Microsoft Edge
| Microsoft Edge | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, using the light theme (as opposed to the dark theme) | |||||||
| Developer | Microsoft | ||||||
| Initial release | July 29, 2015 | ||||||
| Preview release(s) [±] | |||||||
| |||||||
| Engines | |||||||
| Operating system | iOS, Android, Xbox One System Software, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, macOS | ||||||
| Included with | Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Xbox One System Software | ||||||
| License | Proprietary software; a component of Windows 10 | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
Microsoft Edge is a web browser developed by Microsoft. It was first released for Windows 10 and Xbox One in 2015, then for Android and iOS in 2017, and macOS in 2019.
Edge includes integration with Cortana and has extensions hosted on the Microsoft Store. Unlike Internet Explorer, Edge does not support the legacy ActiveX and BHO technologies.
Originally built with Microsoft's own EdgeHTML and Chakra engines, in 2019 Edge was rebuilt as a Chromium-based browser, using the Blink and V8 engines. As part of this change (codenamed Anaheim), Microsoft has made the preview builds of Chromium-based Edge available on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and macOS, in addition to Windows 10. As of September 2019, only preview builds of Chromium-based Edge are available.
According to StatCounter, Edge first managed to get more market share on traditional PCs than Internet Explorer (IE) it was replacing in August 2019 (4th place and IE 5th), with IE's share dropping, while still no single version of Edge is more popular than IE 11. The market share for Edge, and by now IE, remains low. With the market share of both combined, the Microsoft browsers are placed third after Chrome and Firefox on traditional PCs. Edge doesn't have any share elsewhere such as on mobile phones (and neither does IE to speak of); except on gaming consoles from Microsoft, where Edge replaced IE share, in a matter of months, back in 2015 when it and Windows 10 came out.
Share varies by region, and depending on the day, Edge manages a bit over 10% market share in the US on traditional PCs, and there it has made second place with 10.02% (while for full month in the US only 8.61%, ranking 3rd after Firefox).