How to turn off the MSN news feed in Microsoft Edge's New Tab page
To turn off the MSN news feed on the Microsoft Edge New Tab page, open a new tab, click the gear icon (Page settings) in the top-right corner and switch off Show feed. On builds that show a Content menu instead, choose Content off. The change applies to every new tab in that Edge profile immediately, with no restart and no extension.
If you keep Microsoft Edge on Windows as your browser, this guide covers the feed itself, the other MSN elements on the page (background, weather, quick links), how to stop Edge opening MSN at startup, and the policy route administrators use to remove Microsoft content for everyone.
How do I turn off the MSN news feed in Edge?
The MSN news feed in Edge is switched off from the Page settings panel of the New Tab page. Microsoft fills the page with MSN headlines and sponsored tiles for your region, and an ad blocker does not remove them because they are part of the page itself. The built-in setting does.
- Open a new tab in Microsoft Edge (Ctrl+T or the + button).
- Click the gear icon (Page settings) in the top-right corner of the page.
- Turn off the Show feed toggle. If your version shows a Content menu, select Content off.
- Close the panel. The headlines, cards and promoted stories are gone.
If you would rather keep some news, the same menu offers lighter modes. Microsoft's own documentation lists the options as Content off, Content visible on scroll, Headings only and Content visible, so you can hide the feed until you scroll or reduce it to a row of headlines.
The setting is stored per profile. If you use several Edge profiles (work and personal, for example), repeat the steps in each one.
Where is the setting in edge://settings/startHomeNTP?
The address edge://settings/startHomeNTP opens the Start, home, and new tabs section of Edge settings, the second place where the New Tab page feed is controlled. Type or paste it into the address bar, or open Settings and more (the three dots, Alt+F) > Settings > Start, home, and new tabs.
- New tab page: click Customize next to "Customize your new tab page layout and content" to open the same Page settings panel and switch the feed off.
- When Edge starts: choose which pages open when you launch the browser (see the next section).
- Home button: decide whether the toolbar shows a Home button and what it opens.
This page is useful when the gear icon is hidden or when you want to check all three MSN entry points in one place.
How do I stop MSN opening when Edge starts or in new tabs?
Edge opens MSN content at launch when the startup option is set to the New Tab page with the feed on, or when msn.com is saved as a startup or home page. Removing it takes two checks in edge://settings/startHomeNTP.
- Under When Edge starts, pick Open tabs from the previous session, or choose specific pages and remove any msn.com entry from the list.
- Under Home button, make sure it does not point to msn.com. Enter your own URL or set it to the New Tab page with the feed off.
- Open a new tab and confirm Show feed is still off.
Home users cannot replace the New Tab page with a different URL from settings. Edge only offers a custom New Tab address through the NewTabPageLocation policy, and Microsoft documents that it works only on Windows devices joined to Active Directory or Microsoft Entra ID or enrolled in device management. On a personal PC, the practical alternative is a new tab extension such as Group Speed Dial or Humble New Tab Page; Edge installs Chrome Web Store extensions once you allow extensions from other stores.
If MSN news also pops up on the taskbar, that is the Windows 11 Widgets board, not Edge. Turn it off under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Widgets.
How do I remove the background, weather and quick links?
The rest of the Edge New Tab page is cleaned up from the same Page settings panel, using separate toggles for each element.
- Background: switch it off for a plain page, or pick another image. Edge also lets you upload your own picture as the background.
- Weather: turn off the weather widget if you do not want location-based forecasts next to the search box.
- Quick links: hide the shortcut tiles completely, or keep them and remove the suggested sites you never added.
With the feed, background and weather off, the New Tab page shrinks to the search box and your quick links, which loads faster and keeps headlines out of view.
How do administrators disable Microsoft content for all users?
Administrators remove the feed for everyone with the Edge policy NewTabPageContentEnabled, available on Windows and macOS from Edge 91. When the policy is disabled, Edge shows no Microsoft content on the New Tab page and locks the Content control at Content off.
| Method | Setting |
|---|---|
| Group Policy | Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge > Startup, home page and new tab page > Allow Microsoft content on the new tab page: Disabled |
| Registry (Windows) | HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge, DWORD NewTabPageContentEnabled = 0 |
| macOS | Preference key NewTabPageContentEnabled set to false |
Microsoft's documentation is inconsistent on whether the policy covers profiles signed in with a personal Microsoft account, so check the result in that kind of profile. Once a policy is set, Edge shows a "managed by your organization" notice in its menu, which is expected. Back up the registry before editing it, and delete the value to return to the default behavior.
FAQ
Why does the MSN feed come back after an Edge update?
Feature updates sometimes reset or rename New Tab page options. Open Page settings again and check that Show feed (or Content off) is still applied in each profile.
Can I set Edge to open a blank new tab?
Not from regular settings. A blank new tab needs the NewTabPageLocation policy set to about:blank on a managed device, or a new tab extension on a personal PC.
Does turning off the feed remove MSN from Edge on Android or iPhone?
No. The mobile apps have their own New Tab settings, and the NewTabPageContentEnabled policy is not supported on Android or iOS.
Related: change the default search engine in Microsoft Edge, stop Edge from importing Chrome data at launch
format c:\
It worked for me. It also removed well known SPYWARE called Windows.
It’s unpleasant to look at that screen while setting up someone’s PC. Equivalent to a virus. It’s quite terrible what Microsoft has become under the current leadership.
Why is it that any article on any browser on this site descends into bizarre, unsolicited and unhelpful attacks on Firefox? And perhaps more to the point, why does Ghacks continue to provide a forum for these posts? They just degrade the value of the site.
(for the record, I use a mix of both FF- and Chromium-based browsers. They both have strengths and weaknesses. I don’t use Edge or Chrome because obvious, and I don’t use browsers whose small-but-noisy user base creeps me out. If your software is good, sell it on its positive merits, not on years of mouth-frothing attack posts against another browser you feel an obsessive need to tell the world doesn’t matter to you).
Where? I cant see that in the articles. Ghacks even has a dedicated category for firefox.
The comment section is a different thing.
I use FF as my daily browser, but it has its downsides.
Edge has become very slow at cold startup. It plays however YouTube better then Firefox, less processor and memory usage. The efficiency mode is also rather good, as are the collections.
You’d be surprised that every browser works better than Firefox, as long as it uses Blink and not Gecko.
Your statement feels really weird, like “a 2020s car gets me faster from A to B than a 1940s car”… Who would’ve thought…
@Allwynd
“You’d be surprised that every browser works better than Firefox” That’s called a hyperbole. Firefox is faster at cold startup. It’s management of bookmarks is much better as Edge. Privacy is better. And there is more.So, no.
Edge was soo good when it switched to chrome. I used it as my main browser for years. Then micro ruined it with totally inconsistent design and feature changes, and in the past months it has a serious isse with microsoft account logins. It even affects some business users as well, and micro still couldnt solve it. I totally ditched edge. I switched to firefox and if I need a chromium I just use chrome. I would not touch edge again, it went from the best chromim based browser to the worst.
*when it switched to chromium
Thanks @Ashwin for the article! :]
/laughing in Firefox
You mean that outdated browser that also gets bloated by desperately copying what other, more popular browsers are doing and also removing customization and freedom while its rendering engine gets more outdated by the minute and more incompatible with websites while its developers keep screeching about DEI and privacy and also lost 95% of its user base, because developers don’t care about them at all?
What a mess – glad I ditched that crap for Brave, which allows setting the New Tab Page to your Homepage URL (or a blank page).
If I had to use Edge again, I would get rid of the New Tab Page junk altogether by adding the below to the Windows Hosts file.
0.0.0.0 ntp.msn.com
Most of it on the feed is unchecked low quality fake news from third parties. I am surprised MS is allowing this junk on their feeds.
Because that “unchecked low quality fake news” you mention is all hosted on MSN.com.
The original source may be “third parties” but as long as it gets you onto their domain, you see their ads, and that’s the goal.
Edge Chromium was actually pretty good at the very beginning. It was mostly Google Chrome without the Google parts. Then Microsoft had to trash it up with its own bloat and now has become just like IE did. Just a browser to download any other browser to actually use.
“You cannot set Edge to open a blank page”
You can with an extension.
This is overall a helpful article and it will come in handy for recommending to clients at my day job, in earnestness.
For one small nitpick (sorry, Ashwin), I was scratching my head here at that mention: “You cannot set Edge to open a blank page”
Edge Settings, particularly “edge://settings/startHomeNTP” in address bar.
Under “When Edge Starts”: click on radio button for () Open these pages
“Add a New Page button”
“about:blank” for URL
…Was I missing something?
This is what I do. Never use the default new tab page of any browser. Ads galore!
The ‘Custom New Tab’ extension works fine.
or with Firewall. There is a video instruction on how to block MS front page telemetry with Firewall on YouTube. It works very good.