So, you weren't forced and instead opted out is what you're saying here in your opening sentence?

For a few things (the one thing I'm familiar with is the lock screen if you've left the "show random pretty pictures" option turned on, but I think there are a few more places besides that) Microsoft does force links to open in Edge instead of the default browser.

- Any links from many Microsoft apps (including searches in the Start Menu that silently turn into web searches)

- PDFs (sometimes, even if you don't have Edge set as your default PDF app) (even though Edge is actually the least unusable non-paid PDF viewer for Windows)

Besides that, Edge will randomly reset itself as the default on updates.