Cortana Can No Longer Tap Into 3Rd Party Web Browsers

Microsoft has decided to do something a little interesting, something that might either cause users to turn red or something that might very well work out in the future. As it stands right now only time will tell — but we believe this could come home to bite.

Here’s the thing: Microsoft is keeping Cortana close to its chest as it seeks to increase its dominance in the operating system space. In the past, it was possible, with a little help, to bypass Microsoft Edge when using Cortana and take advantage of other web browsers like Chrome. For obvious reasons, Microsoft doesn’t like this. Unfortunately for it, its users are not too keen on using Edge, so there lies the beginning of a problem.

Doing what it thinks is necessary, Microsoft has made it impossible to search in Cortana and have results show up in Chrome, Firefox, or anything else. The company says that for Cortana to work properly, it must depend on Bing and Edge.

Here’s its statement:

Now, while many users have complained, we have to respectfully disagree. You see, Cortana is not a search engine and its information needs to come from Bing. Bear in mind that one cannot use Bing Search with Google Now and that all information from Google Now is shown in Chrome, — yet where are the folks complaining about that?

Unfortunately, as Windows 10 has grown in adoption and usage, we have seen some software programs circumvent the design of Windows 10 and redirect you to search providers that were not designed to work with Cortana. The result is a compromised experience that is less reliable and predictable. The continuity of these types of task completion scenarios is disrupted if Cortana can’t depend on Bing as the search provider and Microsoft Edge as the browser. The only way we can confidently deliver this personalized, end-to-end search experience is through the integration of Cortana, Microsoft Edge and Bing — all designed to do more for you.

Starting today, to ensure we can deliver the integrated search experience designed for Windows 10, Microsoft Edge will be the only browser that will launch when you search from the Cortana box.