The tech giant Microsoft finally confirms about the switching of Microsoft Edge browser with the open source Chromium Web platform for the desktop version of the browser. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft has made the announcement on Thursday that Microsoft Edge is officially moving to Chromium. While Chrome is the popular web browser in the world, and Edge has been struggling to make an impact for a while now, so this move is a good one by Microsoft.
Microsoft has been struggling with its Internet Explorer browser since many years. Years after we all jumped ship from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, we don’t want to go back to a Microsoft browser, do we? However, after the release of Microsoft Edge that is a fast browser for Windows 10, people have started using the browser again. Still, the Edge browser hasn't been able to regain the market dominance that earlier got carved out by Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser. IE currently is a "deprecated" product but it still has more than twice the market share of the Edge browser.
Earlier, Edge had its own proprietary browser engine, EdgeHTML, which was appreciated for its performance in some areas, but also brought frustration to web developers due to compatibility issues. Considering these issues, Microsoft has decided to switch to the Chromium. By merging Google’s Chromium into Edge on the desktop, along with other comprehensive changes being announced today, the company majorly aims to improve its browser in a way that wasn’t feasible before.
Another interesting thing associated with this change is that the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge will support Google Chrome’s far more huge and capable library of browser extensions. Web and Mobile app development companies are also finding these updates as a positive one for the better performance.
Major Changes After the Switch
Microsoft highlighted three key changes that will take place as the shift to Chromium begins:
· Users will move to a Chromium-compatible web platform for Microsoft Edge on the desktop: Microsoft wants to align the Edge web platform with web standards and other Chromium browsers at the same time.
· Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows: Whether you’re using Windows 7, 8, or 10, Microsoft wants Edge to run on your system. There’s also a possibility that Edge could come to macOS very soon.
· Microsoft is working on web platform enhancements to make browsers better on Windows devices: Even if you don’t use Edge, Microsoft still wants your experience on Windows to be a positive one and friendly.
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