Microsoft’s Internet Explorer hit the Internet browser scene back in August 1995 as part of the Windows 95 “Plus” pack. The browser mainly competed with Netscape and took the top spot in the browser wars thanks to Microsoft making Internet Explorer a native, pre-installed program. Now the browser is in its 11th version and is being pushed aside by a leaner, faster browser developed not by Microsoft’s rivals, but Microsoft itself. This new kid in town is called Microsoft Edge.
So why call Microsoft’s new browser Edge? "[The name means] the edge of consuming and creating, being closer to the modern capabilities of the Web,” said VP of Operating Systems Group Joe Belfiore during BUILD 2015. “This is for note-taking, reading, and consuming content. Developers will care about the blazing fast speed and that it is a universal app."
The Edge browser is minimal in appearance at best, providing the navigational buttons on the left of the address bar and the settings, sharing and other tools located on the right… just like Internet Explorer 11. However, the icons are larger than what’s provided in the older browser, and unlike Internet Explorer 11, there are no toolbars of any sort by default. Thus the user can focus on the contents in the window and not the icons lining the top half of the browser.
One of the coolest features in Microsoft Edge is the Reading View aspect. In the top of the browser it’s depicted as an open book, and when tapped, will get rid of everything on the page save for the image header and the text body. As an example, Maximum PC articles include the site’s toolbar, advertisement and images leading to other articles on the site. All of this is gone in Reading View, leaving what could be mistaken as a clean PDF. Click the open book icon again and all ads and toolbars return.
Another cool feature is Make a Web Note, shown above. The icon appears as a pen on paper and when clicked will load up a purple toolbar for making edits directly in the Edge window. There are five editing capabilities offered on the left side: Pen, Highlighter, Eraser, Add as Typed Note and Clip. On the far right are links to save the edits, to share and to exit out of editing mode. Additionally, the Pen aspect allows the user to choose between twelve different colors and three pen sizes.
So why do we need an editing tool in a browser? The Web Note feature seems ideal for website administrators to point out mistakes or to illustrate potential design changes. Perhaps a few friends are making plans to travel and want to write about possible destinations. Maybe a teacher could highlight important notes for students. Whatever the case, these changes can be saved to the hard drive and shared to OneNote.
In addition to the Make a Web Note feature, Microsoft Edge provides a Hub that can be accessed by clicking on the three-lined icon between Favorites and Make a Web Note. This area is broken down into four parts: the user’s Favorites, the Reading List, the browser’s History and the Download link. Here the company seems set out to change the way people use bookmarks.
For instance, suppose you’re visiting Maximum PC and want to save a specific article to read later. This is done by clicking on the Favorites’ “star” icon and choosing the Reading List icon in the pop-up window. This page then ends up on the Reading List inside the Hub. Just want to add the site as a favorite? Click on the star icon, choose the name, the save location and then access it on the Favorites panel inside the Hub.
So what’s the difference? Good question. Maybe the user doesn’t want to make a specific website a “favorite” but wants to read one of its articles later. Visually their presentation within the Hub is a little different: the link in the Favorites panel is smaller than the one shown on the reading list. What’s disappointing is that both options don’t seem to have the capability to be shared with social networks and friends, but only to OneNote.
Finally we have the “More actions” panel that can be opened by clicking on the three dot icon. Here Microsoft Edge users can open a new window, open a new InPrivate window, zoom in or out, find a specific word on the current page, print, pin to Start, open the page with Internet Explorer 11 and send feedback. This is also where the users will find the Settings menu.
Under the Settings menu, users can choose a theme for Edge: either Light or Dark as of this article. Here users can also turn on the Favorites bar (it’s off by default), open the browser with a specific page and open a new tab with either the user’s top sites, top sites with suggested content or a blank page. There are also options to clear the browsing data, change the Reading view style and the Reading view font style. At the bottom is a link to the Advanced Options and the browser’s current version number.
Microsoft Edge users jumping into the Advanced Options will find a number of switches that can be toggled on and off. These include showing the Home button, blocking pop-ups, using Adobe Flash Player and allowing caret browsing. “Caret browsing lets you select text using the keyboard,” the browser states. “F7 turns on caret browsing for the current tab.”
In the Privacy and services section, users can switch on saving passwords, saving form entries, sending Do Not Track requests, turning on Cortana’s assistance within the browser and choosing what search engine will be used in the address bar (naturally Bing is the default search engine). There’s also an option for not blocking cookies, allowing sites to leave protective media licenses on the device, using page prediction and malware protection.
What’s great about Microsoft Edge is that it’s connected to Windows 10’s virtual assistant, Cortana. For example, highlight a link or word, right-click and then choose Ask Cortana. For instance, suppose you’re ready for a vacation and a web page contains the word Disney. Instead of hitting the address bar to load up the official site, Cortana will bring up links like Disney’s official webpage, the Disney Store, Disney’s Cruise Line website and more in a panel attached to the right of the browser window.
In addition to Cortana integration, what’s also great about Microsoft Edge is that users can load up Internet Explorer 11 when needed. The older browser lurks behind the Windows 10 scene and waits for the user to come across a web page that needs Internet Explorer 11’s touch. Microsoft says it’s great for enterprise web apps.
“Large organizations are likely to have a broad portfolio of web-based apps, and Internet Explorer 11 offers the security, performance, backward compatibility, and modern standards support that complex web app portfolios need,” Microsoft states. “This is why we will continue to make it easy for enterprise customers to make Internet Explorer 11 their default browser through Group Policy.”
Microsoft has stated in the past that Edge is built from the ground up for the modern Internet, meaning it has a whole different rendering engine and is more secure. The company says that Edge was developed to “defend users from increasingly sophisticated and prevalent attacks.” The company talks about the browser’s security aspect here, which includes web security threats, defending against malicious web sites and downloads and more.
As of this article, which was written on Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10159, Internet Explorer 11 is not listed as an installed app, making Microsoft Edge the main focus for browsing the Internet. The only way to access Internet Explorer 11, it seems, is through Microsoft Edge or asking Cortana to load it up.
All in all, Microsoft Edge is a great browser. Since it seems to be an exclusive feature in Windows 10, how Mozilla and Google plan to compete with Microsoft on the new operating system should prove to be quite interesting. The browser wars will definitely begin to heat up on July 29.
From maximumpc
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