Microsoft's latest browser is completely redesigned and set for release January
15, 2020. It's so good I've already made it my default browser. Here are the top
10 Microsoft Edge Chromium best features that will convince you to use it too.
#1 - New Interface. The Edge Chromium interface has been completely
redesigned. You now have three page layout options; Focused which makes
search and your recent visited sites more prominent, Inspirational which
provides a background image, and Informational which adds the Microsoft
newsfeed. You can customize these however you like. Chrome users will also notice
the familiar menu structure. You have integration into Office 365 where you
can synchronize favorites, passwords, and contacts with your Azure Active
Directory account, and even the tab layout is Chrome like. #2 - Speed.
Edge Chromium is fast. Microsoft has rewritten Edge using the Chromium Open
Source development platform from Google and now it compares to Chrome for speed.
Take a look at these Octane 2.0 test results. Edge Chromium destroys Internet
Explorer and the old Edge browser and is on par with Chrome for overall
performance. You can feel the difference. See how long it takes to open Google
Analytics in Edge and now in Edge Chromium.
That is so much faster. #3 - Tracking Prevention. Edge Chromium has
added a privacy setting to prevent tracking and sharing of sites you visit.
In the menu, click on Settings, click on Privacy and Services. You have options
for Basic, Balanced, or Strict tracking prevention. The Balance setting blocks
known harmful trackers and trackers from sites you haven't visited. You can set it
to Strict but that risks some sites not working correctly so the Balanced choice
is the recommended setting. This gives you much more control over how your
information is shared. #4 - Collections. Collections allows you to
organize and share information when browsing the web. Start by opening the
Collections pane using the button on the address bar. Select Start new collection
and give it a name. You can add the current page to your collection. You can
also drag and drop images from your page onto the collection or you can
right-click on a link and add it to the collection. You can rearrange the items
in the list by dragging and dropping them and you can add notes by clicking
on the note icon at the top. Quickly copy and paste your data into other
applications.
You can also click the menu and export this data to Excel or to Word. Your
content will appear on a new tab as a table and you can easily sort, search, and
filter this data. You can also click on the links and it opens the original page.
Edge Chromium creates a visual card that remembers this data every time you open
your browser and you can easily select from that list to go back to those
locations. It's a simple way to organize your content and easily access it at a
later date. #5 - Immersive Reader. Want to read an article without all the
distracting ads and peripheral information. Use Immersive Reader to get
directly to your text. It's this button up here on the address bar. Click it and
it strips out all the other peripheral information and you can even read this
aloud. "Samsung made a Star Wars Galaxy Note 10+". Speed it up. Make a different
voice. "Star Wars fan are you? Big enough that you'd replace your smart phone".
Immersive Reader gives you the opportunity to read just the information
you want in the article that you're looking at. It's a great tool. #6 -
Picture in Picture. Just like Chrome Picture in Picture mode is available in
Edge Chromium. If you open a video and right-click twice a menu opens with the
Picture in Picture option. Select it from the list and it opens your video in
the bottom-right corner of the screen. Here you can play, pause, or close the
video. It allows you to work in the background while your video continues to
play in the window. You may have also noticed Cast Media to Device is an
option on that same menu. This option lets you select a device to cast the
video and it begins playing on that device and it tells you it is playing
right here where you can click and pause or play your video. Both of these
features are part of the Chrome development environment and therefore
now available in Edge Chromium. #7 - Dark Theme. Edge Chromium has a
new dark theme setting. From the menu, choose Settings, select Appearance, and
change it from Light theme to Dark. You now have entered Dark theme mode. To
change it back just reselect the Light theme. That's it.
#8 - Progressive Web Apps. Progressive Web Apps or PWA's allow you
to run applications in a separate window from your browser. They act more like
applications than websites and work independently from your browser platform.
For example, let's visit the Google Maps web page.
From the menu, select Apps and choose Install Google Maps. Click install. It
opens an application window for Google Maps and at the same time it creates an
icon on your desktop where you can run Google Maps directly. Now you can run the
app independent from Edge Chromium. Within the PWA's menu you have options
including Cast Media to Device, making it easy to share these apps directly to
devices on your network. PWA's are managed from the Edge Chromium menu. If we
were to close this, you return back to the menu and select Apps. Choose Manage Apps
and now you see the apps that are installed in your browser. Close one. It
will remove it from Edge and also remove the icon from your desktop. PWA's allow
you to turn websites into applications on your computer. A great new feature of
Edge Chromium. #9 - Extensions. You can add extensions to Edge Chromium
simply by clicking on Extensions in the menu. Select Get Extensions from the
Microsoft Store. Here you see a list of extensions broken down into categories.
Select one that you want to install. Click Get and Add Extension. It creates
an icon on your address bar so that you can access that extension. To remove it,
go back to your extension page and click the Remove button.
There are several extensions available from the Microsoft Store for download in
Edge Chromium. Since Edge is rewritten in Chromium you also have access to the
large array of Google Chrome extensions. To enable access, turn on the Allow
Extensions from Other Stores toggle and click the Allow button. Browse the Google
extensions,
and you can select an extension from the Google store as well. Adding extensions
to your browser opens the door to an enormous array of third-party developed
enhancements and makes Edge Chromium even more powerful. #10 -
Grammar Tools. Edge Chromium has experimental settings called Flags. You
can see these settings by going to Edge://Flags
in the browser. If not already enabled by default in the final release of Edge
Chromium, you can turn on one of these flags called Grammar Tools. Once enabled
the Grammar Tools option shows up in Immersive Reader mode. So if I bring up a
news article and click on Immersive Reader it translates it into just text
and now on the menu you have an option called Grammar Tools. This gives you some
choices of setting syllables, nouns, verbs, and adjectives so that you can see them
within the text. For example, I turn on Syllables. It automatically modifies the
text to show you all the syllables in all the words. You can also view just
Nouns and it highlights them in red. You can also Show Labels to indicate which
ones are nouns and do the same for verbs and adjectives. This option will most
likely be built into the final release version of Edge Chromium so you don't
necessarily need to enable this in the Flags settings. As mentioned earlier,
Edge Chromium is set for release on January 15th, 2020. If you don't want to
wait, you can download the latest beta version of Edge Chromium and get started
using it right now. Just go to MicrosoftEdgeInsider.com and download the Beta
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