How to prevent Microsoft Edge from running in background on Windows 11 and 10

This has been an annoyance of mine. I noticed that even if you close the Edge UI, it will have multiple processes running in the background at all times unless you tweak these settings. I wish Microsoft would stop pushing Edge so hard and instead respect its user's preferences. I will never use Edge as my default browser.

Every chrome/chromium browser seems to do it too, always have to go toggle it off when I install one to test sites on.

Would Microsoft possibly just reenable this through updates?

Tangentially related: Windows 11 (pro, at least) does not initially let you create a local account (in the setup wizard, it will try to force you to log in with an online account). UNLESS, you just intentionally use incorrect credentials... In which case it will then pop up with 'Not a recognised account. Would you like to create a local account for now?'. But, then it will disable updates past a certain point. So I guess MS has got me, there.

You can also hit shift+f10 to pop a shell and then run `OOBE\BYPASSNRO`and reboot.

Run Windows 7 with Firefox.

This is what I do. Windows 7 Pro with updated Firefox and appropriate extensions. It works great for me.