Chrome does the EXACT SAME THING, periodically, just like Edge, and no one gives Google any crap for it. no one gives Google any grief for the things they're doing. they're just as bad, if not worse, than MS was in the 1990s, when MS was at their absolute worst.
I think the catch is that if you installed chrome and use it, you won't see those prompts, and if Microsoft changed teh default away from chrome against your wishes, you probably do want to be notified of the change.
I can opt out of googles nags by just not installing chrome, I can't say the same for edge on windows.
I expect the prompt is there to neg more than nag. I presume the only people who click “no” on the “Are you sure?” prompt are unsure as a result of the prompt itself. In other words, the role of the prompt is to make them second guess themselves and feel inferior to the OS. “I better just not mess with it, I guess.”
I dunno, I see plenty of anti-google sentiment around (e.g., arstechnica, every government around the world, just about). I think the dirty tricks campaign perpetrated by MS against open source and linux was worse (from my point of view, anyway) than anything google has done. Their recent 'we love open source and linux' rings pretty hollow, judging by what their actual contributions have been. As a marketing campaign, it's a stroke of genius.
it's amazing how blind people are.