Microsoft Edge

★★☆☆☆

Because “Internet Explorer” had too much baggage, both in code and in branding.

The default home page is the most cluttered home page I have ever seen on a web browser. Definitely more than a default Firefox full of Pocket recommendations. Possibly including the bad old days of Netscape 4 and everything wanting to be a “portal.” And frankly, I’ve never had the page full of Pocket recs slow things down the way that Edge’s home (embedding MSN news) does. Fortunately it’s a single click to turn it off, but it’s a really bad first impression.

Edge syncs settings, bookmarks, addresses, and, well, as much as it can through a Microsoft account. And it really, really wants you to sign into a Microsoft account and use Copilot and so forth, even more than Chrome wants you to sign into a Google Account these days. (And that’s saying something.) It’s compatible with Chromium extensions, but would rather you install add-ons through its own store. Portable Web Apps (PWAs) install and run fine while online, but seem to have trouble with offline support.

Once you turn off all the Microsoft specials, it feels usable again – but then, it’s just another Chromium skin. Maybe you want to keep a few Microsoft features turned on? Integration with the Family Features or desktop search, maybe? And there are some things you can’t turn off completely.

Weirdly enough, there’s still an “IE Mode” available for compatibility in the Windows 11 version!

And yeah, I have to specify the Windows version again, because it’s available on macOS and…hilariously…on Linux too! You don’t have to run it through Wine for testing! (Though it’s Blink anyway). The Linux releases are still Intel/AMD-only for now, but Microsoft provides a Debian package, and there’s a Flatpak that wraps it for other distros!