Browser Choice Alliance Open Letter to Microsoft - Enough is Enough

Dear Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO,

Our global coalition of innovative developers promotes genuine competition and users’ freedom of choice. It’s time for Microsoft to do the same.

As browser developers, we believe PC users’ choices should be free and respected, not controlled, distorted, or ignored.

That principle unites the Browser Choice Alliance in advancing a digital world where PC users control their own online experience, can choose their preferred browser without manipulation or interference, trust their preferences will be honored, and participate in a marketplace where browsers compete on merit.

The approach Microsoft has taken is markedly different.

Microsoft leverages its immensely powerful position as the supplier of the ubiquitous Windows PC operating system, as well as many productivity and other must-have apps, to push users towards its first-party browser, Edge, through tactics that restrict, distort, and subvert user choice. These include:

• Economically coercive “all-or-nothing” rebates that foreclose rival browsers from preinstallation opportunities on Windows devices,
• Preventing the uninstallation of Edge,
• Showing intrusive and confusing messages to users in Microsoft's exclusive promotional areas when they are attempting to download competing browsers,
• Using system updates to push users back to Edge or deploying manipulative interface design that confuses users into switching their default browser back to Edge,
• Ignoring user choice of default browser for links in Teams and Outlook,
• Hardwiring Edge to key access points on Windows (including Windows Search and Widgets),
• Blocking rivals’ ‘one click switch’ functionality for switching the default browser.

Microsoft’s actions make it unnecessarily difficult and, in many cases, impossible for PC users to select and use their preferred browser across all touchpoints.

PCs are a major access point to the web, playing a critical role in work, productivity, and other high-value online activities. What is more, the importance of PCs is only increasing in the age of generative AI, with PCs particularly well-suited for key AI use cases such as coding, deep research, and more.

When Microsoft uses its Windows ecosystem to steer users toward its own browser in such ways, it restricts user choice, undermines web freedom, and unfairly tilts the playing field in its favor and away from fair competition and innovation. For many years, these practices have frustrated users and have now begun to draw scrutiny from regulators across the globe.

Microsoft’s practices vary over time and between jurisdictions. They may be inconsistently applied or appear intermittently, sometimes differing from one user to another. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s basic approach remains constant: leveraging its dominant Windows OS and productivity software to favor its own browser to the exclusion of others.

We call on Microsoft to respect its users and implement the following changes immediately and on a worldwide basis:

• Allow browser suppliers to compete for preinstallation and default deals with Windows PC manufacturers,
• End dark patterns targeted at users seeking to download and effectively use other browsers (including as system level default),
• Bring back the ability for users to make switching default browsers simple and transparent with a “single click” change for all relevant file types and apps (including PDFs),
• Open all web links in users’ selected system-level browser of choice,
• Eliminate manipulative Microsoft-exclusive banners pushing Edge in Windows, including when users are searching for other browsers,
• Stop using operating system updates to push users back to Edge,
• Remove the restrictive configurations of existing S mode devices that block usage of third-party browsers.

When every browser developer – including Microsoft – competes on merit to offer users the best and most suitable browser possible, everyone benefits: it drives innovation, improves performance, and ultimately delivers better outcomes for the many millions of people who rely on PCs every day to access the web and web-based services such as AI applications.

We look forward to meaningful progress by Microsoft in support of user choice.

Sincerely,
The Browser Choice Alliance