That opens the page on a paper-like background, eliminating all superfluous content like ads. A small book with a speaker icon superimposed over it may appear in then URL bar when you’re viewing a webpage. One plus in my book: Edge keeps what it calls the “immersive reader” mode. If you import data from Google Chrome, extensions carry over as well. The new Edge also allows you access to both Microsoft’s curated Edge extensions as well as the Google Chrome Web Store, though you’ll have to enable content from other web stores to access and load them. Edge saw that I had a favorites toolbar enabled from within Chrome, and added it to my Edge browsing experience. ![]() It has much the same back, forward, home, and page refresh controls, plus a star at the end of the URL bar to set the current page as a favorite. With the new Edge, there’s little to distinguish visually between the new Edge and a browser like Chrome. Here’s what the PCWorld homepage looks like with the new Edge. In practice, the new Edge looks…fine? With other browsers, such as Firefox, the page layout is visually distinctive, with sidebars and other other ways of rearranging the content that identify that browser. (I later found it under the Privacy and Services tab, at the very bottom.) I couldn’t help but think that if this were 15 or 20 years ago, when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer reigned, the company might be receiving a pointed letter from the DOJ right about now. Only after I typed “search” into the Settings search box could I find the option to change the search engine-and only by clicking though a related link. Microsoft makes it quite difficult to figure out how to use any search engine besides Bing. Seriously, if the option to change the search engine is there, it’s nearly impossible to find without a targeted search. ![]() If you’d like to change the search engine to Google or DuckDuckGo, you can go to the Settings menu and…click through menu after menu. Queries go to Microsoft’s own Bing search engine by default. Like virtually every browser on the market, the URL bar doubles as a search box. ![]() What you won’t see in the setup process, however, is the ability to select a search engine. In all, the setup process took about 30 seconds, though you’re free to explore drop-down menus and other options that explain your setup choices in more details. I prefer the “informational” layout within the new Edge, but I’m a bit of a news junkie. (Both the inspirational and focused options also allow you to explore those news headlines they’re just hidden below the “fold” of the page.) Mark Hachman / IDG The “informational” option is the most crowded of all them, with a dozen or so headlines from Microsoft’s news service cramming the page. Like the old Edge, the new Edge is integrated into Windows 10, though versions will be available for Windows 8/8.1 and even Apple’s macOS. Businesses will have a choice of whether to accept the new Edge, but consumers won’t. Because the new Edge is built upon the Chromium open-source engine (earning it informal monikers such as “Edgium” and “Chredge”), Edge is now closer to Chrome than ever before, and can tap into Chrome’s vast library of extensions. Microsoft may have painstakingly gathered around 100 productivity extensions for Edge, with more for ad blockers and other utilities, but it still can’t hold a candle to the hundreds (thousands?) of extensions available via the Chrome Web Store.īeginning January 15, Microsoft will begin replacing the old Edge with the new Edge on consumer PCs with Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, though Release Preview Insiders will be the first to get it. When you see this new Microsoft Edge logo in your taskbar, you’ll have the new Edge browser.Įdge’s thin market share is an opportunity for Microsoft to switch horses midstream.
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