Open a new tab in Microsoft Edge and you get the busiest default page of any major browser: a search box, a grid of shortcuts, the weather, and beneath it all the MSN news feed - an endless scroll of headlines, celebrity stories, and sponsored posts. No new tab page generates more "how do I turn this off" searches, and for good reason. This guide covers how to clean up Edge's new tab page from top to bottom: how to turn off the MSN feed and the rest of the clutter with Edge's own settings, what to do about the new Copilot new tab page, and how to replace the screen entirely with a page you control.
The feed is the first thing most people want gone, and the switch is on the page itself.
The headlines disappear immediately, leaving the search box, shortcuts, and background.
One caveat: Microsoft reshuffles this panel often, so it does not look identical in every version. Older builds show layout presets - Focused, Inspirational, Informational, and Custom - with a content dropdown instead of a plain toggle. Whatever your copy of Edge shows, the setting you want is the one that controls "feed" or "content". Set it to off or hidden and the news is gone.
The same Page settings panel controls everything else on the page:
Two minutes in this panel takes the page from a news portal to something close to calm.
Even with the feed off, the search box in the middle of the page sends every query to Bing regardless of your default search engine. Edge will not remove the box, but it can hand your typing to the address bar instead: go to Settings → Privacy, search, and services → Address bar and search, and set Search on new tabs uses search box or address bar to Address bar. Typing on a new tab now goes through whatever search engine you actually chose.
There is a bigger change underway in 2026: Microsoft is replacing the feed-first layout altogether. The Copilot new tab page, generally available since Edge 148 in May 2026 and still rolling out in stages, swaps the wall of headlines for a Copilot prompt box with suggested prompts, quick links, and an optional Discover feed of curated stories further down. Because the rollout is staged by version, account, and region, your new tab may look completely different from a coworker's.
If your complaint was the headlines, the Copilot page is quieter by default. But it trades a news feed for an AI prompt box, and it is still Microsoft deciding what the screen is for. To switch it off, click the gear icon on the new tab page, choose Manage Copilot new tab page (it opens edge://settings/ai), and turn off Copilot new tab page. Edge returns to the classic page, where the Show feed toggle above applies again.
People searching for how to set a custom homepage in Edge often actually want a custom new tab page. Edge treats them as separate settings, all under Settings → Start, home, and new tabs:
So launch pages and the Home button can go anywhere, but the new tab itself is the one screen Edge reserves for its own page. Pointing it somewhere else is exactly what an extension does.
Edge's native options are subtraction only. You can hide the feed, the tiles, and the background, but you cannot add anything of your own:
If a quiet background and a row of shortcuts are all you want, stop here - the toggles above get you there. If you want the new tab to do real work, you need an extension.
Edge supports new tab extensions from two stores, and installing takes a minute.
To switch back or change which extension owns the new tab, open edge://extensions and disable or remove the one you do not want. If two new-tab extensions are enabled, the most recently enabled one usually wins, so turn the others off.
Not sure which to install? Our tested roundup of the best new tab extensions compares the main options honestly, including free and open-source ones like Tabliss that run in Edge.
Turning the feed off solves half the problem. The better fix is a page where the content is yours. Once a widget-based extension owns the new tab, you add widgets from a picker and arrange them on a grid, and the space MSN used to fill becomes:
With Start Page HQ you get 62+ widgets in total, including Kanban boards, world clocks, currency conversion, and developer tools. In Edge you install it from the Chrome Web Store - the same listing covers both browsers - and because it ships native extensions for Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari plus a hosted web app, the dashboard you build syncs across every browser and device you sign into. If Edge is your work browser and something else is your home browser, our guide to syncing your new tab across browsers shows how to land on the same page everywhere.
There is no single right layout - the point of replacing the page is matching it to how you work. A few setups that hold up well in Edge:
The strongest version keeps each setup on its own page and switches between them with a click, instead of cramming everything onto one screen.
Edge's settings can mute the MSN feed, and the Copilot page can be switched off, but the cleanest outcome the native route offers is an emptier version of Microsoft's page. To turn the screen into a real new tab dashboard with your own feeds, widgets, and sync across browsers, the extension route is the way there.
Using other browsers too? There are companion guides to customizing Chrome's new tab page, customizing Firefox's new tab page, and customizing Safari's Start Page.
The fastest way to see how a widget dashboard feels is the live demo - it is pre-loaded with pages and widgets you can poke at without signing up.