Microsoft Edge is the new Windows browser

[HEXUS]

It will gain many more features including the use of extensions this summer.

Read more.

[Ksyruz]

However great this browser may be using the 'e' as an Icon is just going to make people think it's Internet Explorer and automatically think it's bad from the get go. They should use the Cortana search logo with a world inside it.

[Meowdance]

However great this browser may be using the 'e' as an Icon is just going to make people think it's Internet Explorer and automatically think it's bad from the get go. They should use the Cortana search logo with a world inside it.

The icon is merely for familiarity in the elderly and business sector. It doesn't matter how good edge is or how cool it looks, we're all going to download Firefox/Chrome anyway.

[GuidoLS]

However great this browser may be using the 'e' as an Icon is just going to make people think it's Internet Explorer and automatically think it's bad from the get go. They should use the Cortana search logo with a world inside it.

The icon is merely for familiarity in the elderly and business sector. It doesn't matter how good edge is or how cool it looks, we're all going to download Firefox/Chrome anyway.

By no measure an MS/IE fanboi here, but passing on Spartan/Edge is going to be a mistake. I don't know what they've done with it from the last publish until now (a period of maybe 4 days) but 'Edge' is, quite frankly, one of the fastest browsers I have ever used. How fast? No benchmarks, but anecdotally, it's as much faster now as Opera was to everything else back when you could stuff it on a 1.44 floppy. Rendering speed is insanely fast, and while I won't claim to have browsed 99% of the web overnight, I've yet to hit a compatibility snag.

If there is a negative, it's that they still haven't implemented the ability to use Chrome's extensions, so no adblock, ghostery, no script, etc.

And so far, the icon for Spartan/Edge is still the original Spartan icon. No E, modified or otherwise, although I'm sure that will change.

Looks like build 10074 *might* be the release that's safe and stable enough to go with Win10 full time.

[crossy]

Hmm, maybe I'm being surreal but when I looked at the Edge icon my first thought was "it's Sonic the Hedgehog":

From http://chrisbrowndanceboy19.devianta...Icons-12022262

The icon is merely for familiarity in the elderly and business sector. It doesn't matter how good edge is or how cool it looks, we're all going to download Firefox/Chrome anyway.

Not so sure. Firefox has been slagged for a long time about it's bulk, and Chrome's bad reputation is getting to similar levels - although Chrome's also got the "Google snooping" baggage too. It's for those reasons that a lot of corporate IT folks I've dealt with are "IE only".

I've had god-awful problems with Chrome this month - something keeps redirecting the occasional click to malware sites. Eventually got so tired of it that I removed Chrome totally, (just reinstalled with ABP added this time). Funnily enough the problems seemed to start after I added FlashControl.

Edge looks good on the face of it, my problem is that it's Windows-only so while it'll definitely replace IE for me, my main browsers will still be Firefox and Chrome (because those run on Linux too). If MS wants me to switch to Edge then they need non-Windows versions.

[Otherhand]

Once the Chrome extensions go in, I'll have no reasons not to use Microsoft's browser. Honestly, the antipathy to IE's recent versions has been unnecessary - it was a perfectly good browser, and Edge seems to have lots of interesting improvements.

I really like the way Win10 looks as well, so I'm inclined to use their browser in order to maintain that visual coherence. Chrome and FF look a bit old now.

[Plasmastorm]

For me it's IE at work and firefox at home. The Mrs likes Chrome but it's never really been something for me to think of switching to for some reason.

[crossy]

Honestly, the antipathy to IE's recent versions has been unnecessary - it was a perfectly good browser, and Edge seems to have lots of interesting improvements.

Agree that IE11 is "perfectly good", trouble is - for me at least - the cross-platform alternatives just feel snappier. TBH I only use IE for those sites that absolutely, positively can't use one of the others.

[Corky34]

By no measure an MS/IE fanboi here, but passing on Spartan/Edge is going to be a mistake. I don't know what they've done with it from the last publish until now (a period of maybe 4 days) but 'Edge' is, quite frankly, one of the fastest browsers I have ever used.

Not doubting that it's the fastest as I've similar reports on other sites, I do wonder though if that speed can be maintained as development continues and more features get added.
On a more personal note the speed of a browser isn't that important to me beyond it not being noticeably slow (yes i know that's very subjective).

My biggest hope is that it gets better support for addons than IE had so it can be customised to the user needs better, I'm not even sure people knew IE supported addons.

[devBunny]

Hmm, maybe I'm being surreal but when I looked at the Edge icon my first thought was "it's Sonic the Hedgehog":

Yes, I saw that too but couldn't think of the character's name. To me it's a cross between that rakish hairstyle and that well known symbol of American corporatism - the hammer and sickle. ;o)

[TheAnimus]

Agree that IE11 is "perfectly good", trouble is - for me at least - the cross-platform alternatives just feel snappier. TBH I only use IE for those sites that absolutely, positively can't use one of the others.

Firefox feels a lot, lot slower, chrome feels faster, but also hogs resources and has been getting worse with every new version.

Sometimes, I've no idea why, the font rendering becomes ugly too for me on my high DPI devices. I still use chrome because of some addins, if that can change, great!

I also am starting to hate the Chrome dev tools more with every version. Source maps you never know if they will work or not. As someone who's allergic to JavaScript, that's a massive dev feature to mess up.

[GuidoLS]

Not doubting that it's the fastest as I've similar reports on other sites, I do wonder though if that speed can be maintained as development continues and more features get added.
On a more personal note the speed of a browser isn't that important to me beyond it not being noticeably slow (yes i know that's very subjective).

My biggest hope is that it gets better support for addons than IE had so it can be customised to the user needs better, I'm not even sure people knew IE supported addons.

It's supposed to be compatible with Chrome extensions (not yet enabled) so a great deal of that will depend on the makers of those extensions. Adblocker Plus is fairly well behaved on Firefox, dunno about Chrome, and an absolute beast with IE, since it's not really a plug in with IE, but a stand-alone. A lot of people seem to claim that Chrome has become bloated as of late, and anecdotally, Firefox has become much slower for me over the last few upgrades, even after reducing plugins to nothing but ABP.

Spartan/Edge is relatively threadbare - they haven't even activated the ability to access browser history, and there doesn't seem to a lot to be messed about with. Again, it's a beta product, but it's really impressed me so far, and I've had nothing nice to say about an MS browser for a long time. 11 was an improvement. Edge is... well, this may be premature, but Edge is to IE what Win98 was to Win95, or what Win7 was to Vista. And if they do with it what they've stated they want to do with it (Chrome extensions, functional do not track, etc) it's going to take a big chunk out of the 'alternative' browser market.

[mikerr]

It's supposed to be compatible with Chrome extensions (not yet enabled) so a great deal of that will depend on the makers of those extensions.

The lack of extensions addons has always been a disadvantage to IE, so that's great news.

[stanonwheels]

Really hope this turns out to be good. Firefox chugs and Chrome feels crap, been looking for something new that isn't terrible for a while now.