Welcome to the browser wars of 2020 where both Google and Microsoft are fighting for greater market share.
With the widespread use of Windows and its commitment to Internet Explorer, Microsoft once dominated the browser landscape. Then, in 2008, Google released the Chrome browser, which offers better performance and features.
According to StatCounter, by May 2012 Google had caught up with Microsoft and quickly surpassed it, while Internet Explorer faced a sharp decline.
Trying to regain browser market share when Windows 10 first launched in 2015, Microsoft released Edge as the default browser. The successor to Internet Explorer, however, was incomplete with many key features missing.
Despite being the default browser on Windows 10, Microsoft Edge has completely failed to regain lost market share.
With Google Chrome holding over 68% of the market share in 2018, Microsoft decided to rebuild the Edge browser using the same Chromium engine as Chrome with additional features and a modern user interface.
The first stable version of the new Microsoft Edge was released on January 15, 2020 and has been well received by both users and critics.
With its performance on par with Chrome and supporting almost all of the same features, Google may be starting to worry.
Over the past two weeks, Google has been showing more and more ads on its web properties targeting users of the new Microsoft Edge browser.
As Microsoft Edge is based on Chromium and shares source code with Google Chrome, it means it can also use Chrome extensions.
Last week, Google's Chrome web browser began displaying a warning to Edge users recommending they switch to Chrome for better security.
“Google recommends switching to Chrome to use extensions safely,” the warning states.
Since then, Google has recommended Chrome to Edge users for even more of their web services, such as Google Docs, Google News, Google Search results, and even Google Translate.
To do this, Google uses the browser's "user-agent" sting to identify all Edge users visiting these services and to display a warning message suggesting you switch to Chrome.
Microsoft is also involved
However, Google is not the only one involved in these types of advertising tactics.
Microsoft has started using Windows 10 to advertise Edge in the Start menu, Windows search results, and also uses Bing to display notifications when users search for “Chrome.”
Earlier this month, Microsoft began using the Windows 10 Start menu to prompt all Firefox to switch to the new Microsoft Edge.
Microsoft is also promoting the new Edge browser on Bing when users search for Chrome.
Finally, Microsoft is trying to discourage people from changing the default browser on Windows 10 to something other than Edge.
Just yesterday, Microsoft began rolling out the new Microsoft Edge browser via Windows Update to Windows 10 Insiders and in a few weeks to all other users.
This will immediately increase Edge's market share, as every Windows 10 gets the new browser and potentially starts using it.
This move will escalate matters even further as the two behemoths battle for a larger market.
