Can’t “disable” Windows Edge unless in Europe(?)
TLDR; Windows Edge and other features “silently” re-enabled after being disabled(?)
I want to start off by saying that I’m not some tech guru, expert, or even have a job in the field. But I do have a curiosity, and know how to Google things or watch a few YouTube videos. So again, if I say something “wrong,” please keep that in mind.
Lately, I haven’t been feeling good about all these “anti-privacy” practices by big tech, and I’m generally a private person (I don’t even have social media/deleted them after high school 10 years ago \[Reddit doesn’t count\]). It’s not that I want to do bad things, I just don’t want my dick pics on the cloud, at best 🤷🏽♂️ that can be data-mined in the future like a sort of “new-age” fossil.
Naturally, that led me down to just trying to figure out how to make my devices and tech more secure and private, at the operating level, and even further as I learn. This has led me down a rabbit hole of home-networking, the awareness of data brokers, etc. Again, not an expert. But basically, YouTube and Google implied, or I at least assumed, that I would be able to turn some of these features off as a middle ground, before just changing OS’s, devices, etc. This led me to researching and carefully following de-installation guides, and even “registry edit” guides I could make, or even run through a 3rd party app everyone else uses, and change/disable some things.
I opted for the “basic” installer, and a few “extra” tidbits like disabling Edge and telemetry. I even followed other guides and downloaded an AI-free, light browser called Brave. I even reduced my 16GB Ram PC from having a 50% utilization in background processes just from being on, to 25% after all the edits I made, and restarting my laptop.
Again, not an expert, but I’m pretty sure I had experienced some degrees of success. However, come to find out, Microsoft Edge was “re-enabled” silently, even though I ALSO turned off auto-updates at the registry level, at least for a year. I think I even set that for “automatic / security” updates that are not something you should be normally able to toggle. This is insane, and when I Googled it again, that’s when Google basically told me “get f\*\*\*\*\*,” and that I had to “trick my device” into thinking I was from Europe, where it’s ILLEGAL for Windows to do the exact thing they just did to me. 🤷🏽♂️