Microsoft is putting the finishing touches to its Chromium Edge browser, even if we have already seen it thanks to leaks. It looks increasingly likely that the new version of the browser will drop very soon.
Deskmodder has published screenshots that show hints of Chromium Edge in the latest Windows Insider Skip Ahead branch preview. It seems these are still A/B testing files so won’t be visible to everyone.
Nevertheless, if you are on Skip Ahead and want to see if you have the files, head to “C:\Users\WDAGUtilityAccount\AppData\Local\MicrosoftEdge”.
What this means for the actual launch of Chromium Edge is unclear. The Skip Ahead branch suggest services that are to be released in the future. For example, Microsoft is running Windows 10 20H1 in Skip Ahead at the moment.
We expected the company to announce the preview of Chromium Edge alongside the full launch of Windows 10 April 2019 Update next week. That is still a likely scenario, after-all a Chrome-based Edge preview would likely live in the Skip Ahead branch for the time being.
Could this also mean Microsoft plans to preview the browser for a whole year before launching it to end users alongside Windows 10 20H1? File all this under speculation because the company has kept quiet on its release plans.
Moving to Chrome
Last week, the Chrome-based Edge browser leaked online. Under the Chromium banner, the browser supports all Chrome Extensions (and Microsoft’s own) in theory, although only a limited amount will be available at first.
Back in December, Microsoft announced it will abandon its EdgeHTML web rendering technology and move its Edge browser to Google’s Chromium technology. The idea is to give Edge more access to apps through web apps to better compete with Chrome.
