to manually export Chrome bookmarks or help someone reset their personal Google password to enable sync.

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JustFrogot@reddit

Except it stores passwords in plain text. Disable that feature.

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Brilliant-Advisor958@reddit

They updated edge to fix that .

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/microsoft-is-changing-edges-plaintext-password-behavior

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Speeddymon@reddit

I always ALWAYS fight for the ability to install Brave if companies restrict browsers to Edge. Edge is great for business people but I'm supporting the business and need my system to not get bogged down when I'm doing research to fix an issue so I have to have an ad blocker; and it's usually easier in my experience to get the browser approved than it is to get an extension approved, because brave is just another edge or chrome and follows the same policy settings.

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HappyVlane@reddit

Brave is not something that should be on a corporate machine with all its bloat, crypto, and AI.

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Max-P@reddit

I like how the original selling point of Chrome was that it was stupid fast, and it used to launch pretty much instantly, and now they have to resort to the same tactics as Microsoft when they preloaded Office and IE and Edge on startup to make them appear to load faster.

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JerikkaDawn@reddit

The application the user wanted opened and was ready to go for them quicker. That was the intent. Caching things is accepted practice.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

Preloading apps you haven't open is not the same concept as caching. Caching is storage, not RAM and CPU. Caching does not cause the mere existence of an app you don't even currently have open to affect the performance of your system while it is closed. Pre-launching an app in the background does.

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ihaxr@reddit

Caching is storage, not RAM and CPU.

Not really, it's whatever location is faster than where it is by default. If it's on a server in antarctic, you can cache it to your local disk so you don't need to transfer it over the network. If it's already on local SSD storage, you can cache it in RAM to load it quicker.

Preloading apps you haven't open is not the same concept as caching

Windows originally called it SuperFetch, it's been renamed to SysMain now. It literally catches apps you frequently open to system memory to speed up launching the apps.

It's a giant piece of garbage and probably always will be, but it's still caching...

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codeprimate@reddit

That’s literally cache warming.

Something that developers preferentially do to reduce cold start or first request latency.

It’s a safe bet that a user will launch a web browser during their session. Better UX.

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Public_Fucking_Media@reddit

Honestly I think you are being silly, unless your infrastructure is absolute dog water or your users are smoking crack their web browser is almost certainly the first thing they are opening every day always....

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jbaird@reddit

yeah this, long as you can turn it off I guess but otherwise this is bit too much old man yelling at cloud stuff, browsers probably account for 90% of computer use for most users personal or work wise..

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

Chrome is not the first thing you open to check your email (Outlook), but yes, a regular staff member on their regular computer will normally open their browser not long after they sign in. BUT regular staff computers are not the only computers in the world.

In a computer lab, sometimes you need Chrome. Other times, you need Chrome closed, and the specific lockdown browser open for some standardized test, sometimes you need some other program. What you don't need is tech companies bypassing IT on managed devices to advertise new features directly to the end-user, presenting an elementary kid with a prompt to change a setting they don't know or care about & steering them to just accept it.

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orby@reddit

On my personal system I just uninstalled Chrome and in the feedback section let them know why.

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VIDGuide@reddit

Gemini will be very upset when it reads that

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gta721@reddit

Suprisingly not https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts?state=%7B%22ids%22:%5B%221SvJVLC0Ve_CKXW6uNF_btr6PLsOUkNQe%22%5D,%22action%22:%22open%22,%22userId%22:%22109352906887402551000%22,%22resourceKeys%22:%7B%7D%7D&usp=sharing

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fubes2000@reddit

Good.

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IAmSnort@reddit

If Gemini knew how to read, it would be very upset.

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Brilliant-Advisor958@reddit

When I reinstalled my personal computer last year I moved to Firefox and edge when needed. And I don't miss chrome at all.

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hikik0_m@reddit

this and edge im noticing. even if you close chrome, its still in the background as a process.

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ArborlyWhale@reddit

You can but you probably don’t want to most of the time. A lot of apps like to trigger log ins on browser close and that refresh makes fewer of those trigger.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

That IS controllable by GPO. You can prevent it from running in the background while closed.

If you've already blocked the ability to give a website permission to send desktop notifications, without exception, then there is really no need for it to run in the background and you may as well disable that too.

And notifications for websites should be blocked! They are normally scareware / fake malware scams, or just spam. But sometimes you have exceptions, e.g. our PBX as a web app can do notifications...

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GezusK@reddit

Chat, Gmail, and Calendar are the ones I have enabled.

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forsurebros@reddit

I edge you can turn that off in settings. I do not use chrome but assume it has a similar setting it is to allow chrome/edge to startup faster.

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yankdevil@reddit

It would be better if it could install Ubuntu and remove Windows. Or Mint, that's fine too.

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mrmattipants@reddit

You could probably just disable it from the Task Manager.

Try Right-Clicking on your Task Bar and Select "Task Manager".

Then Select "Startup Apps", find "Google Chrome" in the list, Right-Click on it and Select "Disable".

That should do it.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

Click, click, click, click, a few more clicks, rinse and repeat 1,500 times? Check which sub, it's not r/techsupport... I'm not talking about one computer

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mrmattipants@reddit

That was my bad. It appears that I misunderstood the question, as I initially thought you were asking how to Disable the Google Chrome Autostart option.

However, while digging into it a bit more, I came across a couple articles, which suggests that they've been testing this feature for several months now, within Chrome Canary.

https://windowsforum.com/threads/chrome-tests-startup-launch-prompt-on-windows-11-canary-builds.400573/

https://9to5google.com/2026/02/11/chrome-on-windows-auto-launch-browser-foreground-at-startup/

That said, I'll see if I can reproduce the prompt in my lab and try to dig up a potential solution, if possible.

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mrmattipants@reddit

I actually realized that after posting, so I modified my post, under the assumption that you were going to need to deploy a solution to a number of computers.

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scattered_soccer@reddit

the startup launch thing is such a transparent move. chrome used to actually be fast, now they need to game the metrics by preloading it before you even ask for it. the irony of google complaining about bloatware while pulling the exact same play microsoft got dragged for with edge is pretty thick.

for the gpo, you could try disabling it through group policy under computer config or user config depending on your setup, but honestly at this point a lot of shops are just going edge anyway. it handles most business stuff fine, integrates cleaner with windows, and you skip the whole song and dance of managing chrome's aggressive defaults.

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nemor3@reddit

Google's been doing this for years on consumer side, figured it was only a matter of time before it crept into managed environments. BackgroundModeEnabled via ADMX is the closest thing right now, whether it covers this specific behavior or just the background process is worth testing in a pilot OU before pushing fleet-wide.

The real irony is they do publish Chrome ADMX templates specifically for enterprise control, and then ship features like this without a clean policy toggle ready on day one.

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headcrap@reddit

Go fetch the Google Chrome ADMX and get busy.

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Theswanz@reddit

Yup, we don’t let users complain about not having their personal chrome bookmarks.

Cause you are using Edge at work.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

Our users generally sync Chrome to their managed Google Workspace accounts

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subsvenhurt@reddit

The Chrome ADMX templates have a BackgroundModeEnabled policy that's worth testing first, set it to disabled via GPO to cut the, background runner, though it's not confirmed whether that actually blocks this new login-launch behavior since they may be governed by separate mechanisms. Honestly, a clean GPO or reg key specifically targeting the startup-at-login feature hasn't surfaced, yet, so pilot it in a test OU before assuming BackgroundModeEnabled is your full answer..

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AffekeNommu@reddit

Haha yeah not ideal for on prem where you won't have everything ready and the browser fires early and gets half a group policy

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PowerShellGenius@reddit (OP)

That's not the issue, since this is per user and isn't on by default. but nags to turn it on.

By the time the user opens Chrome, says yes to this nag, logs out of the PC and logs back in, and it actually auto launches, the GPOs applied once already and the policy reg keys are in their profile, even if they are outdated and take a 2nd login to apply future changes, they aren't escaping policy altogether.

The real issue is spam, visual clutter, and predictability. Random unexpected things popping up that you don't care about is just a nuisance your average working-age adult ignores. But they confuse elementary school students who need simple workflows to get to their educational activities, that match exactly what's on the whiteboard and didn't change without Google giving anyone advance notice.

Also, when you're done teaching full time, you can just be a sub for as many/few hours as you want to pick up, so why fully quit? So we have a surplus of 80 year olds in the environment, and they get confused just as easily as the youngest kids...

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HWKII@reddit

gif

Words.

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Afraid-Donke420@reddit

I mean, you’ve always been able to do that - just not shoved down your throat

Funny enough we love it since everything we use is a web app and in kiosk mode

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