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The ultimate user guide in using for Windows 10: Customizing the Edge Browser.

The Edge browser is the new internet browser introduced by Microsoft that is designed to be a more viable replacement for IE. It has some interesting features that you may want to look at.

There are several things you can customize on your Microsoft Edge browser to make it look and perform the way you want.

 This may including changing the browser appearance, creating shortcuts, decide what loads when you open a new tab among other things to make your browsing sessions faster and more personal.
Customizing the Edge Browser.

Customizing the Edge Browser.


Below we will take you through how you can customize your Edge browser for the best browsing experience.


Minimalistic design.


Microsoft has made efforts to remove everything that is unnecessary in the browser. For example, they removed the home button. According to Microsoft the browser was “Built for doing”.



This is to say their main objective was to ensure that the browser helped its users achieve the highest level of productivity. Microsoft also claimed that the engine running the new browser is faster than Chrome’s. However, some tests have shown that it still lags behind, but performs much better than IE.

Caret Browsing.


A Caret is simply a cursor, also commonly referred to as a text selection cursor. In a browser, it is useful when you want to select snippets of text by using the keyboard.

This feature is also available on Mozilla and Internet Explorer, but it is absent on browsers such as the Google Chrome browser. Browser like Chrome will only highlight and point to links, but do not have the same function.

 This is particularly useful when you’re using a touchpad, which makes it difficult to pick a chunk of text.

You can turn on the feature for the active tab only by hitting F7 key and following the prompt.

To turn on the feature permanently, choose Settings on the upper right corner of the browser and go to
View Advanced Settings then Advanced Settings and choose Always Use Caret Browsing.

Cortana.


Microsoft has been pushing for its intelligent voice assistant since its inception. Now this voice assistant has been fully integrated into assistant has been fully integrated into Windows 10.

It is designed to work with the new Edge browser to provide you with information as you are browsing online.

There are two ways you can use Cortana as you’re browsing. One is by using the blue Cortana button to get more information about a website. The second is by highlighting text with its Caret browsing capability and using Cortana to search the internet for the highlighted information.
Microsoft has been pushing for its intelligent voice assistant since its inception.

Reading Mode.


Edge browser is not the first browser to use this feature. Apple’s Safari has had the feature for some time. This is however, the first time a Microsoft browser is making use of it.
Read also: Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) Technical Reference for Windows 10.
The reading/reader mode strips off all unnecessary stuff from the browser leaving only the necessary text and images. You can mark the web pages or save PDF files and HTML pages for future reference.

This can be useful when you are going through a webpage that has not been optimized for tablets.

Coding Support.


The New browser has introduced coding support, which was not available on IE. Extensions will also be available for this browser using common web technologies like html and Javascript.

Annotations.


If you want to share a specific snippet from a webpage, you can do that with annotations. This feature has been there on other browsers. You can use it to select text and photos and share it with friends on
Social Media platforms.

Customizing the Edge Browser.


There are three main ways you can customize this browser.

Change Theme.


This enables you to change the theme, if you don’t particularly like the default one.

Locate the (…) button on the top right corner of the screen.

Choose Settings, from Settings, then Choose a Theme option.

You may now choose between Light and Dark.

Customize Edge Browser’s Tabs.



Start Page.


Locate the (…) button on the top right corner of the screen.

Choose Settings, then move to the Open With section.



You may choose the following options for your start page " Start page", " New tab page", " Previous pages” and " A specific page or pages".

Customize Edge Browser’s Tabs.


Locate the (…) button on the top right corner of the screen.

Choose Settings, then choose Open new tabs with.

A drop down menu appears, choose your preferences from there.

The option Top sites and suggested content has more options such as Customize.
You can choose the top sites you want to appear by specifying them under Top Sites.

Importing Book Marks.

You can easily import bookmarks from other browsers into Edge. However, the browser doesn’t support importing directly from HTML files. Here is how to import bookmarks.

Locate the (…) on your Edge browser.

Go to Settings to Open the Settings dialog.

Choose the option Import Favourites from another browser.

Edge will list all compatible browsers. Pick from where you want to import the bookmarks.

Conclusion.


The windows Edge Browser is definitely much better than Internet Explorer. However, Microsoft
still has a long way to go before they can compete with the other browsers like Chrome.
Read also: Differences between Windows To Go and a typical installation of Windows.
 It seems to  be good enough for some, while other people have decided to go back to common browsers like Chrome, Opera and Mozilla.

 You may use the Edge browser to find out if it works for you.

Comments

  1. Microsoft Edge is constantly being improved. New features are being added to the web browser on a regular basis, and it is now better than ever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Fausto Baccino. Some of the features included are easy access to Cortana (search assistant), ability to make a web note or doodle, create an easy to use reading list, tools to analyze website performance, and much more.

      Delete

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