Microsoft announces new Edge browser

It’s out with the old and in with the new at Microsoft’s BUILD conference. Microsoft’s browser has always been called Internet Explorer, but it looks like the company has finally acknowledged that the IE brand has been hopelessly tainted. The new Windows 10 browser will be called Edge, and it comes with one unusual feature — Edge can use Chrome and Firefox extensions.

This browser is a big redesign for Microsoft, which has relied on iterative changes to Internet Explorer all these years. The code name was Spartan, and that should give you a clue as to the approach being taken. Edge is designed to be slim and fast. It drops support for legacy technologies like ActiveX and browser helper objects. It runs on a new rendering engine called EdgeHTML, which is a fork of Microsoft’s IE engine known as Trident. Edge will include deep integration with services like One Drive and Cortana as well.

Launching a new browser inevitably comes with some growing pains as users are forced to do without many of the extensions they’ve come to rely on. Microsoft’s solution to this is allowing users to install extensions designed for both Firefox and Chrome. You won’t just be able to install the Chrome or Firefox version of a plugin, but Edge will understand the extension if it’s tweaked a little. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore says the popular Reddit Enhancement Suite add-on was ported to Edge with virtually zero work. It’s similar to Microsoft building support for Android and iOS apps into Windows 10.

Edge will be the default browser in Windows 10 and Windows Phone 10. It’s going to have its own HTML and JavaScript extensions eventually as well, but by not implementing a completely different extension system, Microsoft is making it easier to transition to Edge. For once, maybe people will. After all, Chrome is getting awfully bloated these days.