After months of beta testing, Microsoft's Chromium-powered Edge browser is slated to arrive on Jan. 15, 2020.
The company announced the release date as it also debuted a new logo for the Edge browser, which swaps out the "E" for an ocean wave made up of "innovation," as Redmond puts it.
A year ago, the company essentially conceded Google Chrome was the dominant standard around which web developers were building their sites and services. Microsoft's own EdgeHTML engine, on the other hand, was riddled with compatibility issues, forcing it to play catch-up in the browser wars.
So in response, Redmond decided to overhaul Edge by building it from Google's Chromium rendering engine. This means Edge is not only more compatible with today's web landscape, it can also run Chrome extensions from Google's Chrome Web Store.
Why bother with the new Edge when there's Chrome? For years now, Google's browser has dominated the market with a 60 percent share. Edge, meanwhile, has hovered around 5 percent.
In today's announcement, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi said the new Edge promises to stand out in two areas: privacy and integration with Microsoft Office-related applications. On the privacy front, this means the browser will, by default, block web trackers on sites you're visiting for the first time, and may never visit again. You can also activate a "strict" privacy prevention mode to stop a majority of all online trackers your browser encounters (although this may cause some sites to crash).
"With SmartScreen and Tracking prevention, we help protect you from phishing schemes, malicious software and new types of malware like cryptojacking," Mehdi added. "Microsoft Edge and Bing also now offer new InPrivate mode across your entire web experience so your online searches and browsing are not attributed to you, offering you more control over your personal data."
The privacy safeguards don't sound very different from what Mozilla's Firefox browser already offers. Where the new Edge has a chance to really excel is using it as a way to send data to Microsoft Office applications. One feature, called Collections, lets you view webpages on Edge, and then export the information, like a link, directly to an Excel or Word document.
The Chromium-powered Edge browser has already been available as a public beta product since April. But now the company is issuing a more polished application with the "release candidate" version, which is available to download today for both Windows and macOS.