Picture this...
You hire a moving company to help move into your new house.
The crew walks in and says,
"Good news! We packed everything."
Awesome.
"Your couch, your TV, your dishes..."
Perfect.
"...your wallet."
Wait... what?
"...your passport."
Hold on.
"...your credit cards, your tax returns, that mystery junk drawer from the kitchen..."
Easy there, champ. 🤠
That's kind of how Microsoft Edge treats importing data from another browser. It doesn't just want your bookmarks, It doesn't just want your passwords. By default, it's also happy to bring along your saved payment information.
For a home PC? Meh... that's your call.
But for a business endpoint? I'd rather not have browsers playing "finders keepers" with saved payment methods.
Luckily, Microsoft gives us a way to tell Edge to leave the wallet behind.
Open Registry Editor
Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
Create a DWORD (32-bit) value called:
ImportPaymentInfo
Set the value to:
0
What this does:
Prevents Microsoft Edge from automatically importing saved payment methods from another browser during an import or migration.
What this doesn't do:
- It doesn't delete payment methods already stored in Edge.
- It doesn't stop users from manually adding a payment method later.
- It simply stops Edge from assuming your wallet wanted to move too.
One of my favorite security principles is this:
Just because software can do something doesn't mean it should.
I've watched organizations invest heavily in security...
- Password managers.
- MFA.
- Device encryption.
- Conditional Access.
- Browser hardening.
Then quietly allow browsers to duplicate saved payment information because..."that's just the default." Defaults aren't best practices.
They're just Microsoft's best guess at what most people want.
Most businesses don't need every browser becoming a backup copy of the corporate wallet.
Leave the bookmarks.
Leave the passwords if that's your plan. (altho make a better one)
But maybe...
Leave Accounting's Visa where it already lives. 😅