Groups > alt.comp.os.windows-10 > #194823
Re: Can anyone get Edge Copilot to work without logging in after July 2026?

From	Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com>
Newsgroups	alt.comp.os.windows-10, alt.comp.microsoft.windows, alt.comp.os.windows-11
Subject	Re: Can anyone get Edge Copilot to work without logging in after July 2026?
Date	2026-07-28 09:53 -0700
Organization	BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com)
Message-ID	<114amq3$til$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> (permalink)
References	<114905j$7bm$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <1149pn3$3tada$1@dont-email.me>
Cross-posted to 3 groups.
Show all headers | View raw
Paul wrote:
> There is "registration" and there is "logging in".
> 
> CoPilot is listed as "no registration", but if it is
> actually powered by an MSA login, then that amounts to registration.

Hi Paul
I was hoping you'd check in as you show "thinking" in your replies. 

I appreciate the advice. Since, to me anyway, and likely to you,
"registration" and "logging in" are the same thing, in terms of needing an
account, although the caveats might be 
a) Copilot used to NOT require logging in, so what you're seeing
   as "no registration" may be a leftover from pre-July-2026 days.
b) Since Copilot allows Microsoft, Apple & Google mothership logins, 
   I suspect we can perhaps let their marketing differentiate between
   those and actually "logging in" perhaps
c. Even today, you can use Copilot with Edge without logging into 
   anything, but you have to play the game of using the chat icon
   at top right and then it "thinks" you're asking about a tab.

> If you don't have an MSA on the machine, then they can't tap
> into the MSA scheme. That's probably why my CoPilot sessions
> which are inside MSEdge, are friction free, as they know who
> I am, and it is my entry of the PIN at the beginning of
> a session which counts as an MSA login. 

Yup. The only time I ever set up an MSA was on a Windows S laptop, and that
was before I learned you didn't need to create the MSA in order to convert
it to Windows 10, and even so, I deleted the account immediately (although
Microsoft took a month to actually wipe it off the face of the earth).

If someone is getting into Edge today, friction free, they're logging in.
Unless they're using the sidebar "summarize page" icon at the top right. 

> You might not be able
> to set up a PIN, without an MSA, just a guess on my part, as
> I haven't tried to set up a PIN on anything other than the
> Daily Driver (which happens to have an MSA).

I thought you meant password when you said PIN, so I have absolutely no
idea what a PIN is with regard to a Microsoft Account (which I don't have).

Oh. OK. I looked it up. This is what Edge-sidebar told me just now:
a. A Microsoft account password is your global credential 
   for all Microsoft services.
b. A Windows Hello PIN is a local, device-specific sign-in method 
   that never leaves your PC and is safer against online attacks

I never knew, until this moment, that a PIN for Windows even existed.	.
Apparently it's stored on the device in the secure hardware (TPM chip).



> https://inventwithpython.com/blog/free-llms.html
> 
>    "Assume that free services may have daily usage limits, and that sites that
>     don't require registration may limit how much you can use them before
>     signing up for a free account.
> 
>     You should absolutely assume that all content you submit as well as your
>     browser settings and IP address are recorded, sold, and matched to your
>     personal identity otherwise by the AI company.
>    "
> 
>    "My rough top recommendations for coding tutors are ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek,
>     but here are the acceptable free AI services I've found:
> 
>     Duck.ai (from DuckDuckGo) - No registration required. Uses other AI companies' models
>                                 but acts as an anonymous relay. (This is not verified.)
>     ChatGPT (from OpenAI) - No registration required.
>     Gemini (from Google) - No registration required.
>     Claude (from Anthropic) - Free account registration required.
>     DeepSeek (from DeepSeek) - Free account registration required.
>     Copilot (from Microsoft) - No registration required.
>     Poe (from Twitch.tv) - Free account registration required.
> 
>     I don't recommend the following for their deceptive UI practices
>     (They appear free but require registration after you've submitted a prompt):
> 
>     Perplexity (from Perplexity)
>     Mistral (from Mistral AI)
>     Meta (from Meta / Facebook)
>     Grok (from X / Twitter)
> 
>     I have slight recommendations against the following:
> 
>     Shiori (from Shiori.ai) - Free account registration required. Uses other
>                               AI companies' models. I don't recommend it because
>                               this probably means their business model is personal
>                               information collection. They may be fine, but they don't
>                               have the reputation of DuckDuckGo for privacy.
> 
>     (Updated June 12, 2026)

Thanks for looking that up and for providing a good summary output from it.

I don't think that list is accurate since I tried "many" (not all though)
of those in that list and the only four I found that were login free were
 1. https://duck.ai/ (worked well with VPN)
 2. https://plai.chat/ (worked well with VPN)
 3. https://www.perplexity.ai/ (with restrictions on turn count on VPN)
 4. https://chatgpt.com/ (with restrictions, but that was on VPN)

For the lurkers, your web page (which ends with links to the author's books
and classes) shows the following, but I have trouble believing this output.

Recommended:
1. ChatGPT
2. Claude
3. DeepSeek

Acceptable:
1. Duck.ai - No registration; acts as an anonymous relay (not verified) 
2. ChatGPT - No registration required
3. Gemini - No registration required 
4. Claude - Free account required
5. DeepSeek - Free account required 
6. Copilot - No registration required (it does as of July 2026)
7. Poe - Free account required 

Not recommended:
1. Perplexity
2. Mistral
3. Meta
4. Grok
5. Shiori (Uses other companies)

I've tested most (but not all of those) so I know enough to disagree with
some of the output, but in this thread, we're only asking about Copilot.

> As far as I know, the CoPilot.App always looked for an MSA via a Microsoft login,
> whereas the MSEdge version is likely obtaining your details via other means.
> You would think the CoPilot.App via WebView2, would be as adept as MSEdge
> at this, but maybe not.

I agree there are many ways to run Edge, and each acts differently.

I do not have a MSA and up until this month, MS Edge was working just fine.
But I have a script that runs Copilot, so I will post that separately.

> You can keep an AI model locally, but that's an acquired taste.
> Models range from Google Gemma at 4GB, to the largest Kimi model at
> 1.6TB RAM and 100GB+ VRAM (four hundred times bigger). And with the
> current RAM pricing, building a machine with that much RAM, you'll
> need to win the lottery to be able to afford it. That's about 100K
> worth of RAM, for that big model. The processor by comparison,
> is "almost free" :-)

Yes. I agree. That's the way to go. Purely local LLM on the device.

Of course, if I had a beefier machine, I'd download the language models.
Then I could run the LLM completely locally, but my machine ain't beefy.
-- 
Always grateful for those on Usenet who teach me what I don¢t yet know.
Thread

csiph-web