Microsoft's new Edge browser has such powerful privacy settings that it's triggering the ad blocker popup on some websites, even when I don't have an ad blocker

"Trackers" in websites come in a variety of forms, like cookies or fingerprinters. They all have a common goal — to learn more about you. And they can be used for a variety of different things. Some can be useful, like remembering your preferences on certain websites and services. 

Others aren't so useful, and are designed to track things like your behavior on the web to create a profile about you in order to serve ads based on what you've been searching and doing on the web. 

The privacy menu is clearly visible on the left under "Profile," and I'm presented with three options: Basic, Balanced, and Strict.

Despite the "Strict" setting on the new Edge, I haven't experienced any extra difficulties or obstacles in the websites and services I normally use. It seems to be doing a good job of keeping trackers and cookies that are useful and blocking those that aren't.

Everything I need to prevent trackers is built into Chrome, too, but it's more complicated to get there than it is on Edge, and you don't get a sense of how strict you're being against trackers. Instead, you get individual settings like allowing sites to save and read cookie data, and blocking third-party cookies. 

You click Settings, Advanced, Privacy and security, Site settings, then, finally, Cookies and site data.

For once, it's Google that can learn from Microsoft, at least when it comes to privacy settings.

Mozilla's Firefox should also get a mention, as it has intuitive and simple privacy settings similar to the new Edge.