Microsoft officially launches Chromium-based Edge browser for all platforms
‘Twice as fast’ as the old Edge
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After the lackluster web browsers thatMicrosofthas recently been responsible for (Internet Explorer andEdge), the company has been hard at work reinventing the latter of the two from the ground up.
Sticking to its release schedule, Microsoft has today officially launched the new Edge browser,complete with updated logoand built entirely on the same Chromium foundation thatGoogle’s popular Chrome browser was constructed on.
Edge is available fromMicrosoft’s official pageand is compatible with macOS, iOS and Android, as well asWindows 10, 8.1, 8, and evenWindows 7, which has nowofficially entered the ‘unsupported’ phase of its life.
The cutting edge
Included among the promised features are thorough privacy tools,4Kstreaming support, optimization for Windows 10, enterprise-grade security, and support for Chrome extensions that can be accessed from either the Microsoft Store or Chrome Web Store.
Microsoft is also claiming that this new version of Edge is twice as fast as the one it replaces, no doubt thanks to the Chromium platform it runs on, although we’re yet to see how that stacks up against competitors such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Technically this is the 79th stable version of Edge, with Edge 80 set to land in February and regular updates arriving every six weeks from then on.
Windows 10 users will see thenew browser pushed to them automaticallyin the coming weeks, but everyone else can download it manually. Users that have the old version of Edge installed will find the new one will replace it, with most personalized information carrying across.
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