Microsoft ups competition against Google Chrome with FREE feature we all want – but there’s a catch

MICROSOFT is adding a feature to its web browser in an effort to swing more privacy conscious users to their platform.

Microsoft Edge has fallen behind Google Chrome and Safari – it supports just 0.1% of global internet traffic.

Bill Gates left the Microsoft board in 2020

A future iteration of Edge will have a built in virtual private network or VPN.

A VPN masks a user’s location and surfing history or patterns.

Using a VPN is also a method for bypassing a state or country’s internet restrictions.

Internet gamblers and other seedy players can use VPNs for legal-ish ends, but VPNs have also played crucial roles in humanitarian political uprisings like the Arab Spring.

Microsoft’s VPN might not be the dazzling feature that will pull in users from competing networks.

The in-house VPN, called Secure Network, will only cover one gigabyte of data per month for no charge.

Streaming an HD video for an hour will use two gigabytes, according to a PenTeleData usage calculator.

Microsoft has not started to roll out the Secure Network yet – but the support page detailing its future use cases was spotted by reporters at The Verge.

Microsoft fans will be able to get a preview of the service, and even provide feedback to the company, by joining Edge Insider.

Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 and served as CEO until 2000, and fully stepped away from the company’s management tier in 2020.

Gates touched on the notion of VPNs and security in a 2002 email to all employees.

“Security models should be easy for developers to understand and build into their applications,” he wrote.

20 years later, Microsoft users are still waiting for the in-house VPN and its underwhelming data supply.