Among the many fascinating reveals in the opening keynote of the Microsoft Build 2015 developer conference—Android and iOS code running on Windows phones, holograms that can attach themselves to physical robots, and Visual Studio for Mac and Linux—was the Microsoft Edge browser.
Perhaps Edge's greatest asset is that it's not Internet Explorer, which, even after lots of improvements in speed and tightened design, was one of the most reviled pieces of software in history. Though Edge's icon still sports an "E," it really isn't IE. Even underneath, it runs a new page-rendering engine called…wait for it—Edge. Yes, that was the name of Project Spartan's engine, and it has now been elevated to the full product name. It tops IE's longtime Trident engine in speed and compatibility with new Web standards such as HTML5.
Windows 10 will still ship with IE11 for legacy compatibility, especially for corporate intranets and other entreprise Web apps, but it won't get new features and Edge will be the default browser.
Edge Browser Extensions
Extensions are hardly a new capability in Web browsers, and even Internet Explorer had some extensibility, with toolbars, WebSlices, and Accelerators. But Edge brings the promise of full Firefox- and Chrome-style extensions.In fact, Edge's extension developers will use the same JavaScript and HTML standard code used by those two competing browsers for their extensions. Furthermore, Microsoft's Vice President for PC-Tablet-Phone, Joe Belfiore, stated that extensions programmed for Chrome or Firefox would only require minimal coding to work in Edge. At the keynote, he demoed an extension for Reddit that would let you vote on stories and a Pinterest extension that let you share pages.
An important note about extensions in Edge is that the feature won't ship with Windows 10 RTM (release to manufacturing) this summer, but will come in a later update.
Cortana
Windows 10's voice assistant seems to be popping up everywhere, and Edge is no exception in this regard. When you land on a page for which directions make sense—say you're on a restaurant's webpage—Cortana pops up with her familiar blue circle in the browser toolbar proposing relevant information. You can also right-click on selected text to have Cortana find info about the selection.
New-Tab Page
People hit that bar atop the browser to open a new tab over a billion times a day, and Microsoft wants to make good use of that real estate. IE's new-tab page was actually one of the more useful among the browsers, all of which let you search and see thumbnails of your most-visited sites, but also let you re-open closed tabs and see site suggestions. In Edge, the new-tab page still shows top sites, but also app suggestions, weather, sports scores, and video suggestions. Interestingly, the page doesn't show an address bar, but you can type a URL into its search box.
Reading Mode
Another feature that's been available in other browsers for years (particularly in Apple's Safari) but is making its debut in Microsoft's new browser is Reading Mode. This lets you strip out all the extra junk on a webpage aside from the main text and images —ads, sidebars, and so on—so you can read undistracted. Very useful for magazine like sites—like PCMag.com!
Page Annotations
This one has not appeared on competing browsers from Mozilla, Google, and Apple, though I've seen a similar feature in the lesser-known Maxthon browser. Edge lets you mark up webpages with a highlighter or drawing tool and then share them as an image file in email or social apps.
New Coding Support
A Build session on the Edge browser highlighted just how many forward-looking features Edge supports, and noted that the browser doesn't appear as IE to sites, so they're more likely to work as they do in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (mobile and desktop). The browser will support Object RTC, a newer form of WebRTC, the protocol that allows sites access to media communications; think Skype via a Web browser. Here's a slide showing other new features in Edge:
