It has been more than a year since the first version Microsoft’s Edge search engine on Linux, and is now generally available. If you’ve been looking forward to a stable version of Edge on open source OS, it’s finally here.
Indeed, as early as the beginning of 2019, the company from Redmond started announcing it and officially announced Edge for Linux that fall. But despite that, it was almost a full year before he even got to the early test phase, and then another six months before he arrived on the Beta channel.
However, that’s not all, because if you’re on the Dev channel on Linux, there’s a special surprise. If you go to play the built-in Surf game by going to edge: // surf and using the famous Konami cheat code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A), there is an Easter egg in games. Unfortunately, Windows and macOS users will not see this. You’ll have to be on Edge 97.
Another Microsoft Edge announcement on Ignite was a new improvement to IE mode. If you’re not familiar with IE mode, the idea is to offer a way for businesses to switch to Edge from Internet Explorer before the browser pulls out in June. What IE mode does is basically put Internet Explorer in the Edge browser tab. Of course, all these good things have worked out, and Internet Explorer is no longer available in Windows.
There is a new experience in managing the list of sites in the cloud, which aims to make it easier to specify the sites that need to be opened on the IE mode tab. You will no longer have to host the list locally, which should simplify the business experience.
But all the hard work around IE mode has already been done. It’s just a matter of making it easier for companies and their IT departments to use it.
Where is Edge on Linux available
As for Edge on Linux, it is available in DEB format for Debian and Ubuntu, and in RPM format for Fedora and openSUSE. The set of features is mostly the same as on other platforms, including Microsoft account synchronization and the like. However, it does not include Windows-specific features such as IE mode.
More Microsoft Edge news: Edge vs Chrome: 5 reasons why Microsoft Edge is better
Microsoft Edge has the EDGE in Linux – Benchmarking