With the release of the new chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser only a couple of months ago, it has already started to gain a surprisingly level of traction with PC users. While still a long way behind the market share of Google Chrome, it has still managed (in such a relatively short period) to make more than a few converts. Including many of us here at eTeknix. It should be noted though, the decision to swap has come with many good reasons. It runs fast, smooth, and certainly doesn’t seem to (comparatively speaking) want to eat up anywhere near as much RAM as Chrome.
In a report via The Verge, however, some users have reported a rather curious problem with Edge. Specifically, that when going to search for something into the address bar, it can randomly crash. Well, if you too are experiencing this problem, while it isn’t officially confirmed, there may be a rather curious reason as to why it’s happening!
Are you seeing Edge crash when trying to type into the address bar? The team is looking into it! In the meantime, as a workaround, please turn off Search Suggestions here: edge://settings/search. We'll follow up once we have more!
— Microsoft Edge Dev (@MSEdgeDev) July 30, 2020
Microsoft Edge Crashes
So, what’s causing the browser to crash? Well, it seems that a lot of it boils down to what search engine your Edge browser is defaulted to. While Edge comes with ‘Bing’ as standard, I think many would agree that (on the whole) it’s pretty crap. As such, you may have decided to change this to Google’s alternative.
Well, apparently, that’s what’s causing the problem. Put simply, Microsoft Edge doesn’t like you searching (defaulty) on Google.
A Workaround
While Microsoft will undoubtedly release a patch to correct the error, they have advised in the meantime that, if you continue to use Google as your default search option, disabling search suggestions within the browser should solve the crashing problem. These can be accessed by typing “edge://settings/search” in your address bar.
It is, however, mildly amusing that such a relatively benign function (particularly one from Google) should be causing such a big problem! You’d almost think they’d done it deliberately!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
I’ve been slowly switching to Edge as well. Used to use Vivaldi (another Chromium browser) but that’s been having issues with gifs and other embedded images not displaying properly for the last couple of updates. Interestingly, it doesn’t happen on my laptop with the same version, just on my desktop.
I’ve also been trying out the Edge for Android on mobile. Surprisingly good there too.