Download Microsoft’s latest browser for a fast, secure, and modern web experience. Browse the web anywhere with one seamless experience from your phone to your computer and other signed-in devices. Microsoft Edge is also a safe browser that gives you the tools to protect your privacy and security online.
Is Edge browser better than Chrome?
Microsoft Edge offers better privacy, resource management, and integration with Microsoft services. Chrome dominates with extensions, cross-platform compatibility, and user base. Personal preference plays a role.
Can Edge block autoplay media?
Yes, Microsoft Edge lets you block all the autoplay media by heading to edge://settings/content/mediaAutoplay and selecting “Block” from the drop-down menu. You can also add exceptions to websites using the “Add” tool in site permissions.
Why is Edge a Microsoft browser you should actually use?
Microsoft Edge is a well rounded browser based on Chromium with four key advantages:
- It offers solid integration with Windows and other Microsoft services, which allows for more direct communications between programs and thus a more fluent workflow.
- Performance and battery savings are improved upon Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.
- You can access all Chrome extensions giving you a world of options to customize the browser.
- It adds enhanced privacy settings and track prevention measures that give you control over almost all aspects of the information you share. Microsoft promises that while using InPrivate tabs, your browsing and search data aren’t saved on your device and any data collected will not be tied with your Microsoft account.
Features
Making the web a better place for everyone
We’ve adopted the Chromium open source project in the development of Microsoft Edge to create better web compatibility for our customers, and less fragmentation of the web for all web developers.
Investing in open source
We’ve also started making contributions back to Chromium in areas like accessibility, touch, ARM64 and others. Our plan is to continue working in Chromium rather than creating a parallel project. We’re working directly with the teams at Google, and we’re looking forward to working even more with the open source community. To learn more about our contributions, see our Microsoft Edge “Explainers” on GitHub and check out our source code release.
We’re listening!
The Microsoft Edge team wants to hear from you. In December we asked visitors to this site “if you could change one thing about the web, what would it be?”. We’ve read your answers and have some thoughts to share. Head over to the Microsoft Edge Insider Forum to see what the community is saying about this and other topics.
Microsoft Edge now uses Mica material
Mica is an opaque, dynamic material that incorporates theme and desktop wallpaper to paint the background of long-lived windows such as apps and settings. You can apply Mica to your application backdrop to delight users and create visual hierarchy, aiding productivity, by increasing clarity about which window is in focus. Mica is specifically designed for app performance as it only samples the desktop wallpaper once to create its visualization. Mica is available for UWP apps that use WinUI 2 and apps that use Windows App SDK 1.1 or later, while running on Windows 11 version 22000 or later.
What’s New
Version 120.0.2210.61:
- Fixed various bugs and performance issues.
- Stable channel security updates are listed here.
Feature updates
- RendererAppContainer. For extra security benefits, the Windows native app container is enabled by default. Note: If Enterprise organizations identify a compatibility issue due to code injection from security software, they should follow up with the software publisher directly. Alternatively, they can use the RendererAppContainerEnabled policy to trade off the security benefits in Microsoft Edge with their other software.
- Updated SmartActionsBlockList policy. The SmartActionsBlockList policy is updated with new policy option mappings. Administrators can now configure the policy to control Smart actions like definitions on websites (smart_actions_website) or control Smart actions in pdfs and on websites (smart_actions).
Policy updates
New policies
Microsoft has released the latest Microsoft Edge Stable Channel (Version 120.0.2210.61) which incorporates the latest Security Updates of the Chromium project. For more information, see the Security Update Guide.
This update contains the following Microsoft Edge-specific updates:
Version 118.0.2088.122:
Feature updates
Compression Dictionary Transport support. A version of the Compression Dictionary Transport feature is available for sites to use by participating in the associated origin trial. If your network uses a middlebox that inspects network traffic and/or you previously encountered issues with the ZSDCH feature, review the Considerations for zstd-based Shared Dictionary Compression for HTTP page which contains updated guidance.
Behavioral changes to the beforeunload event. The behavior of the beforeunload event has changed such that calling preventDefault in a beforeunload event handler triggers a confirmation dialog. Setting returnValue to an empty string in a beforeunload event handler no longer triggers a confirmation dialog. This behavior takes effect starting in Microsoft Edge version 119. Administrators can temporarily opt out of this functionality by disabling the BeforeunloadEventCancelByPreventDefaultEnabled policy.
Split screen restore improvements. Split screen allows you to simultaneously work on multiple tasks across two, side-by-side screens in one browsing tab to boost your productivity and multitask more efficiently. Now after the browser is restarted and the previous session is restored, the split tab will also be restored.
Additional capability to manage sidebar apps. Administrators can utilize the “sidebar_auto_open_blocked” ExtensionSettings policy field to control the auto-open behavior of sidebar apps. For more information, see Detailed guide to the ExtensionSettings policy.
Updates to Microsoft Edge enterprise sync settings page. When the ForceSyncTypes and SyncTypesListDisabled polices are used concurrently, the sync settings page (edge://settings/profiles/sync) accurately show the status for each data type.
Microsoft Edge 109.0.1518.140 for Windows 7, 8, Server 2012
This update was done for our M109 Windows down-level extended support. We’re shipping 109 to Win 7, 8, and 8.1 (including Server 2012 R2 which is based on Win 8.1).
Microsoft has a fix for CVE-2023-4863 to Microsoft Edge Stable Channel (Version 109.0.1518.140), which has been reported by the Chromium team as having an exploit in the wild. For more information, see the Security Update Guide. This backport was done to our M109 Windows down-level extended support.”
Previous release notes
- Fixed various bugs and performance issues for Stable and Extended Stable release.
Feature updates
- Microsoft Edge sidebar. The Microsoft Edge sidebar lets users access productivity tools side-by-side with their browsing window. For enterprise customers, the following experiences are currently turned on by default: Search, Discover, Office.com, and Outlook. Administrators can control the availability and configure the Microsoft Edge sidebar using the HubsSidebarEnabled, ExtensionInstallBlockList, and ExtensionInstallForceList policies. The extension ID for each sidebar app can be found at edge://sidebar-internals. For more information, see Manage the sidebar in Microsoft Edge.
- New policy to give more flexibility in Microsoft Edge startup. The RestoreOnStartupUserURLsEnabled policy lets users add and remove their own URLs to open when starting Microsoft Edge while maintaining the mandatory list of sites specified by the admin.
Policy updates
New policies
- ExemptFileTypeDownloadWarnings – Disable download file type extension-based warnings for specified file types on domains
- InternetExplorerIntegrationAlwaysWaitForUnload – Wait for Internet Explorer mode tabs to completely unload before ending the browser session
- MicrosoftEditorProofingEnabled – Spell checking provided by Microsoft Editor
- MicrosoftEditorSynonymsEnabled – Synonyms are provided when using Microsoft Editor spell checker
- PrintPdfAsImageDefault – Print PDF as Image Default
- UnthrottledNestedTimeoutEnabled – JavaScript setTimeout will not be clamped until a higher nesting threshold is set