Sometimes, we make undesired changes to web browser settings and then we cannot figure out what happened to the web browser as it stops working the way we want. In these situations, we have to reset the web browser to return it back to the “freshly installed” state so that we can start all over again.
Previously we have already written about how you can quickly reset Microsoft Edge browser that comes pre-installed in Windows 10. But now that Microsoft has switched to the Chromium project code base, the new Edge web browser is completely different from the old Edge browser and as a result has different settings. If you want to reset the new Edge browser which is based on Chromium then you can follow these simple and quick steps:
- Launch Edge web browser and enter edge://settings/reset in the address bar.
- Select the Reset settings category from left of the screen.
- Click on Restore settings to their default values.
- You will see a confirmation dialog in which you have to click on the Reset button.
This way of resetting process removes the cookies and other temporary data. It will reset the startup page, new tab page, search engine, and pinned tabs. This also disables all the extensions that you had installed in Edge. But it will not remove the favorites, browsing history, and the saved passwords for the obvious reason.
If you also want to clear all the remaining things that resetting the browser does not remove (passwords, favorites etc), then you will have to manually remove them one by one. For example, you can press Ctrl+Shift+O to open the favorites manager, select all the favorite webpages and delete them. Similarly, you can remove the saved passwords. For clearing the web browser history, you can press Ctrl+Shift+Del to clear the browser cache and history etc.