Just a few short years ago, there was really only Chrome, Safari, or Firefox for most web users if they wanted a great experience. Now, Microsoft Edge (offline installer) is actually providing a very interesting alternative. It is different than Internet Explorer for sure. It is a browser-based on Chromium, and of course, the Blink engine along with it.
There is not a lot of customization possible. Still, the new look is certainly better than the older browsers that Microsoft has historically come out with. You can even use a dark theme. With this visual change, you will notice that you don’t need to strain as much when looking at the browser at night. It can be set into motion from the edge://flags page. After that, you can decide if you want it to be a default look or just temporary.
The RAM usage is about the same as Chrome, making it feel pretty fast. It does load pages up without too much downtime. It almost feels like you’re using Chrome because of this.
The Chrome Web Store hosts a number of excellent plugins and extensions for users. It is the gold standard. Thus, you can use these in Edge because it is built off of Chromium. For now, it is all supported by this new browser. This was not the case with Internet Explorer, to be sure. It may prompt more people to switch back to this Microsoft product.
At the end of the day, Microsoft did a good job of steering away from their past mistakes. Internet Explorer was never going to catch up to Chrome or Firefox. However, with this new release of Edge, the features are more pleasing, and it runs faster. If you want to dive back into Microsoft’s web browsing experience, this would be the time to do it.