The New Edge

[Bsuds]

So is anyone else trying Microsoft's new Edge beta browser?

It's based on Chromeium so it's very similar to Chrome.

I am liking it so far.

[Even Steven]

Microsoft has their own browser?

[Urban Cowboy]

Yep Internet Exploder version 287.

[Bsuds]

They might even get it right someday.

Maybe.

Don't hold yer breath!

[Urban Cowboy]

Chrome works for me very well so I won't be tempting fate by going back to Edge.

I would have thought that after all this time Microsoft would at least incorporate some of the many features users like about browsers such as Firefox etc. but that just seems too much to expect.

[Jlabute]

Has anyone tried "Brave" browser?
I haven't tried the beta of Edge yet.

[RVThereYet]

What's Edge, I'm still using Netscape?

[Bsuds]

Chrome works for me very well so I won't be tempting fate by going back to Edge.

I would have thought that after all this time Microsoft would at least incorporate some of the many features users like about browsers such as Firefox etc. but that just seems too much to expect.

It's difficult to tell the difference between the new Edge and Chrome as it looks almost identical.
When I installed it it copied all my settings and favorites from Chrome. It just didn't install the extensions that I had installed.

[kelownman]

Has anyone tried "Brave" browser?

I just downloaded it and added the extensions I am using on chrome. It does seem to be slightly faster than chrome....I will continue to use it for the day and see how I feel about it tomorrow.

I have flipboard as one of my tabs, brave blocked the log in so I had to disable it on "brave shield".

[TylerM4]

At their cores, the new Edge browser is the same as chrome.

The differences will come down to the "extras" that google and Microsoft include with the core. Kinda like how a PC from IBM and a PC from HP seem different despite them both running a Windows 10 OS.

[crookedmember]

I think the main difference between Chrome and Edge is how much of your life gets sent back to Google.

[Urban Cowboy]

I think the main difference between Chrome and Edge is how much of your life gets sent back to Google.

Edge is Microsoft so you think they don't harvest just as much or more information than Google?

At this point in time, if we want privacy, we'd best disconnect from the internet, and forget about walking around any metropolitan areas, given all the cameras watching us.

[Sonny Taylor]

I haven't tried the beta version yet; just the version that was installed when I installed Windows 10. It does seem to run quite well.

My perception of Edge's speed is pretty much the same as Google Chrome.

A rough look at the memory usage by both Edge and Chrome seems to show that Edge demands more virtual memory than Chrome (not a very detailed analysis though).

I've only installed one extension so far from the microsoft store (AdBlock) and it works. On that subject I made an interesting observation...

Many of you who use an Ad Blocker extension will have noticed that more and more websites are detecting the presence of an Ad-Blocker extension and will intrusively ask you to turn it off or "WhiteList" the website.

I often use a quick work around which is to turn off JavaScript which prevents any scripts on the page from running including the Ad Block detection code. This works OK on most sites I visit, but some sites that are dependent on JavaScript for functionality won't work properly without it. Only the static HTML in the page is displayed.

I use a Chrome extension to disable/enable JavaScript with one click.

Chrome also allows you to turn off JavaScript via the settings, but Edge does NOT offer an option to so. Hopefully someone can write an extension for Edge to accomplish this. Apparently Microsoft has decided that Edge users should be prevented from exercising such control.

I'll try downloading the Beta version and see what I find.

[Bsuds]

I'll try downloading the Beta version and see what I find.

The Beta version is based on Chrome and uses many of the same extensions.

[Sonny Taylor]

The Beta version is based on Chrome and uses many of the same extensions.

I assume you meant Chromium.

Downloaded Edge Beta.

Three nice things I immediately noticed:

The AdBlock extensions available in Microsoft store (Both "AdBlock" and "AdBlock Plus Beta" are NOT DETECTED by 3 test websites (Yayyyyy!) :

https://www.narcity.com/
https://torontosun.com/
https://nationalpost.com/

On Chrome and the current distributed version of Edge, the Ad Blockers are detected; but on the Edge Beta version they are not. If this holds true for most other websites then I'd bet this will frustrate a lot of Web Masters!

On Edge Beta, you can see the page load progress on the bottom left of the window (just like Chrome and perhaps because of their common Chromium base code). On the currently distributed version of Edge you can't see this progress indicator and it's hard to tell when the page has finished loading.

The Edge Beta version now DOES allow you to turn off JavaScript.