Tag Archives: Microsoft Edge

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Number Of Microsoft Edge Browser Users Are Surpassing Firefox

At long last, Microsoft has a web browser that the market seems to like. Their new Chromium-based Edge browser has enjoyed rampant growth over the past twelve months, seeing its market share increase by 1300 percent for the year. It should be noted that one year ago, Chromium-based Edge had a market share of just 0.57 percent, and their rampant growth has seen that increase to 8.03 percent.

Google’s Chrome browser, which currently holds a 67.14 percent market share is by no means in immediate danger of losing its position as the dominant browser on the web.

Even so, it would be a mistake to discount the new Edge browser’s progress. It’s essentially the same as Google’s Chrome browser in that it uses the same engine and can make use of all of Chrome’s extensions. Plus it’s got a few native features that make it unique. So it really is a good browsing option, and its recent flurry of growth has seen it surpass Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which currently holds a market share of just 7.95 percent.

To give you a more complete picture of the browser market breakdown, here are the top five contenders:

  • Google Chrome: 67.14 percent
  • Apple’s Safari: 10.11 percent
  • Chromium Edge: 8.03 percent
  • Mozilla’s Firefox: 7.95 percent
  • Edge Legacy: 0.44 percent

With a constellation of other, smaller browsers (Brave, Opera, and a handful of others) each claiming a tiny slice of the market.

When Microsoft first released their latest version of Edge, it was believed that Google’s Chrome browser would take the biggest hit, but the reality is that Google’s market share barely budged, but Firefox seems to be slowly dying.

Later this year, Microsoft will begin forcibly retiring Legacy Edge, which should see it vanish from the list entirely, and it’s likely that most of those users will stick with the new Edge browser. At this point, it’s impossible to say what the future holds for the market long term, except to say that Google’s browser should retain its title of King of the Hill for the foreseeable future.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Browser Wars Heat Up With Microsoft Edge Boosting Speeds

If you thought the browser wars were over, think again. Microsoft has made some startling improvements to its Edge browser recently that gave it an impressive 41 percent speed boost. That suddenly puts it in the running for the fastest, if not the best and most robust browser in the game. The speed boost is but the latest in a string of innovations that has consistently improved the Redmond giant’s latest browser offering.

Earlier this year, Edge was given support for sleeping tabs, which increase overall system performance by minimizing the CPU usage of tabs you’re not currently browsing.

Late last year, we got our first look at Edge’s “Vertical Tab” arrangement allowing you to move your open tabs from the top to a configuration where they run down the left side of your browser window so that you can customize and configure the browser depending on how you use it. You can even switch between the two tab layouts at the touch of a button.

Later this month, yet another improvement will be rolling out. It will allow you to drag links from any open tab in the standard layout, to the vertical layout, and vice versa.

Then there’s the increase in speed itself, which has been dubbed ‘Startup Boost’. It automatically maximizes your device performance by reducing the amount of time it takes to open the browser after a reboot, or after closing then reopening the browser.

We’re not sure why anyone would, but if you find yourself not liking the impressive boost in speed, you can even turn it off by accessing the settings menu and turning the new feature off.

Apple and Google will no doubt work double time to match Microsoft’s latest moves, but in the short run, it gives the Edge browser a compelling advantage. Kudos to Microsoft for pushing browser performance to new heights!

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft Edge Browser Releasing Kids Mode For Safety And Security

If you have children, you probably know all about setting up parental controls. It’s annoying. It can be time consuming, and not to mention more than a little frustrating. Fortunately, Microsoft has an answer for that.

Recently, the development team has been hard at work putting a “Kids Mode” together that’s built into the browser.

It’s a simple, but surprisingly robust and effective solution to a problem you may not have realized that you had. Let’s face it, sometimes, you want to share your phone or PC with your child. Without kid-friendly filters built into the browser, the only viable solution would be to stop what you’re doing and set up parental controls on your own computer, then create a new profile for your child to use.

With this new browser functionality, you won’t have to bother with any of that. “Kid Friendly Mode” actually has two options. One that’s designed for children between the ages of 5-8, and another mode optimized for kids between the ages of 9-12.

While the particulars vary slightly between the two, both automatically utilize full screen mode displaying a family friendly background, and both include Bing SafeSearch auto-activated and quick links to popular kid-friendly sites.

Best of all, in order to exit Kids Mode, a parent would need to re-enter their password, so your child won’t be able to get around the friendly environment without your permission.

At present, the new feature is only available in Edge Canary, but will be rolling out to the Edge Dev channel in the weeks ahead. Even so, it’s well worth taking a look at the Canary build to get a sneak peek at the capabilities of the new feature. Kudos to Microsoft for this development. We expect that Google and Apple will be following suit before long. It’s a great addition.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Increased Speed Coming To Microsoft Edge With New Feature

Microsoft has really struggled in recent years to make a browser that could compete with the most popular offerings on the market today. Internet Explorer was the early standard, but was quickly eclipsed, and slowly fell into obscurity. The company’s second attempt, Edge, was short-lived and never had time to fully mature before the company abandoned it and adopted a Chromium-based Edge, re-launching the product.

While the latest incarnation of Edge still has some distance to go, the company has been steadily improving the product. Recently, they’ve made another move similar to Google’s tab management changes.

In the case of Chromium-based Edge, the changes put unused tabs to sleep, virtually eliminating the amount of system resources they consume until you activate the tab by clicking onto it. It’s a simple change with profound implications. Sure enough, it increases the speed and overall performance of the broswer, while simultaneously boosting the overall performance of your device. That’s a win for you, the user, no matter how you slice it.

Microsoft’s Senior Program Manager, Eleanor Huynh, had this to say about the new feature:

“Sleeping tabs builds upon the core of Chromium’s ‘freezing’ technology. Freezing pauses a tab’s script timers to minimize resource usage. A sleeping tab resumes automatically when clicked, which is different than discarded tabs, which require the page to be fully reloaded.”

In all, the company has found that the new feature reduces memory usage by an average of 32 percent, which is beyond impressive. If you’re interested in trying out the new feature, you can download Chromium Edge Beta, where you’ll have access to:

  • An option to put tabs to sleep after 5 minutes of tab inactivity
  • Group policies to manage sleeping tabs (IT admins only)
  • And improved visual treatment that clearly shows which tabs are sleeping without distracting from the task at hand.

It’s a fantastic change, and if you’re a Chromium Edge user, you should definitely take it for a test drive.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Microsoft Asks Customers To Replace Internet Explorer With Edge Browser

Internet Explorer is proving to be a very difficult web browser to kill, and it’s not for lack of trying on Microsoft’s part.

Back in August of this year (2020), the company mapped out a path to the end of life for Explorer. That included ending Microsoft Teams support of the browser by November 30, 2020 and ending Microsoft Edge Legacy support in March, 2021.

On schedule, Teams users no longer get any support for IE 11, which means that their Teams experience will be increasingly degraded as new and planned features aren’t guaranteed to work on the old platform. In fact, if you’re using the web version of teams and you’re still using IE 11, you’ll find that you can’t access Teams at all. The web version checks your browser and will display a message telling you that the app is incompatible with your browser and recommending an upgrade, or alternately, to make use of the desktop client.

It’s easy to understand why IE still has such a dedicated following despite the fact that the browser is outdated and riddled with security flaws. After all, there was a time when it was the dominant browser on the web, and tens of thousands of businesses all over the world built apps that were designed for use with IE.

It will take a serious investment in both time and money to re-create those apps. They have to optimize them for some other browser and it’s just not an expense some companies can bear. Even the ones that can bear it have to weigh the legacy system re-design against more pressing current IT projects and often, the money just isn’t there to do it all.

Unfortunately, as Microsoft edges closer to completely ending support for their ancient browser, companies who have been putting it off will find themselves scrambling for a last-minute solution. Don’t fall into that trap.

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