With Windows 10, Edge arrived, Microsoft’s new commitment to browsers with which it wanted to take over the significant market share that Google had achieved with Chrome. However, it went wrong and Microsoft didn’t get what it was looking for. The solution came 6 years later, in 2021, when the Redmond-based company launched a new Edge, this time completely new and based on Chromium.
What does it mean that it is based on Chromium? It means that it uses the same base as Chrome, so it is compatible with the exact same extensions available for Chrome. In this way, we can install any extension from both the Chrome Web Store and the Edge extension store. But, in addition, Edge includes features and functions that make it a much better browser than Google’s solution.
privacy options
Edge puts at our disposal 3 types of configuration to manage the tracking done by all the web pages we visit: Basic, Balanced and Strict. Each of these configurations are focused on improving our privacy when browsing the internet, options that are not available in Chrome, but we can find them in Firefox, even though the latter is not based on Chromium.
Less resource consumption
One of Edge’s most notable points compared to any other browser is that it is available natively, that is, it works hand in hand with the operating system, so the number of resources it consumes is very low, being a excellent option if we usually open a large number of tabs in the background and our computer tends to crash easily, especially if we use Chrome.
price tracking
Edge includes a price comparator for the best-known pages, a price comparator that allows us to access price history. In addition, it is also in charge of looking for discount coupons that we can use on the web where we are. This function is integrated into the browser, that is, it is not an extension. When we visit a website that includes support for price history or coupons to the right of the address bar, a notice will be displayed that we have to click on.
Read out loud
One of the features that make life easier for us on a day-to-day basis with Edge is the ability to read the web page we are on aloud. This function is responsible for recognizing and reading aloud all the content in text format that is displayed on the web where we are.
Edit PDFs
We cannot fail to mention another of the functions for which Edge is an excellent option to consider. We are talking about the file editor in PDF format, an editor that allows us to make annotations in the text, add text boxes, rotate the pages, highlight the text as well as read the content of the PDF that we have open out loud.
