Modern web browsers are incredibly complex, and developers rely on telemetry to fix bugs. By default, Microsoft Edge constantly monitors your browser’s performance and automatically sends “Diagnostic Data” back to Microsoft’s servers. This data includes information about how much memory your tabs are using, how long pages take to render, and which features you click on most frequently.
While Microsoft claims this data is anonymized and used strictly to improve the software, privacy advocates frequently object to this constant, silent data scraping. If you are browsing sensitive corporate documents or simply object to the idea of a massive tech corporation silently monitoring your software usage patterns, you might want to severely restrict what information is allowed to leave your computer.
You can adjust your privacy settings to explicitly forbid Microsoft Edge from automatically uploading optional diagnostic telemetry to their servers.
How to Turn Off Optional Diagnostic Data in Edge
You must dive into the Privacy and Security settings to restrict telemetry.
- 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.
- Scroll down the right pane until you find the “Diagnostic data” section.
- Locate the toggle switch labeled Help improve Microsoft products by sending optional diagnostic data (or similar wording depending on your version of Edge).
- Turn this toggle to the Off position.
Note: Microsoft Edge still requires a baseline level of mandatory telemetry to ensure the browser can actually run securely on Windows, but disabling the “optional” data significantly reduces the amount of tracking occurring in the background.
Microsoft Edge will immediately stop uploading detailed usage statistics, ensuring your browsing habits remain locally confined to your machine.