Microsoft has fairly recently debuted the new Microsft Edge web browser, a new browser to replace Internet Explorer. While web browsers from Microsoft seem to generate a lot of dislike, Microsoft Edge may be different.
The new web browser, formerly known as Project Spartan, is a much-improved browser compared to the old Internet Explorer 11 and other versions of IE. While Edge will still be based upon Trident (the same rendering engine as IE ) the version of Trident that Edge has is significantly more streamlined & optimized. A lot of the ancient code present in IE is gone in Microsoft Edge, and while that may ruin compatibility with legacy hardware, it makes the browser much less resource hungry & streamlines Edge a substantial amount when compared to Internet Explorer.
Along with the increased performance, Microsoft Edge will include support for a variety of new features that Internet Explorer has been lacking for some time. The foremost feature that Edge will support is extensions, a feature that only Chrome and Firefox have done well to this point. In Internet Explorer, there was basically zero support for add-ons, and it will be interesting to see how well Microsoft can pull off extension support in Edge. If done well, Edge may be a competitor with Chrome and Firefox, which would be great to see happen.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Microsoft Edge browser is that it may not be released to other platforms. Microsoft has not said whether they plan to make the browser cross-platform like they have done with Mobile Office and Powerpoint. This could mean one of two things- either Microsoft doesn’t plan on making Edge available on other platforms. Or, Edge has not been planned out that far and Microsoft has taken a “wait and see” approach to see how well Edge is received, and then will roll it out to other platforms if it is popular enough. Either way, it seems like an odd idea to not roll out the new browser to other platforms- but it may work in Microsoft’s favor. If Edge is a good as it is so far turning out to be in the Windows 10 Tech Preview, Microsoft may have another selling point of the Windows OS.
