Eventually the new Microsoft browser has arrived, called Microsoft Edge, which replaces Internet Explorer . Microsoft Edge is a completely new browser at its absolute debut, developed to make the best of modern websites and web applications, faster, compatible and perfect for reading from tablets and even from computers. The new browser is also the first which, natively, allows you to write with the mouse or finger (if we are on a touchscreen) on a web page.
UPDATE: From 2019 the new version of the Microsoft Edge browser based on Chrome has been released which can be downloaded, as well as for Windows 10, also on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and on Mac.
READ ALSO: Guide functions and tricks for Microsoft Edge in Windows 10
The first thing you notice after opening Edge the first time is its absolutely minimalist interface, with almost no menus or buttons, with all the space dedicated to web content. The "flat" design, elegant and very fashionable these days, is very touchscreen oriented, with the navigation buttons and the bookmarks bar a bit bigger. The browser loads web pages very quickly and manages the opening of several tabs without slowing down. In particular, it is much more sensitive to scrolling and zooming than in both Chrome and Firefox. Of course, being still without extensions, you will have to see how much its performance will slow down when it is weighed down by plugins, functions and add-ons. For the moment MS Edge consumes less than half of the memory taken by Internet Explorer.
The two new features most visible in Edge are the already mentioned possibility of writing on the pages and the new display in reading mode . The latter allows you to read newspaper and blog articles without distractions, transforming each web page into an ebook, only with text and related images. In the settings you can change the reading mode by choosing to change the default parchment background with a white or gray one and changing the size of the text to your liking. Pages opened in reading mode can also be saved in PDF.
The ability to write notes on web pages is a function derived from Microsoft Onenote and dedicated above all to tablets.
By clicking on the new Web Notes button, the browser turns purple and you can use a highlighter on the page or even add comments as if you were writing with a pen on a paper book. Each added note can be cropped and then saved to the reading list and shared in other applications such as Facebook, Flipboard or OneNote. With this feature, it becomes really convenient to share questions, thoughts, information and comments on the internet relating to articles, sites and applications.
Some other features of the new Microsoft browser are, for now, disabled:
- Change the default search engine
- start the browser with the most recent tabs, rather than on a homepage.
- disable Adobe Flash
- add extensions
- view information such as a website's source code, performance, and statistics.
- The Cortana voice assistant integrated in the browser, to search the internet only using voice.
Considering that this is the first version of the new Microsoft Edge browser, nothing bad can really be said: it is fast, easy to use, minimalist and also very functional. Microsoft says that the updates for Edge will be very frequent so we will see already later this year if we have found an alternative worthy of Chrome and Firefox.
