
Microsoft’s long-standing habit of routing Windows Search and several shell-driven links into Microsoft Edge — regardless of the user’s chosen default browser — may be closer to ending than many thought, but the change comes with caveats and new technical complexities that power users and IT pros need to understand now. A recent update to Microsoft Edge Canary exposed a group of experimental flags that strongly suggest Windows 11’s Start/taskbar search and related “Windows Search Bar” surfaces could soon honor a user’s default browser and preferred search engine — potentially opening links in Chrome (or Firefox) using Google (or DuckDuckGo), rather than forcing Microsoft Edge and Bing. This behavior was first reported in detail by a Windows-focused site after the flags were discovered in Canary, and it lines up with Microsoft’s ongoing, region-limited adjustments to respect user choice in areas affected by regulatory pressure.
Background / Overview
Windows 11’s Start menu and taskbar search have for years been an awkward hybrid: local indexing and app-launching capabilities sitting beside web-powered suggestions and answers supplied by Microsoft’s own web stack. The web results portion has traditionally been powered by Bing and routed through Microsoft Edge even when a different browser is set as the user’s default. That has frustrated users and stirred public commentary about “forced” routing to Edge and Bing — a problem that has attracted community-built workarounds and developer tools to intercept and redirect such requests.In 2024–2025 Microsoft began changing some behaviors in response to regulators and user pressure: experiments and Insider builds have introduced clearer separation between local results and web results in the Start menu, and Microsoft announced region-specific changes to respect default browser settings in the European Economic Area (EEA). These moves are part policy, part engineering: splitting the UI to label web results more transparently and, in some cases, allowing system-level components to open content in the default browser rather than Edge. Independent coverage confirms Microsoft has been rolling out such adjustments for EEA users.
What’s new now is evidence inside Edge Canary’s experimental flags that suggests a deeper integration between Edge’s in‑browser search handling and the Windows Search host — one that could, when toggled, make Windows Search respect both your default browser and default search engine. The flags discovered include names such as msWSBLaunchNonBingDSE, msWSBLaunchNonEdgeDB, and msWSBLaunchNonBingDSEAndNonEdgeDB, which — read literally — describe launching Windows Search Bar (WSB) results using a non‑Bing Default Search Engine (DSE) and a non‑Edge Default Browser (DB).
What the Edge Canary flags appear to mean
The flags and the intended behaviors
Several Edge Canary flags were listed in the report, and while flag names are not formal documentation, their naming is highly suggestive. Here’s a practical translation of the most notable tokens and how they appear to map to behavior:- msWSBLaunchNonBingDSE
- Implies Windows Search Bar will launch web queries using a non‑Bing default search engine (for example, Google or DuckDuckGo) that the user selects in the browser settings. The search results would be generated from that engine rather than Bing.
- msWSBLaunchNonEdgeDB
- Suggests that the Windows Search Bar would open results in the user’s default browser (e.g., Chrome or Firefox) instead of forcing Edge. However, the flag name alone implies the default search engine used by the search box might still be Bing unless combined with the DSE flag.
- msWSBLaunchNonBingDSEAndNonEdgeDB
- A combination flag that appears to enable both behaviors simultaneously: use the user’s preferred search engine and open the resulting page in the user’s default browser (e.g., Google in Chrome). This would be the “full respect” mode many users have sought.
- msEdgeSearchboxHandlerSendsFaviconData
- Indicates Edge/Windows Search may pass favicon metadata back to the Search host so results show accurate site icons, improving recognizability of entries from alternate search engines. This is a smaller but UX‑meaningful improvement.
- Other “explicit” variants
- Flags prefixed with “msExplicitLaunch…” likely represent stricter, explicit routing behaviors where Windows Search intentionally redirects the query through the default browser/search engine stack rather than Edge/Bing by default.
Why flags matter — and why they don’t equate to shipped features
Edge’s flags expose experimental code paths developers can enable in Canary builds. Flags are valuable because they reveal direction-of-travel inside Microsoft’s engineering process, but they are not feature commitments. Code behind flags may be incomplete, region‑gated, subject to regulatory constraints, or disabled before general release. That caution is important: the presence of a flag is credible evidence of work being done, but it’s not official product documentation or a guaranteed release date. The Windows Latest report is a spot-check of Canary and should be treated as a reputable lead rather than proof of global rollout.Why this could matter for users and IT administrators
For power users
- Restores predictable behavior: If Windows Search respects both a chosen browser and search engine, clicking a web result or an in‑shell search suggestion would open in your preferred environment. That ends the recurring annoyance of being pulled into Edge for trivial lookups.
- Better UX consistency: Extensions, bookmarks, password stores, and profiles that live in your chosen browser will be honored, maintaining sessions and signed‑in state rather than forcing a context switch to Edge.
For enterprises and managed devices
- Group policy and MDM implications: Organizations that enforce a standard browser will want Windows Search to respect that policy across all shell surfaces. Any new behavior must be controllable via Group Policy or MDM settings to avoid fragmentation of user experience in managed fleets.
- Testing and compatibility: Redirecting Windows Search to non-Edge browsers introduces edge cases with SSO plugins, internal certificate stores, and custom protocol handlers. IT teams must verify that enterprise sign-in flows, conditional access rules, and SSO extensions behave correctly when Search launches Chrome/Firefox instead of Edge.
For privacy-conscious users
- Search engine choice matters: If Windows Search can use non‑Bing engines, users can reduce Bing-specific telemetry paths or simply pick a search provider they trust. However, the backend may still pass metadata through Microsoft layers before the redirect occurs — a detail that needs verification from Microsoft documentation or telemetry transparency reports. Community testing and controlled captures will be necessary to validate how data flows in practice.
Technical and security considerations
How Windows Search currently routes queries
Historically, Windows Search has relied on internal handlers and URL protocol redirections that are tightly integrated with Microsoft Edge. Some built-in shells (Start search, Widgets, Copilot, Lock screen content) deliberately invoke Edge with a specially formed microsoft-edge: URL payload, which bypasses the default-app resolution. That design is the reason community tools such as EdgeDeflector and MSEdgeRedirect emerged to intercept these payloads and forward them to the true default browser. The incoming Evidence suggests Microsoft is building native options to replace the need for such third‑party interceptors.Potential telemetry and privacy implications
- Telemetry leakage risk: Even if the user’s chosen browser and search engine are used, some preliminary routing or query transformation might still pass through Microsoft services for indexing, ranking, or just-in-time content generation (for example to assemble a richer result tile). Until Microsoft documents the exact processing and telemetry policies, users concerned about data flow should treat this as partially unverified. Flag-based discovery does not guarantee privacy parity with native Chrome searches.
- Favicons and result rendering: The msEdgeSearchboxHandlerSendsFaviconData flag suggests Edge will send back icon metadata to preserve visual fidelity. That’s a small but useful UX improvement that could reduce user errors when selecting results. But it also implies more metadata exchange between the Search host and Edge components — an area worth auditing for telemetry or fingerprinting concerns.
Security surface: protocol handlers and extension interactions
- Protocol and extension behavior: If Windows Search opens results in Chrome, extensions (e.g., enterprise SSO extensions, privacy or ad-block extensions) will apply as normal. However, users who rely on Edge-only corporate plugins should verify those plugins are available (or have equivalent capabilities) in the chosen default browser.
- Attack surface considerations: Redirecting search results to third-party browsers increases the complexity of the call-chain when clicking OS-level links. Administrators should monitor for any unusual fall-through behaviors where an attacker could attempt to substitute or hijack a handler; standard security hygiene (default-app policy enforcement, tamper protections) remains essential.
How this lines up with Microsoft’s regulatory and regional strategy
Microsoft’s moves to respect browser and search choice are not purely user‑experience driven. The European Digital Markets Act (DMA) and similar regulatory pressure have already pushed Microsoft to allow users in EEA countries to uninstall Edge, to stop nagging users aggressively, and to broaden the scope of default browser assignment for protocols and file types. Independent coverage confirms Microsoft has already introduced or tested features that make Windows respect default browser choices in EEA‑gated deployments. The Edge Canary flags we’re seeing now are consistent with that direction and may be Microsoft’s technical mechanism to implement and control such behavior more granularly.At the same time, Microsoft has historically used staged rollouts. Features first appear in Canary and Insider channels, sometimes restricted by region, then graduate to broader releases after telemetry and policy checks. The flags discovered in Canary are therefore likely an early-stage implementation and may be toggled or limited to certain regulatory regions at first.
Practical guidance: what to do now
If you want Windows Search to open links in your preferred browser today
- Verify default app assignments in Settings > Apps > Default apps, and set your browser as default for HTTP and HTTPS as well as .htm/.html where possible.
- If Windows Search still opens Edge, consider community tools with caution:
- MSEdgeRedirect and EdgeDeflector have historically been used to intercept microsoft-edge: links and forward them to the default browser. These tools can break with Windows/Edge updates and are not officially supported. Use them only when you understand the implications.
- Monitor Insider builds and Edge Canary release notes — the feature may become available behind an official toggle or in a future Windows 11 update (region‑gated).
For IT admins preparing for change
- Test on a small group of devices using Windows Insider channels to observe behavior and to validate enterprise SSO, extension behavior, and policy enforcement.
- Update documentation for helpdesk staff to include the new flow: clicking a Start search result might now open Chrome (or other browser), and troubleshooting steps should account for browser-specific extensions and certificate stores.
- Prepare Group Policy and MDM configuration to either enforce or block the new behavior depending on enterprise policy needs. Confirm whether Microsoft exposes Group Policy templates for the new flags/behaviors when they ship.
Strengths, weaknesses, and remaining unknowns
Notable strengths
- User choice restored: If fully implemented, this is a major UX win — the OS respecting the user’s browser and search-engine preferences is the intuitive expectation.
- Reduced reliance on third‑party hacks: Official support removes the need for brittle, community-developed redirection tools that can break with updates.
- Incremental UX improvements: Favicons and improved settings search terms are small but meaningful interface improvements that make Search more usable across search engines.
Risks and open questions
- Telemetry and data flow remain unverified: The technical flags do not document whether queries will still be proxied through Microsoft services for enrichment before being handed to the default browser/search engine. Until Microsoft releases authoritative documentation, assume some uncertainty about what data is shared, and when. Treat telemetry and privacy claims as partially unverified until Microsoft provides explicit documentation.
- Region gating and rollouts: Early changes and Microsoft’s DMA compliance moves suggest features may be limited to the EEA initially. Users elsewhere could be left waiting for a broader rollout.
- Compatibility and enterprise complexity: Redirecting shell-level links into different browsers may expose enterprise edge cases (SSO, conditional access, extensions). Organizations must validate all line-of-business flows before mass adoption.
How to verify and test the change yourself (step-by-step)
- Install Microsoft Edge Canary (if comfortable with experimental builds).
- Visit edge://flags and search for flags with names resembling:
- msWSBLaunchNonBingDSE
- msWSBLaunchNonEdgeDB
- msWSBLaunchNonBingDSEAndNonEdgeDB
- msEdgeSearchboxHandlerSendsFaviconData
- Enable the desired flags and restart the browser (note: flags change frequently, and enabling them can destabilize your browser).
- Set your preferred browser as default in Windows Settings, and set your preferred search engine in the chosen browser.
- Open the Start/taskbar search and click a web result to observe:
- Which browser opens
- Which search engine is used
- Whether favicons and result rendering changed
- Record results and, if you’re an admin, test with managed device policies in a lab environment before broader deployment.
Conclusion
The Edge Canary flags discovered in late September point to a concrete engineering path that could finally make Windows Search behave the way many users expect: open web results in the default browser and use the preferred search engine. That would be a meaningful reversal of a long-standing friction point in Windows UX. But it’s not yet a finished product. The flags are evidence of work but not a shipping promise, and critical details around telemetry, data flow, and regional rollouts remain to be confirmed by Microsoft.For now, users who need the behavior can rely on community tools and careful default-app configuration; organizations should prepare to test and validate the change when it appears in Insider or production builds. Keep an eye on Canary/Dev release notes and Microsoft’s official documentation — as Microsoft moves features through labs and regulatory-driven rollouts, the full story will become clearer. Meanwhile, the message is cautiously optimistic: after years of workarounds, Windows 11 may be ready to respect the choices users make about how and where they browse the web.
Source: Windows Latest Windows 11's Start menu search might finally respect Google Chrome as your default browser