Microsoft now pays Edge users reward points for successful mobile browser referrals

Microsoft tries all sorts of quirky ways of getting people to use Edge. For every successful referral of Edge (Android or iOS), you’ll now get reward points for it.

You need to invite friends to use Edge on mobile using a special referral link. If they actually install the browser, you’ll get 500 reward points. The monthly limit is 7500, and the maximum yearly cap is 90,000 points.

This was initially reported by the folks at Windows Latest, who spotted a pop-up within Edge that explained the referral program. It’s not available for everyone yet, and if you’re interested in this, you’ll need to wait until it automatically shows up.

I haven’t been able to find a way to force-enable the program, and there’s no specific toggle in Edge Settings either. Nothing shows up on Edge Canary either.

According to the original source, this is a worldwide referral program with no geo-lock. Provided you use Edge on Android or iOS, the notification/pop-up asking you to ‘Refer and Earn’ might show up. I’ve checked on both platforms for about an hour, but it didn’t show up for me, so it probably only appears for regular users.

You get an “Invite friends” button, and tapping on that will open the share sheet. Alternatively, you can choose to copy the link. It goes without saying, but the offer is only valid for first-time Edge users. There are various ways of redeeming the reward points, which you can find here.

Here’s a rundown of how it works:

1. Refer your friends, and you can earn 500 points per successful referral. You can accumulate upto 7500 points every month, and go up to 90,000 in one year.
2. The friend that you’ve referred also earns 500 points if they sign up with your referral link.
3. Important: Both the new user (invited one) and you (primary inviter) must search for something in Edge for two days, and this must be done within 14 days.

This isn’t the company’s only recent desperate push to get users to try Edge. They plastered that Edge is “Recommended by Microsoft” everywhere within Bing results (more on that here).

Microsoft also went as far as creating a standalone app that only exists to make Bing the default search engine on other browsers. We covered that here.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.