Microsoft Edge Has Officially Replaced the Internet Explorer!

Microsoft’s new browser for Windows 10, long under wraps in being known as Project Spartan, has finally been named. Its name is Microsoft Edge.

It’s official. Microsoft has finally killed off the infamous Internet Explorer.

A few months ago, Microsoft announced to the world it was working on a new name for its new browser. “We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10,” said Microsoft’s head of marketing Chris Capossela speaking at the Microsoft Convergence event. “We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser, which is code-named Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”

Microsoft Edge

They’ve just named it. Microsoft Edge – Microsoft’s new flagship browser, formally known as Project Spartan is a completely new redesign, according to the software giant. Project Spartan came to be named after the protagonist of Microsoft’s successful Halo game series. Similarly, Edge is meant to give Microsoft a clean break and a complete revamp of the browser. A break from the negative, often-ridiculed connotations attached to the Internet Explorer brand by millions of people forced to use old, weathered versions of the browser on their Windows PCs.

For some business users, Internet Explorer isn’t completely out of the picture.

“We will continue to make Internet Explorer available with Windows 10 for enterprises and other customers who require legacy browser support,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

For the consumer, however, Microsoft is aggressively re-branding its browser around a faster, leaner and more advanced browser platform. It was inevitable, as Microsoft has a vested interest in keeping up with competition such as Google’s wildly successful Chrome browser. Microsoft Edge will be the default browser for all Windows 10 devices. This includes computers, tablets and smartphones and will also feature seamless integration with Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant similar to Google’s Now and Apple’s Siri.

There’s good buzz for the Edge browser. Testing of preview builds of Windows 10 released by Microsoft have shown Edge to be substantially faster and leaner than Internet Explorer, more akin to Google’s Chrome or Apple’s Safari.

Microsoft’s new browser shows promise, and seems to be moving in all the right directions—faster speed, more standard support, extensions, and even a couple of unique features like page markup and Cortana integration. The fact that it will deliver the same experience on every device size—from Raspberry Pi (a credit-card sized computer) to HoloLens to their Xbox One console—is another advantage in being a cross-platform browser.

In a blog post from March, when Microsoft said it would be using resources and placing focus on the Edge browser, a program manager wrote:

“Project Spartan (now Edge) is our future: it is the default browser for all Windows 10 customers and will provide unique user experiences including the ability to annotate on web pages, a distraction-free reading experience, and integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster. Web developers can expect Project Spartan’s new engine to be interoperable with the modern Web and remain “evergreen” with no document modes or compatibility views introduced going forward.”

To try it out (at your own discretion on a non-critical PC), you can join the Windows Inside program and install Windows 10.