Late last year, Microsoft announced their plans to build the next generation Edge browser based on Chromium. A few weeks ago, an early build of the browser made its way to the internet, giving everyone a preview on the next iteration of the browser.
For starters, Microsoft has removed or replaced more than 50 of Google’s services that come as part of Chromium. That includes ad blocking, Google Now, Google Cloud Messaging and other Chrome OS-related services. To date, the Microsoft Edge team have contributed 275 changes to the Chromium project.
Some of the changes are more obvious to users. Microsoft added a handful of features, including smooth scrolling, a reader mode, grammar and translation tools, and customizable extensions.
There are also some major updates coming soon. The software giant is currently working to build a version of the Edge browser that runs on Windows laptops using 64-bit Arm processors.
The first Canary and Developer builds are already available for download via Microsoft’s official Insider page. For context, Canary builds are updated daily to keep users up-to-date with the latest features. The Developers build, on the other hand, is tested by the Edge team and gets updated weekly. And is, therefore, more stable than Canary builds.
