Browser users Microsoft Edge are noticing the appearance of a new button in the upper right corner of the browser. The news affects those who have deactivated the digital assistant Copilot and which, following recent updates, now have to deal with a button that activates or deactivates the sidebar.
While in the previous version of Edge, the button at the bottom right disappeared after disabling the sidebar, the new one (depicts an arrow pointing to the left) seems permanent, therefore not deactivable. It also has the “side effect” of moving the browser menu to the left, thus being inconvenient for many users.
How to disable Edge’s new sidebar button
As it stands, unfortunately, Edge doesn’t contain any built-in interface-level options to get rid of the new sidebar button.
A simple method to stop seeing it is to reactivate Copilot, which is obviously quite advantageous for Microsoft. The Redmond company is in fact trying to push an ever-increasing number of users to use Copilot.
Savvy users can still eliminate the Edge sidebar button using an option to invoke when the web browser starts.
The procedures in practice
- Access Edge settings by typing
edge://settings/systemin the address bar. - Disable the option Quick Launch then close Edge completely (check from Task Manager that there are no processes connected to Edge still running).
- Right-click on the Edge shortcut on the Windows desktop and then choose Property.
- Beyond the end of what is contained in the field Destination (for example
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe") add a space then enter the following:--disable-features=msGenericIconSidebarButton - By clicking OK, you can save the changes and then restart the Microsoft browser.
- Once Edge restarts, you can check for the new sidebar button to disappear.
Obviously, the intervention takes effect if and only if you start Edge by double-clicking on the shortcut on the desktop.
If you ran the browser using any other method, the sidebar button will still be in its original position.