I installed it on Mac to use Bing Chat.

It immediately took over my whole screen, in a completely weird way that no native Mac app ever did before (in my experience, though I don't use that many Mac apps).

Edge keeps trying to turn on sync-to-Microsoft. I keep saying no. Once, I think it turned it on without asking.

I assume it has more telemetry than Chrome... anyone checked?

I wanted to be the default browser, ok. It wanted to import all my info.. no thanks there was other nastyness I don’t remember.

Then it showed me so much junk and crappy news on new page, it was pure propaganda.

That was the end of it. I know it’s possible to configure all those things, but the starting experience was soo bad I got away quickly.

It is classic microsoft behavior. They don't create apps, they create traps. The end goal is just to make people slaves of their software. The software they create is just "leverage" so they can trap more and more of you or your business.

It seem to me that Google at first was focused on making the best products but ended up in a very similar place. Absolute power corrupt absolutely.

This is indeed a theme for large software companies, but Microsoft has perfected it over the years. The way they turned open source and web technologies to further their goals is just another reminder. Many companies are now entrapped into Azure-related software that can only survive in a Microsoft world.

Right, I just wanted "new tab" to open about:blank -- doesn't seem possible. You get their news feed on every new tab.

How much better could the memory profile really be if they’re using the same rendering engine?

Can't speak for anyone else, for me I've mostly liked it. But I use a separate password manager (bitwarden) and disable most of the embedded addons (shopping, etc). So it's a bit mixed.