Edge & Chrome — Your Browser,
Set Up Right

Two good browsers, one confused computer

Windows 11 comes with Microsoft Edge built in, and many computers also have Google Chrome — so links open in one browser while your favorites and saved passwords sit in the other. Add the occasional “Make Edge your default browser?” banner and it starts to feel like a tug-of-war. It isn't your fault, and nothing is broken: two large companies are politely elbowing each other in your living room.

Here's my honest position: Edge is fine, Chrome is fine — underneath the paint they're built on the same engine. The browser your hands already know is the right one. What matters is that YOU pick it, it stays picked, and your favorites, homepage, and sign-in all live where your fingers expect them. Every step below is free and built into Windows.

Make your browser the default — five clicks

1. Click the Start button, then Settings (the gear).
2. Click Apps, then Default apps.
3. Under “Set defaults for applications,” click your browser — Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.
4. At the top, next to “Make ___ your default browser,” click Set default.
5. Test it: click a link in an email. If the right browser opens, you're done — links everywhere now open in YOUR browser.

When it asks you to switch anyway

Even after you've chosen, Windows may still suggest Edge and Google's websites may still suggest Chrome. That's advertising, not your setting failing — click “Not now” or the X and carry on. The one habit that prevents most of the mess: never click Yes on a “make this your default browser?” box just to make it go away. Choose on purpose, in Settings, once.

Copy your favorites from one browser to the other

• Into Chrome: three dots (top-right) › Bookmarks and lists › Import bookmarks and settings › choose Microsoft Edge › Import.
• Into Edge: three dots › Settings › Profiles › Import browser data › choose Google Chrome › Import.
• Importing copies — nothing leaves the old browser, so you can't lose anything in the process.
• The new arrivals land in a folder marked “Imported” — drag your favorites onto the favorites bar from there.
• Menu wording moved on your machine? Open the browser's Settings and type import in its search box — it jumps straight there.

Back up your favorites to a file (ten-minute insurance)

Press Ctrl + Shift + O in either browser to open the favorites or bookmark manager, click the three dots inside that panel, and choose Export. Save the file to Documents with the year in the name. Any browser — now or twenty years from now — can read that file back in. Do it once or twice a year, and your map of the internet is safe no matter what happens to the computer.

Set your homepage and startup pages

• Chrome: three dots › Settings › On startup — choose a clean New Tab page, “Continue where you left off,” or specific pages like your email and the weather.
• Chrome's Home button: Settings › Appearance › turn on Show home button and pick where it goes.
• Edge: three dots › Settings › Start, home, and new tabs — the startup choice and the Home button live on the same page.
• Edge's noisy new-tab page: click the gear on the new-tab page itself and pick a simpler layout — the headline wall calms right down.

Pin your browser to the taskbar

1. Type the browser's name in the taskbar Search box.
2. Right-click it in the results and choose Pin to taskbar — now it's one click away, always.
3. Optional: right-click the browser you don't use and choose Unpin from taskbar to prevent wrong-clicks. It stays installed — just off the shelf.

The pop-ups to ignore

A web page shouting “Your browser is out of date!” or a flashing “virus warning” with a phone number is theater — real browsers update themselves quietly and never ask you to call anyone. Close the tab (Esc first if it's stuck full-screen, then Ctrl + W). And if you ever download a browser fresh, type the address yourself — google.com/chrome or microsoft.com/edge — instead of clicking search ads. The full guide covers the scams calmly, page by page.

What's in the 27-page PDF

• What a browser is, which one you're using, and how to tell in two minutes
• The 60-second version: the whole setup in six checkboxes
• Edge vs. Chrome compared honestly, row by row — and why familiar wins
• Making your browser the default in Windows 11, step by step, and proving it worked
• The “make Edge your default” nudges — what's advertising, what needs fixing
• Favorites 101: the star, Ctrl + D, and the favorites bar (Ctrl + Shift + B)
• Moving favorites both directions — Edge to Chrome and Chrome to Edge
• Backing every favorite up to one small file, and restoring it someday
• Signing in and sync, in plain English — when it helps, when to skip it
• Homepage, startup pages, and taming Edge's noisy new-tab page
• Pinning to the taskbar, tidying years of favorites, and the full moving checklist
• Browser scams calmly explained — plus FAQ, glossary, and a fill-in cheat sheet

Why I wrote this

“Which browser should I use?” might be the question I hear most on house calls around Portage County — usually from someone who suspects the answer will mean relearning everything. It doesn't. Both browsers are good, and the right one is the one your hands already know. So I wrote down the whole setup the way I'd do it at your kitchen table: pick yours, make it stick, move the favorites, back them up, pin it where you can see it. Print it and keep it by the computer. — Bill