Microsoft Edge - Open new tab with a blank page

Thanks for your help. I was going to give Edge a go on my new laptop but spent ages trying to figure out how to open a blank page for a new tab. Microsoft can't be bothered making this simple, so I'm now installing Chrome! Goodbye Edge.

It is unbelievable that MICROS~1 forces users a page full of M$ shovelware and that the only way to disable this is a Group Policy Change or a Registry hack!

The Registry key that worked for me:

1. Create a new blank text file using Notepad.
2. Copy everything between === BEGIN REG FILE === and === END REG FILE ===.
3. Paste this in the blank text file.
4. Save this to a file with the extension ".reg".
5. Double click on this file to add this key to the Registry.
6. Restart Edge.

=== BEGIN REG FILE ===

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\Recommended]

"NewTabPageLocation"="about:blank"

=== END REG FILE ===

Good news! There is in fact a toggle on Edge now that lets you turn off all the news and ad widgets below your search bar and quick links. Not sure how new this feature is, but here's how to find it:

Open a new tab, then in the top right select the Page Settings (gear icon). This panel allows you to toggle off certain items that are displayed on your new tab.

What you're looking for is the "Show Feed" option - toggle it off and your new tab is nice and clean of distractors. You can also toggle off widgets (usually weather and stocks) if you really want a clean slate.

I too am way too easily distracted by newsfeeds, so this was a delightful find I had to share. (Edit to fix typo and add image.)

Hi @Lee Thacker ，

You could configure the new tab page using Group policy or Registry key. Please refer to  NewTabPageLocation policy to configure it and note that This policy is available only on Windows instances that are joined to a Microsoft Active Directory domain, joined to Microsoft Azure Active Directory, or instances that enrolled for device management.

And then go to "edge://policy" page to check if it is successfully configured.

The Blank page will be like as below when you open a new tab:

Alternatively, you could also customize the new page layouts. 

On the New Tab Page in Edge, there are few settings available that you can turn off to achieve this. Then you will get a new page just with the Microsoft logo and Bing Search box.

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Best Regards,

Raina Zhao

I created https://about-blank.ch and it will stay blank.