There's more. When you add the "Empty New Tab Page", it's disabled by default and you need to enable it manually. Then, when you open a new tab the first time, it asks if the blank tab is a mistake and if you want to revert back.
It reminds me of the early 00's when everyone was installing add-ons that hijacked the IE start page or redirect 404/DNS errors. That's the ONLY reason I can imagine that would make MS think this UX is acceptable.
I believe these protectionsaare there for good reason. I've lost count of the third party "search engines" that I've seen taking over people's homepages through extensions.
These extensions try to mimick Google and make it as hard as they possibly can to remove them. You have to remove the extension, remove the default search engine, change the homepage, and hope thst whatever crapware installed them doesn't get run again.
Chrome and Firefox have been fighting this crapware for years now and when Microsoft switched to Blink they inherited the same protection mechanisms.
You can still use these extensions, but only if you ACTUALLY want to. In most cases these alerts trigger, I don't believe the user has made a conscious choice to change their homepage.
It may be for a good reason but there should always be an option for the handful of people who know what they are doing and know that they know what they are doing to enable the functionality that they are expecting from the software.
When you deviate from industry standard (especially in a negative way) and intentionally prevent reversion back to industry standards you're doing it wrong.
It reminds me of the early 00's when everyone was installing add-ons that hijacked the IE start page or redirect 404/DNS errors. That's the ONLY reason I can imagine that would make MS think this UX is acceptable.