Microsoft is designing a new version of its Edge web browser based on Google’s Chromium. Two months ago Microsoft released the first preview of the new browser, but it was only available for Windows 10 at the time.

Now you can download Microsoft Edge preview builds and run them on Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1.

At this point that means you’ll be running an experimental “canary” channel build, but Microsoft says slightly more stable “dev channel” builds will be available for Windows 7 and up soon.

For the most part the feature set should be the same no matter which version of Windows you’re using.

That means you get the same rendering engine as Google Chrome, and a bunch of other features borrowed from Google’s web browser. But Microsoft has replaced some services, changed some buttons and menus, added a “read aloud” feature, and gives you a choice of new tab page layouts including “focused,” “inspirational,” “informational,” and “custom.”

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

5 replies on “Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge browser preview now available for Windows 7 and up”

  1. I have been using it on Windows 7 for a couple of months and it works extremely well. Google have sabotaged YouTube by adding thousands of adverts but that is the only negative.

    1. Google has made Youtube load more slowly on Firefox (can’t find link to article at the moment) but at least using FireFox you can block the ads if they get too annoying.

      1. I don’t mean ads on the page but video ads that play before the content you want to watch. For music this means up to a minute of ads per track.

        1. Don’t forget the in-between for longer videos. Sometimes I get 4-6 ads if I use YouTube Android app. That is why I usually use Firefox even if it loads slower.

          1. These are what I was referring to. On Chromium Edge they are before as well as in-between and apply even on shorter videos. I use ordinary Edge instead which isn’t afflicted.

Comments are closed.