#Chromium based browser series#

(Eventually, once Edgium becomes the default Edge browser, this data will sync to all of your devices.) In the Settings menu, accessible via the ellipsis menu in the upper right-hand corner, you can also control what data Edge syncs. By default, Microsoft syncs all of your data, including history, passwords, and the like, to the cloud, so you can pick up where you left off on any device signed into the Edgium beta. Setting up Microsoft’s next Edge is a snap.

#Chromium based browser series#

In fact, there are only minimal decisions to be made: Import bookmarks or start clean? You also have a choice of views in a “new tab” page: “Focused,” with a series of quick-link cards and a search bar “Inspirational,” which adds a background image and “Informational,” which adds a series of Microsoft News-powered headlines to the Inspirational layout.

With Edgium, I was up and running in seconds.Įdgium suggests importing your existing bookmarks from Chrome-but in its setup screen, you can already see that it’s done so. But the older version of Edge required some fine-tuning of my bookmarks to get things the way I wanted them. Though I rotate among Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and sometimes Firefox, my Windows settings default to the older version of Microsoft Edge, and I’ve been a Windows user for years.

The new Edge’s UI is unremarkable in its blandness…which may have been what users have been asking for all along. Here are the next Edge’s current strengths and weaknesses. Upcoming features may be turned on in the nightly “Canary” releases, or as part of experimental “flags” within the browser. We can’t reasonably expect it to have the UI flash of Vivaldi, the VPN capabilities of Opera, the “tip a creator” functionality of Brave, or so on. At this point, the Edgium beta is merely a straightforward, competent browser.