There were rumours claiming that Edge browser will go cross-platform and use Chromium’s Blink rendering engine soon.
Today, Microsoft officially announced that Edge will ditch EdgeHTML rendering engine to become a part of the Chromium family. Microsoft is rebuilding the Edge browser with Chromium’s Blink and this may encourage users to give it a try.
The brand-new Microsoft Edge browser won’t come with Google services but it will use the Chromium’s Blink rendering engine, a popular open-source web rendering engine that powers Google’s Chrome browser and Edge browser on Android.
Microsoft Edge has pretty much failed to gain traction in the browser market but the company is apparently not ready to give up on its own web browser. Microsoft Edge is joining the Chromium community to improve the web through more open source collaboration
Microsoft Edge has around 4 percent of the market and it’s pretty clear that Microsoft needs to change something to bring it to more devices and address the compatibility issues.
Microsoft is building a new Chromium-based browser under Edge name and features to serve as the new default in Windows 10.
“People using Microsoft Edge (and potentially other browsers) will experience improved compatibility with all web sites, while getting the best-possible battery life and hardware integration on all kinds of Windows devices,” Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore wrote in a blog post.
What’s going to change?
Microsoft is not killing Edge browser but the company is rebuilding it under the same brand. You will notice that Edge browser will render the webpages more consistently as the browser will use the same rendering engine which powers Chrome.
Microsoft Edge won’t be exclusive to Windows 10 as the software giant is bringing the new Chromium-based Edge to Windows 7, 8 and macOS.
The rebuilt Edge browser is coming next year
The rebuilt Edge browser isn’t ready for the testing yet and the Insiders will get access to early beta builds next year.
Microsoft will be making necessary changes to Windows 10 with future Insider builds to shift Edge toward Chromium.
“We are excited about the opportunity to be an even-more-active part of this community and bring the best of Microsoft forward to continue to make the web better for everyone,” says Belfiore
