Microsoft has rolled out Edge for PCs, a new web browser that will soon be offered on other Windows 10 devices too, including smartphones, with Redmond planning to offer the same feature lineup for every version.
The browser is the default option in the new OS and replaces Internet Explorer after nearly two decades. It comes with support for a new user interface, a brand new engine, fresh features, and a completely different approach than IE.
Edge is offered as the default web browser in Windows 10, but Internet Explorer still runs on the new operating system as a backup option. You can appeal to IE if you happen to bump into websites that are not loaded correctly. This happens mostly due to Edge’s new engine, the so-called EdgeHTML, which stands as a Trident fork. IE will no longer benefit from feature updates but only from security patches that deal with protection enhancements.
A universal GUI
Microsoft Edge is developed as a universal application. Microsoft is aiming to bring the same looks and features not only on PCs but also on tablets and smartphones. You will then be able to quickly access bookmarks, history, files, and other browsing items whether you are in front of the PC or browse on your mobile.
Hating Internet Explorer has been over the years a full-time job for some users. There were groans, grumbles, moans, complaints, whines, and whatever you like to call them about it, so Microsoft struggled to make Edge look as modern, sleek, and efficient as possible.
If you are looking for familiar IE features in Edge, you will get disappointed. A whole new approach was implemented for creating Edge. The layout looks sleek, simple, and intuitive. You don’t need to schedule ample time on your agenda to discover its settings because they are easy to decode.
Microsoft Edge adopts Redmond’s fresh visual style used in Windows 10 and gives you the possibility of switching between a light and dark theme.
Browsing features
The web browser adds on its feature list common browsing capabilities that allow you to go to the previous or next webpage, refresh the current content, work with multiple tabs at the same time, duplicate tabs, reopen closed tabs, and close tabs except for the active one.
When you open a new tab, the search and address bars are no longer placed at the top part of the browsing environment but they are actually integrated within the browsing workspace. You can also check out a list of top sites and browse throughout your news feed.
The new tab window can be customized by showing only top sites, a blank page, or top sites and your news feed, selecting the language and content, as well as picking your favorite topics, such as Entertainment, Money, News, and Sports.
A private browsing mode is available. It’s called ‘InPrivate’ and helps you automatically delete browsing data (like cookies, history, and temporary files) after you close all your InPrivate tabs.
You may zoom in or out of pages, print data, perform searches on pages, access developer’s tools in a dedicated window, pin webpages to Start menu, as well as open links via Internet Explorer in case of compatibility issues.
Edge opens up really quickly thanks to its new engine. It actually starts faster than Chrome and this is clearly not an illusion. Microsoft Edge benchmarks released by the company point out that its new web browser is faster than Chrome and Firefox.
Working with the Hub
The Hub button looks pretty similar to the ‘Hamburger’ one and gives you quick access to Favorites, reading list, history, and downloads. The star placed on the toolbar can be used for creating bookmarks and saving items to the reading list.
You can import favorite websites from Internet Explorer, organize favorite URLs into different folders, as well as remove or rename links.
The reading mode can be activated with a single click and is meant to help users focus solely on text by stripping off ads and other useless items. The list with saved reading items looks pretty simple and reveals a thumbnail preview with a suggestive image from the current article. Reading items can be renamed.
A history with all visited websites can be sorted by date and cleared with a single click. The download manager is quite basic and allows you to check out past downloaded files, clear all entries, report downloads as being unsafe, open the folder where downloads are stored, and pause or resume downloads.
Drawing tools
You can make use of a pen for drawing free-hand designs and a highlighter for emphasizing different parts from your projects. You can adjust the size and color of the pen and highlighter. An eraser can be employed for deleting unnecessary parts or the entire drawing. Plus, you may take quick notes while navigating on the Internet and write custom text, and clip a selected region of the browsing environment.
The notes and drawings created with the annotation tools can be easily saved to OneNote, Favorites, or Reading list, or shared via email or OneNote.
And yet, while you can save to a number of apps or built-in system features, you cannot save a note as screenshot on local drives. Surprisingly, Microsoft ignored one of the top and commonly-used options for such a feature, but hopefully, the company will add it in a future update.
Search engines and Cortana integration
The web browser makes use of OpenSearch technologies in order to allow the use of multiple search engines. The default search engine is Bing. You will be able to switch to Google in future releases.
Edge helps you use Cortana as your personal assistant for benefiting from the search functionality via voice control. For example, you may find out details about the weather forecast, make reservations, give directions, and perform unit conversions as soon as you type data into to the address bar. You may also select a word or phrase on a webpage and ask Cortana to give you more details about it.
Configuration settings
You can show or hide the favorites bar, open the web browser with the start page, new tab page, previous pages, or a specific page or pages, and open new tabs with top sites and suggested content, top sites, or a blank page.
You can easily get rid of browsing data and select the items that you want to delete, namely history, cookies and saved website data, cached data and files, download history, form info, passwords, media licenses, pop-up exceptions, as well as location, full screen, and compatibility permissions.
There are also support for different reading styles, namely Default, Light, Medium, or Dark, and different font size options.
Advanced settings
Edge lets you show or hide the home button and set the webpage displayed upon opening it, block pop-ups, disable or enable Adobe Flash Player, activate the caret browsing mode, which lets you select text using your keyboard, save passwords and form entries, and have Cortana assist you while browsing.
What’s more, the browser lets you show search suggestions while typing, block all cookies or only third-party ones, send Do Not Track requests, allow sites to save protected media licenses on your device, use page prediction to speed up browsing, and turn on the protection mode against malicious websites and downloads.
The Good
You may write directly on the web and share ideas, save favorite links, create a list of reading entries, and surf on the Internet without leaving traces behind using the InPrivate mode. Although it comes with useful options, Edge still needs a lot of improvements to become a powerful competitor to Chrome and Firefox.
The Bad
Other features that are going to be rolled out in future updates include sync options for passwords, history, tabs, and bookmarks across multiple devices (PCs, tablets, and smartphones) and pinned tabs.
Probably one of the most criticized things about Edge (its name is on the list of groans too because some think Microsoft should have stuck with Spartan, the original name of the internal project) is the icon, which looks too similar to the one of Internet Explorer.
The Truth
Edge stands out as a living proof that a brand new browser can still fit, kick, compete, and improve in an oversaturated market with web browsers.