Microsoft has just provided the Edge browser with sort of a mid-life upgrade, which however is extensive enough to consider it more of a rebirth of sorts for the browser than just an upgrade. And now the company just ensured the browser has new territories to expand its influence on; read Linux.
This, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise given that the Redmond giant had hinted towards such a development back in May itself during its Build 2019 developer’s conference. However, the company had then stated the Edge Chromium’s debut on Linux could only be a possibility.
The good thing here is that such clouds of uncertainty have since cleared so that there is no official confirmation from Microsoft about Edge Chromium coming to Linux. The announcement to this effect came during the State of the Browser session at the company’s Ignite 2019 conference.
The January 15 timeline will mark the start of a whole new chapter for the way the Edge browser has had so far. For that is when Microsoft is targeting a launch for the Edge Chromium for both Windows 10 and Mac users. Those still on Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices will also be getting the new Edge Chromium from that very day.
Experts though believe the browser won’t be up for adoption for the entire Linux clan on January 15 itself. Rather, there likely will be beta versions that would be made available before the thing is tuned further for a wide release sometime soon thereafter.
Meanwhile, the new naming also signifies the adoption of the Chromium platform for the browser. All of it starts right from the way it looks too, what with the browser now sporting a whole new logo as well which is a welcome break from the blue ‘e’ logo that Microsoft browsers came to be identified with over the decades.
As for the new features that would be part of the new Edge Chromium browser, those are aplenty. For instance, the browser will support syncing of passwords, history, favorites, as well as other settings across platforms such as Android, iOS, and macOS, apart from Windows of course. With this, Microsoft hopes to uphold the Edge Chromium as the browser of choice across a wide device segment spanning from PCs to mobiles.
Then there are going to be some enterprise-friendly features too, which includes enhanced Bing support to aid those in the business community. For instance, users will be able to search for things like office addresses, company acronyms or even co-workers simply by typing on the address bar itself. Plus, there is going to be the new integrated tracking protection too which will be enabled automatically.
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On the whole, the Edge Chromium is definitely to browser to look forward to in the new year. And the logo sure is something that one would love to have on their devices. It remains to be seen though if the Edge browser will able to deliver the goods this time.
