Microsoft Edge is sending all your visited pages to Bing — how to turn it off

(Image credit: Microsoft)

If you’re after a reason to not use Microsoft's Edge browser then we have a big one: it’s feeding back every URL you visit to the Bing search engine by default. That’s a big privacy snafu.

First spotted on Reddit, this problem all stems from the “follow content creators” option introduced in Microsoft Edge 112.0.1722.34 and is switched on by default. The tool serves up suggestions for content creators to follow in Edge. The aim is that you get a feed of updates from the creators in one place, rather than needing to visit a lot of sites of URLs.

However, it appears that this tool is sending information about every site you visit back to Microsoft via the bingapis.com domain. In short, tracking you and sapping your browsing privacy.

Before you rush to uninstall Edge and shift over to macOS, it would appear that this data collecting is a bug rather than an intentional information harvest. Developer Rafael Rivera told The Verge that instead of notifying Bing of the sites you want to follow, the tool "doesn’t appear to be working correctly, instead sending nearly every domain you visit to Bing."

Microsoft is reportedly aware of the problem and is taking “appropriate action to address any issues.” Regardless, this isn’t a great look for the Edge browser, and gives us a good reason to stick with Google Chrome.

How to stop Edge sending your boring data to Bing

While Microsoft may be working on a fix, you might want to take action yourself to stop Bing from sucking up your browsing data. To do that there are a few simple steps to follow.

1. First open up the Edge Browser and go to the Privacy Settings; to do that select the Menu, then select Settings and click on Privacy, search and services.

2. Once there, scroll down to the Services section and toggle off "Get notified when creators you follow post new content".

3. Then switch off "Show suggestions to follow creators in Microsoft Edge" and restart the Edge browser. Once that’s done Edge will stop submitting visited webpages to Bing apis, and you’ll have clawed back some browsing privacy.

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Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.