Holy hell. I just opened one because I got a bug report about a page I maintain, and it was absolutely staggering.
Had I not needed to specifically test Edge on Windows 11, I'd have just pressed and held the power button, then wiped the disk and installed something else if I'd encountered that experience on something I purchased to use for some non-browser-testing productive purpose.
The funny thing is Chrome is actually made by an advertising company, and it's significantly less aggravating, somehow.
I am using Edge. I don't see any discount coupons. I must have clicked a "no ads pls" buttons somewhere, but now it's good.
Speaking of adware and spyware, doesn't Firefox still have Google as its default search website? They are not Google, but literally selling you to Google, that's like even worse?
It takes more than one click just to get to the right settings page, and there are numerous anti-features scattered across several settings pages. Cleaning up Edge is way more than one click.
Fair enough, but only ~5% of Microsoft revenue comes from ad dollars. It's not clear to me why I should switch to a browser which is funded primarily with ad money vs. just turning off the Edge features I don't like. (FWIW, I used Firefox for many years, and my daily driver is currently Chrome.)
Yes you can turn all this off, but in default mode it is maddening.