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IT major Microsoft has announced it will be re-building its Edge browser to make it more compatible. It said on its official blog that it will be moving Edge to a Chromium-compatible Web platform on the desktop. The aim is to to align the Microsoft Edge Web platform simultaneously (a) with Web standards (b) With other Chromium-based browsers. This will deliver improved compatibility for everyone and create a simpler test-matrix for Web developers.
Here’s the announcement:
Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence. We also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other platforms like macOS. Improving the web-platform experience for both end users and developers requires that the web platform and the browser be consistently available to as many devices as possible. To accomplish this, we will evolve the browser code more broadly, so that our distribution model offers an updated Microsoft Edge experience + platform across all supported versions of Windows, while still maintaining the benefits of the browser’s close integration with Windows.
We will contribute web platform enhancements to make Chromium-basedbrowsers better on Windows devices. Our philosophy of greater participation in Chromium open source will embrace contribution of beneficial new tech, consistent with some of the work we described above. We recognize that making the web better on Windows is good for our customers, partners and our business – and we intend to actively contribute to that end.
What happens next
If you’re a Microsoft Edge customer, there is nothing you need to do as the Microsoft Edge you use today isn’t changing. If you are a web developer, we invite you to join our community by installing preview builds when they’re available and staying current on our testing and contributions. We expect to have a preview build ready in early 2019 for you to try for yourself.
If you’re part of the open-source community developing browsers, we invite you to collaborate with us as we build the future of Microsoft Edge and contribute to the Chromium project. A few near-term examples will include continued work on ARM64 support, web accessibility, and taking advantage of other hardware features like touch support.
