Edge is... actually GOOD now!? #Helpful Post

Microsoft released its edge browser

originally known as project Spartan in

2015 which wow it's not only four years

ago feels like a lot longer than that

you know what they say time flies when

you're having fun anyway out of the gate

edge brought some interesting features

to the table like a reading mode and the

ability to easily markup and share web

pages but it was also slow and memory

hungry and it lacked support for the

thousands of helpful browser extensions

that you could get on Chrome and Firefox

so while it peaked at 20 percent market

share among Windows 10 users in August

of 2015 its subsequent slide over the

following months and years indicates

that most of those people are probably

just using it to download Chrome so then

in late 2018 after four long years of

progressively more desperate tactics to

get people to please please just try it

please know Microsoft decided that

rather than trying to fight chrome they

would enter the belly of the beast

becoming Chrome then destroying it from

the inside just kidding I mean that

might be what they're doing we actually

don't know but what we do know is that

there's a freaking chromium powered edge

browser out there in the wild and we

spent the last couple of days finding

out whether it's the next big thing or

the browser equivalent of two kids

stacked on top of each other wearing a

trench coat so they can get a ticket for

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for the uninitiated chromium is Google's

free and open source software project

that forms the foundation of Google's

mainline Chrome browser builds which by

contrast are not open-source so what

that means is that anyone including

Microsoft can take that Foundation and

potentially build their own browser on

top of it and actually Microsoft is far

from the first company to do this some

of the more well-known third-party

chromium based browsers include opera

brave Amazon silk and Samsung's aptly

named Internet now the new chromium

powered edge is not fully launched yet

but Microsoft is publishing developer

builds as they get closer to the full

rollout and that means that we can try

it right now so we're gonna be using the

Windows 10 version but this is kind of

cool the new edge will actually be

available on Android iOS and even Mac OS

so let's get started when you open a new

tab you get some layout options focused

has some frequently visited sites and a

simple search bar unfortunately powered

by Bing

but fortunately with the option to

change it to Google search dr. ko or Ask

Jeeves or whatever and the next up is

inspirational layout which adds the

pretty Microsoft background of the day

to the mix or the informational layout

which adds an MSN style new section on

your first Buddha pub the app it will

probably prompt you to import your

chrome data including bookmarks or

favorites you're safe passwords your

autofill entries and your browsing

history but if you're not a hundred

percent sure about the switch you can

also do that in the settings later once

you do that it actually begins to feel

eerily like you're using a Microsoft

skinned version of Chrome though right

down to the menu layouts so most of the

settings that you'd expect to find are

there but like it's weird because they

might be located in a different submenu

it's like using a chrome from an

alternate universe where like the snap

never happened

spoilers spoilers he spent more than a

year to see the first part perhaps the

weirdest part though of the new edge

experience is installing Chrome

extensions now by default the new edge

only allows you to install a small

number of Microsoft approved edge

insider add-ons but in true chromium

fashion you can allow the installation

of any extension from the Chrome Web

Store by simply clicking allow

extensions from other stores with that

said there's no guarantee it'll work

LastPass for example wouldn't let us

sign-in on edge now thankfully there was

an edge version already available and

that one worked fine we're just saying

that whether it's for security reasons

or other compatibility reasons Microsoft

says that the list of official add-ons

will increase as they go through and

verify them so it's not that they're

taking a walled garden approach they

just want to make sure that the user

experience is ok so then if you were

like amped to switch from Chrome to edge

we just want you to keep in mind that

you might not have all of your chrome

features exactly as you like them also

making matters worse if you are one of

the edge faithful hi Microsoft's

chromium based reboot might be a bit of

a bummer for you too because a fresh

start means that the current build is

even lacking some of the features of old

edge so these include setting aside tabs

style of support ooh that's kind of

rough for you surface pro users out

there and an official dark mode although

you can at least enable a beta version

of that last one in the flags now the

edge team has promised that those

features will return and they've also

committed to new ones like easily

shareable tab collections a three-tiered

privacy control system and best of all

and Internet Explorer compatibility mode

I'm actually not joking about this that

is a godsend

not only for nostalgic masochists but

also for corporate and IT workers that

are stuck using legacy apps that just

won't run on modern browsers and the

edge engineers say they're not only

creating new features for their own

brows

they're also submitting suggestions to

the chromium open-source project which

might influence other chromium based

browsers and even chrome itself for any

of this actually matter though edge has

to perform as well as Chrome Firefox or

the others and actually given edges

reputation as that new browser it

probably has to perform even better so

we ran chrome new edge old edge and

Firefox through a handful of benchmarks

html5 tests for pure html5 performance

base mark for a mix of JavaScript and

graphically intense workloads and web

expert for a wide sampling of tasks

intended to mirror everyday browser use

and I got a say for a fledgling browser

the new edge held up alright it kept up

pretty well with chrome although both of

them lost to Firefox and web expert and

it beat both the old edge and Firefox in

Basemark now it did have the worst pure

html5 performance out of our tested

browsers but then we ran the test again

using HTTPS instead of HTTP which

brought it score up to a tie with Chrome

so then at least from a pure performance

standpoint the new chromium based edge

is immediately a big step up from the

old edge and extremely close to chrome

in terms of what you can expect from

day-to-day browsing so with a well

performing feature-rich extension had

the alternative to Chrome on the table

other than Firefox of course sorry

Firefox fans you guys are still a thing

um we should just all be celebrating

them right like competition is good

right not so fast

so we've talked a lot about what a

chromium powered edge browser means for

the user experience but there's another

huge question that the existence of this

chimeric concoction brings up is google

about to fundamentally own the ability

to set their own standards for how the

internet is developed because here's the

thing depending on where you get your

stats chrome has been sitting at around

65 to 75 percent global desktop browser

market share with edge around five and

the supposedly defunct internet explorer

still

around five to ten percent now Firefox

and Safari

still have healthy enough user bases but

think about this once this new edge

actually launches and edge and Internet

Explorer users hopefully switch over as

much as 85 percent of the internet could

be dominated by browsers based on Google

own software that gives Google an

unprecedented level of control over the

way the internet will continue to change

and while Google has developed many

standards and protocols that have

benefited all web users like the speedy

protocol that formed the basis for HTTP

2 they've also been responsible for some

shady locked ecosystem type stuff in the

past like changing YouTube so that it

ran worse on non chrome browsers wait

I'm just trying to think was that before

or after they removed don't be evil from

their corporate motto

do you remember yeah I mean either so

the thing is all of that could be much

ado about nothing and for their part

Google has said they remain committed to

the open web and will continue to work

with others in the web browser ecosystem

but we still thought it was important to

not just try out new edge in this video

but to also point out that if you

subscribe to the age-old wisdom about

absolute power and absolute corruption

and all that you might want to at least

give Firefox a try sure or Safari this

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