Microsoft Edge includes a highly aggressive tracking prevention system to protect your privacy across the web. If you have accidentally set this tracking prevention to “Strict” mode, Edge will automatically block the majority of third-party cookies from ever loading into your browser cache.
While this sounds excellent for privacy, it completely breaks many modern web applications. If you are trying to log into a banking portal that relies on a third-party authentication server, or if you are trying to use a web-based video editor that pulls assets from an external content delivery network, the strict cookie blocking will cause the website to throw a “Session Expired” error or simply refuse to load.
If you need maximum compatibility with complex web applications, you should revert your tracking prevention back to the default “Balanced” state.
How to Change Tracking Prevention Settings
You can adjust the strictness of the cookie blocking via the Privacy menu.
- Open the Microsoft Edge browser.
- Click the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Privacy, search, and services.
- Look at the very top section labeled “Tracking prevention.”
- You will see three large boxes: Basic, Balanced, and Strict.
- If Strict is currently highlighted, click on the Balanced box instead.
- (Optional) If you are troubleshooting a specific broken website, you can leave it on Strict and instead click on Exceptions below the boxes to manually whitelist the broken URL.
By switching back to Balanced mode, Edge will continue to block known malicious trackers, but it will automatically allow the necessary third-party cookies required for legitimate web applications to function properly.