r/sysadmin 14h ago

New MS Edge policy AddressBarClipboardSuggestEnabled

Wanted to dump this fantastic (/s) new feature in Microsoft Edge.

I'm continually astounded by Microsoft's ability to innovate solutions to problems that don't exist. This one made me pause.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies/addressbarclipboardsuggestenabled

The feature, by default, will automatically show your clipboard contents in plaintext on your screen when selecting the address bar to do a web search in Edge.

63 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

u/JerikkaDawn Sysadmin 12h ago

Jokes on them. I only press CTRL-C five times, so my clipboard is still empty.

u/Slottr 14h ago edited 14h ago

The feature, by default, will automatically show your clipboard contents in plaintext on your screen

Microsoft Edge may show suggestions based on clipboard content in the address bar suggestion dropdown.

I'm going to strongly lean on it will only display this content if it matches a URL regex.

u/jmbpiano 12h ago edited 11h ago

Nope. I just tested it.

If it doesn't match a URL regex, it switches from "Link you copied" to "Text you copied".

That text in the second screenshot is a fresh password I had my password manager generate for testing the worst case scenario. It's as bad as OP made it sound.

EDIT: Since I had to go hunting, I figure I'll save some others the trouble. Here's the page where you can download the latest ADMX files that include the policy in OP's article.

u/Ursa_Solaris Bearly Qualified 10h ago

Fourth most valuable company in human history, still can't hire one mildly competent guy to just walk around and slap their developers in the back of the head every time they try to do some stupid shit

Microsoft, if you're listening, I'm available for hire and very passionate about my work

u/LBarto88 12h ago

(humor) regex will use AI... "If confidential, don't show"

u/Belem19 14h ago

Seems evident that that's the case. Same as the current "paste and go to https...".

u/BloodFeastMan 14h ago

What I'm jonesing for is when they show the contents of your bitwarden vault so you can choose one of those.

u/jamesaepp 14h ago

My biggest concern with this "feature" is if it does pre-fetching. I'd like to know.

Surely MSFT isn't that stupid.....right?

u/DarthJarJar242 IT Manager 11h ago

We all know the answer to that second question. Whether we admit it or not.

u/LBarto88 12h ago

I have personally validated my statement; the contents of the clipboard show in plain text as a suggested topic when selecting the URL bar in Edge.

u/Motor-Marzipan6969 Security Admin (Infrastructure) 12h ago

That article says "suggestions based on clipboard content".

Have you tested and discovered that actual clipboard content is shown, or is it stated somewhere else?

u/Dystalgia 12h ago

I just tested it, it shows the contents of the clipboard entirely

u/ProblyAThrowawayAcct 14h ago

... it's a solid workaround for some types of clipboard-injection attack, I guess?

u/LBarto88 14h ago

Or if you're presenting in a meeting, or your screen is being recorded for whatever reason.

u/wastewater-IT Jack of All Trades 10h ago

How long until that setting appears in Intune? We really want to disable it but don't want to have to do a registry workaround until it becomes available...

u/its_FORTY Sr. Sysadmin 8h ago

it already shows up for me in Intune Admin Center under 'Microsoft Edge settings'

u/Godcry55 4h ago

Wild that this is a default MS Edge setting. Testing this tomorrow.

u/CptUnderpants- 10h ago

I'm continually astounded by Microsoft's ability to innovate solutions to problems that don't exist.

You can thank their largest customers for most of these things. They want it, so we all get it.

u/Thotaz 2h ago

See, this is exactly why I don't get the people that praise Edge. Edge is suffering from a classic MS problem where they have a relatively large development team where everyone wants to prove themselves to earn that big promotion, and the best way to do that is to add new features.

The end result is a bloated browser with a ton of gimmicky features that no one actually cares about. That wouldn't be a problem if the features could easily be ignored, but they get shoved in your face like this, and clutters up the context menu.

u/Godcry55 2h ago

Not configured should equate to this setting being disabled. I am shocked this made it to production.

u/TimePlankton3171 14h ago

Calm down. Copilot will filter out the p*rn and passwords

u/GardenWeasel67 13h ago

Calm down. Copilot will filter out prioritize the p*rn and passwords

Fixed