Screenshots: Microsoft Edge preview

Reading Mode

The feature I'm most excited about is called the Reading Mode, which will strip away all of the excess navigation and, dare I say it, advertising from an article, leaving only the text you actually want to read behind.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Edge has standard features

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Reading Lists

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Reading Lists usefulness

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

History feature

As expected, there is a History feature.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Downloads feature

Also as expected, there is a Downloads feature.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Microsoft Edge control panel

Keeping with the minimalist theme, the control panel for Microsoft Edge is sparsely populated. Notice how the click area for those few choices are rather large. This is part of the universal platform design. On a smartphone, someone's fat fingers are going to have to find a much smaller active button area.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Settings menu

The Settings menu has a few more choices, but not as many as you might think. Edge still has the important benefits of pop-up and malware blocking.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Adding and subtracting Favorites

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

How to try Microsoft Edge

You can try Microsoft Edge for yourself by downloading the preview version of Windows 10. As you try it out, you can send your feedback to Microsoft.

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Developers Tools feature

Microsoft Edge is an extensible web browser like Chrome and Firefox. That means third-party developers can program add-ons, extensions, and other widgets for Edge. To make that easier, there's a Developers Tools feature.

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Edge styling is minimalistic

This a fairly typical view of what the Microsoft Edge browser looks like in a normal situation. As you can see, the styling is minimalistic and slips to the background, bringing the website to the foreground, as it should be.

Image: Mark Kaelin

Edge's built-in annotation tools

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Edge markup tools

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Edge notes

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Share annotations

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

Edge is much better than IE

From the user's initial perspective, the Microsoft Edge browser is nothing spectacular. It works like it's supposed to and does it well, so there's very little to complain about. However, that is a bit misleading, because the real power of Edge is what happens behind the user interface.

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

Image: Mark Kaelin

The Reading View is a killer feature

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

Image: Mark Kaelin