What you need to know
- Microsoft recently started testing a buy now, pay later integration in Edge powered by Zip.
- The option has drawn criticism from users of the browser.
- The feature allows people to split purchases made online between four installments over a six-week period.
Microsoft Edge recently gained a feature that allows people to pay for online purchases in installments. It's known as buy now, pay later (BNPL), and it's currently in testing on Microsoft Edge Dev and Canary. The option drew criticism from fans and users of the browser that expressed frustration in the comments section of the post announcing the feature.
The center of most complaints is the belief that Microsoft Edge is becoming bloated with shopping features rather than delivering a pure browsing experience. BNPL is optional, but its detractors are against the concept of Edge having shopping features built in.
"It's impressive how quickly you can throw away years of hard work and good will with a ridiculous feature like this," said vyrotek. "The Edge teams need to pause and think how they possibly thought this was a good idea. Even the Bing features are getting too aggressive."
Cameron_Bush states asks for Microsoft to reconsider the addition. "This sounds like an awful idea that will only be seen as a shameless cashgrab are/or bloat by media outlets. I beg you reconsider pushing this to live. The negative press this feature is going to receive isn't worth it."
GNS722 echoed similar sentiments. "As many have mentioned above please don't keep on adding such bloat. Edge has become a really good alternative to others but if you are going to follow this path it won't be anymore."
A comment by examinedliving contrasts the open nature of some parts of Microsoft with the addition of BNPL to Edge. "It seems like Microsoft had been divided into competing biblical entities. One is pure and creates things like VS Code and Powertoys. The other is the demonic beast who comes up with this ridiculous, insulting garbage."
There are several pages worth of comments, most of which are negative. Edge has several features that help people save money. Critics seem to believe that features like these should be left to extensions and dedicated websites rather than being built into a browser.
