Microsoft is kind of Edge(y)
After months of waiting, Microsoft has finally released the first public builds of its new Edge browser. And boy was it worth it. As I wrote in Headed Towards The Open Edge, last year Microsoft announced that they would be moving to a Chromium-based browser to focus their efforts on the actual browser and less the rendering engine. While I expected a build a couple of months ago, I am very impressed with the progress I have seen so far.
Edge was in need of a reboot, not necessarily a rebrand, but it just wasn’t cutting it for many users and the slow pace on which it was updated was way behind the competition who routinely issue new browsers every 6 weeks. In fact one day, (one day!) after releasing the first public canary build, they released a new build today! That may have happened internally before, but this was a first for an external build of a Microsoft browser.
In releasing Edge Microsoft will follow the Chromium model and have
Many people will note the similarity to Chrome at this point, but there are still a lot of things missing that Microsoft plans to add that will help differentiate it from Chrome and bridge that gap between the missing features from the traditional Edge Browser. Which, by the way, is not going anywhere anytime soon, and again can run just fine side by side with either or both of the Edgium builds. Some of the early fit and finish looks great, such as the install experience that allows you to customize your new tab page, as well as the Microsoft Account setup, and the settings page.
I haven’t been this excited about
If you are interested I urge you to check it out and for a good initial write up check out Paul Thurrott’s guide to living on the new Edge. But beware this is still an early release and there will be bugs, it is part of the process, so it is not for the faint of heart.