So, at a time when the web was already built around Chromim-based browsers, Firefox and, to a lesser extent, Safari, popularizing a new browser engine was always going to be difficult. Firefox was still fairly popular, but it had been around for much longer and had the advantage of being the only mainstream open-source browser. Why Edge failed to convince users before the switch to Chromiumīy the time Edge was first released, Chrome had already become dominant in the browser war. Recently, however, the software giant has made the switch to Chromium, opening up a range of new possibilities, including cross-platform support. Mind you, it was never all that popular, for various reasons, but by switching to Chromium and its Blink engine, Microsoft can now bring the browser to multiple platforms, including macOS.įor a long time, Edge relied on Microsoft’s proprietary EdgeHTML engine, which brought about issues for its development team, web developers and users. With macOS 10.15 Catalina arriving later this year, we might see the final version of Edge for Mac launch alongside it.Ĭould Edge find success on macOS where it failed on Windows? Stranger things have happened.While Windows users are all too familiar with Microsoft Edge, given that it's the operating system’s default browser, Mac users have likely never tried it. Making Edge available on a range of platforms is a smart move by Microsoft – as even with the advantage of it coming installed by default in Windows 10, the web browser has struggled to gain users compared to its competitors. Now, a Microsoft web browser might not be something many Apple users have been clamouring for, but it will offer an alternative Chromium web browser for those who don’t want to trust their data with Google and its Chrome browser. Not only was Edge originally a Windows 10-only browser, but it sees a Microsoft-made web browser available on a Mac for the first time since Internet Explorer - and that was 16 years ago, when Microsoft ceased the updates.

The fact that Microsoft is releasing its Edge web browser on macOS is remarkable for a few reasons. We’ve already heard about new features coming to the new Chromium-based Edge web browser during Microsoft’s Build 2019 developer conference, so we could hear more about the Mac version of Edge soon. Microsoft confirms Edge will be able to use Google Chrome Extensions.

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