Microsoft is taking the development of its new browser very seriously. After losing the leadership in the Internet Explorer era, and not raising its head with the classic Windows 10 Edge , the company has tried again, this time playing in the same league as its rival. Thus, the new Edge uses Chromium as its engine, just like Chrome, but it has a series of improvements and features to differentiate itself from its rival and offer an improved experience. And with the news that will reach this browser in early 2021, the distances between it and its rivals will be shortened even more.
The news that we are going to see below are already available to all users who have installed the new Edge Canary, the development version of Microsoft’s browser. However, that does not mean that all of them will arrive with the next browser update, but that they will be distributed mainly between the two or three versions of Edge that arrive between January and March 2021.
If you don’t want to wait, you can try them out now by downloading the Canary edition of Edge from this link . Of course, being a development version, we recommend using it only for testing, never in production.
Edge tab enhancements
One of the aspects that will be improved in the new Edge are the tabs. Microsoft is preparing a series of improvements and new functions that we will be able to enjoy very soon. The first one will be a warning when we close many tabs at the same time . Surely it has ever happened to us that, by mistake, we have closed the browser window, closing all open tabs at the same time. Thanks to this new notice, we will prevent it from happening again.
Another important novelty that we are going to see in Edge are the vertical tabs . We have been talking for some time about a new way of browsing with tabs, about something that makes browsing more practical, and being able to place the tabs vertically seems to be a great novelty. Thus, we can take advantage of the width of the monitors to show a wider list of tabs, being able to organize and have them controlled much better.
Finally, Microsoft is also working on another function that will help us move through the tabs: the thumbnails . Thanks to this function, we can see a thumbnail of the page in question just by placing the mouse over the corresponding tab.
Edge: the best PDF reader for Windows
Another aspect that Microsoft is working hard on is improving its PDF reader. All modern web browsers can open PDF files, both saved on the PC and directly from the Internet. But the truth is, none of them do as well as Edge.
Microsoft has made its browser the best PDF viewer for Windows, and it still has several new features up its sleeve. For example, we will be able to see an option to change the Windows default PDF viewer in order to easily convert Edge into our default viewer. Also, Microsoft will include a complete dictionary within its PDF viewer so that you can see the meaning of any word simply by selecting it.
Other changes
Along with the above, Microsoft will also remove Flash from the browser in its next update, like Chrome and Firefox, to finally shelve this web plug-in. We also can’t forget about the internal improvements Microsoft is working on that will reduce RAM and CPU usage by working with many tabs at the same time.
And, finally, we will also find a new function that will allow us to eliminate third-party cookies (those that are generally used to track and control us on the Internet) without having to eliminate the main cookies (those that are used to save, for example, logins). Edge will also allow us to search for cookies much more easily.