Microsoft Edge to replace Internet Explorer

The new web browser comes packed with a completely new software and sports a host of interesting features

Microsoft late on Wednesday unveiled ‘Edge’, a browser that will replace Internet Explorer, at its annual developers’ conference, Build. Codenamed ‘Project Spartan’ until being revealed to the world, Edge will be available for Windows 10, to be released this summer.

The completely new piece of software in Edge sports a host of new features. Business Standard  takes a look at some of the most interesting ones:

Browser Plug-ins:  Edge supports plug-ins like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, making it easier for developers to bring over their existing extensions

Voice assistant:  Microsoft’s first web browser with voice assistant, Edge has a feature Cortana that directly integrates voice with the browser. When you type certain keywords into the address bar or select topics on a website, this feature springs into action, and serves up in a window pane relevant information like weather, maps and other nuggets.

Built-in reader:  With its note-taking and sharing features, you can annotate webpages by directly writing on them with a stylus. Also, there is a reader mode that cuts extraneous information from a webpage.

Rendering engine:  EdgeHTML

Tabs:  A new tab page for Edge also debuted on Wednesday. This new tab opens with a universal search bar that lets you perform a search using Microsoft’s Bing, or by entering a web address. A list of the user’s most visited websites will be shown below this tab.