Reading Mode

The feature I’m most excited about is called thernReading Mode, which will strip away all of the excess navigation and, dare Irnsay it, advertising from an article, leaving only the text you actually want tornread behind.

Edge has standard features

From a pure display perspective, Edge looks a lotrnlike Chrome to me. Of course, Edge has standard features like Favorites.

Reading Lists

Edge also features Reading Lists, where yourn”favorite” a specific web page or article for reading later.

Reading Lists usefulness

For those of you who like apps like FlipBoard,rnReading Lists may provide you with an adequate built-in alternative.

History feature

As expected, there is a History feature.

Downloads feature

Also as expected, there is a Downloads feature.

Microsoft Edge control panel

Keeping with the minimalist theme, the controlrnpanel for Microsoft Edge is sparsely populated. Notice how the click area forrnthose few choices are rather large. This is part of the universal platformrndesign. On a smartphone, someone’s fat fingers are going to have to find a muchrnsmaller active button area.

Adding and subtracting Favorites

Adding and subtracting from your Favorites list andrnthe Favorites Bar is about as straightforward and familiar as it gets. I didrnfind it strange that my initial Favorites Bar was seeded with a link to Acer. Not sure why that happened.

How to try Microsoft Edge

You can try Microsoft Edge for yourself byrndownloading the preview version of Windows 10. As you try it out, you can sendrnyour feedback to Microsoft.

Developers Tools feature

Microsoft Edge is an extensible web browser likernChrome and Firefox. That means third-party developers can program add-ons,rnextensions, and other widgets for Edge. To make that easier, there’s arnDevelopers Tools feature.

Edge styling is minimalistic

This a fairly typical view of what the MicrosoftrnEdge browser looks like in a normal situation. As you can see, the styling isrnminimalistic and slips to the background, bringing the website to thernforeground, as it should be.

Edge's built-in annotation tools

Another typical normal situation, only this time wernare going to use Edge’s built-in annotation tools to emphasize our point.

Edge markup tools

The markup tools found in Edge allows you tornhighlight parts of a web page. I did my markups with a mouse, which is bitrnclunky, but I suspect this features works much better when you use a finger onrna touch display.

Edge notes

You can also make notes, either for yourself or tornshare with friends, or with colleagues in a business setting.

Share annotations

Once you are done with your annotations, you canrncut them out and share them.

Edge is much better than IE

From the user’s initial perspective, the MicrosoftrnEdge browser is nothing spectacular. It works like it’s supposed to and doesrnit well, so there’s very little to complain about. However, that is a bitrnmisleading, because the real power of Edge is what happens behind the userrninterface.

The underlying technologies incorporated into thernEdge browser mean that it will be more compatible, more secure, and morernextensible than the old Internet Explorer ever could hope to be.

The Reading View is a killer feature

For someone like me, who spends many hours readingrnarticles with a web browser, the ability to reduce the visual noise on a webrnpage with the Reading View is a killer feature. When Windows 10 is released, Irnjust may have to switch my default browser.