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Microsoft announces Microsoft Edge browser
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The upcoming Project Spartan Web browser for Windows 10 now has an official name: Microsoft Edge.
At Microsoft Build, the company announced new features and details for the Web browser previously known as Project Spartan . The most notable is the browser’s official name — Spartan will now be known as Microsoft Edge, as it’s on the cutting edge of what consumers and creators want to do on the Web.
Microsoft Build 2015
- Microsoft’s top task for Windows 10: Proving it’s worth starting up
- Microsoft sets goal of 1 billion devices running Windows 10
One of the newest updates to the renamed browser is a new page layout for new tabs, which creates what looks and feels like a customized home page complete with links and thumbnails of the websites you visit frequently, Web-based apps you use and personalized information pulled from Cortana.
Popular extensions for the Chrome and Firefox browsers will also turn up on Edge, as these can now be repurposed for Edge with what Microsoft says are “just a few changes.”
Currently, if you want to try the browser formerly known by the code-name Spartan, you need to be running the latest build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, where its prerelease state is still a work in progress. In our hands-on preview of Project Spartan, we said, “a new rendering engine powering all of Spartan’s features, and it feels appreciably zippy,” but at the same time, “you’ll click a link, and nothing will happen. So you’ll click it again, and again, and moments later, when you’ve just about given up hope, several identical tabs spring to life.”
The most notable features previously announced for Spartan/Edge are the inclusion of Cortana, Microsoft’s virtual assistant (and like the name Spartan, a reference to the Microsoft-made Halo games), and on-screen notation via Web Note, for drawing annotations directly on Web pages and sharing them.
