Edge (Chromium) warns you if you run it with elevated privileges

[harlan4096]

The Chromium-based Microsoft Edge web browser warns users if they run the web browser with elevated privileges.

Microsoft is working on a new Chromium-based version of the Edge browser and has released previews of the browser for Windows already. The company hopes that the move to a Chromium-base will address several issues of the current Microsoft Edge browser, especially web compatibility.

The new Edge browser displays a warning prompt in the interface on launch if it is run with administrative privileges. One of the easier ways to run Microsoft Edge with elevated rights is to right-click on the Edge shortcut, e.g. in the Start Menu, and select "run as adminstrator".

The message states "Administrator Mode Detected. Close Microsoft Edge and relaunch in non-administrator mode for best performance".

A big "close Microsoft Edge" button is attached to the prompt which closes the browser when you activate it. Users who want to continue running Edge in administrative mode can click on the little x-icon instead to close the prompt.

Edge works like non-elevated copies from that moment on; additional prompts are not displayed.

Microsoft states that running Edge with elevated rights affects performance of the browser negatively. The message may surprise some users as security concerns would be a much stronger case for not running Edge with administrative privileges.

It is generally a good idea to avoid running any process with elevated rights. One of the main reasons for that is security, as any code executed from such a process runs with administrative rights as well. Malware has more options for exploitation if it runs with elevated rights; programs that you download may be executed with elevated rights if you download and start them in an elevated Edge process.

One of the main security issues on Windows, especially installations by end users, is that administrative accounts are used and not user accounts.

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