Microsoft Edge: my impressions

I had my first encounter with Microsoft Edge 11 years ago, when Windows 8 was installed on my main PC. I used it for a few minutes, then avoided it like the plague, deeming it no better than the other browser(s) I had installed.

Three weeks ago, however, I was stuck using someone else's PC due to a heat wave. I uninstalled most of the other browsers on it as part of an effort to clean it up, so I was stuck with Microsoft Edge. I proceeded to use that as my primary Web browser for the next two weeks. I have come away with four points, none of which have convinced me to stick with Edge.

Pros

1. It remembers Microsoft Teams sessions
   On Chromium and Firefox, Microsoft Teams exhibits a bug that manifests 24 hours after logging in. Past that point, the user's status suddenly becomes "Unknown" and resists any attempt to change it back; Teams also fails to send any messages. On rare occasions, a We need you to sign in again message will appear on screen... though this action shouldn't be necessary if the user chose to stay signed in.
   Microsoft Edge is seemingly immune to this flaw. I'm paying little attention to this "advantage", though; it could have stemmed from an attempt to sabotage other browsers. Alphabet are known to have pulled such a trick with YouTube in the past.

Cons

1. It acts like a trojan
   The first time Microsoft Edge is launched, it displays a full-screen pop-up with no indication of how to dismiss it. Windows 8's "Metro" applications can at least be closed using Alt-F4; this, however, cannot.
   The original release of Windows 11 also hid a critical process under the Microsoft Edge process group. If one attempted to close Edge from the Task Manager, the system would show a blue screen. Microsoft claimed this was a bug, though I'm not convinced; they did end up fixing the issue later.
2. It forces tabs on the user
   SeaMonkey  allows users to hide the tab bar, giving them a choice between tab-based and window-based browsing paradigms. Microsoft Edge can switch between a horizontal tab bar and a vertical one, but not disable tabs entirely.
   I am against tabs in general; they make it more difficult to find the process associated with an open Web page. Back when I used a single-core PC as my daily driver, I had to turn up the priority of the process behind a BeepBox  tab to prevent its music from stuttering. I eventually realised opening windows was a better approach.
3. One cannot customise the home page
   Every Web browser I've used has an option to change the page opened when the browser starts. For whatever reason, Microsoft Edge had to be different, so any time I ran it, I was bombarded with news and ads that I didn't care about. Had I not discovered that ShutUp10++  could disable much of the clutter, I wouldn't have tolerated it much longer.

Ungoogled Chromium