[ocdtrekkie]

It's weird for you to believe this, because Chrome is made by an ad company whose sole goal in existence is collecting data for ad targeting...

Many of Chrome's features are implemented in Edge by replacing Google services with Microsoft ones. So for many things, Microsoft may be collecting similar data (though likely not monetizing it at all).

But the key thing is that tracking prevention: It means your browser is leaking your data around the internet significantly less. Not just less to Google, but less to almost everyone else on the Internet. Chrome, by refusing to implement tracking prevention, is pretty much a leaky ship with holes in it.

Here's Edge's implementation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/web-platform...

Here's Firefox's implementation: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...

Here's Safari's implementation: https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-prevention...

Chrome has nothing. Google paid some of their staff to write a FUD piece about how preventing tracking was a privacy risk somehow.

[Shared404]

All valid points. Much appreciated.

I was coming from a position of "Why would MS remove anything instead of redirecting it to themselves", but failed to consider that they would be adding things themselves to prevent other tracking.

[ocdtrekkie]

And don't get me wrong, I agree Microsoft is no saint on data collection. I use Firefox and encourage others to do so. But I'd recommend Edge over Chrome because I consider tracking prevention so necessary for safe browsing.

Microsoft's data collection and use seems primarily to be focused on telemetry for product improvement. They obviously do it in Edge too. I find it less malicious than ad targeting, but I'm strongly opposed to mandatory telemetry. And I think telemetry-driven development is a mistake that should be avoided. It dehumanizes software support and still provides incomplete information, while also violating the privacy of your users.