Microsoft recently launched its Chromium-based Edge browser on macOS. That was exciting news, because in a world where it’s hard to compete against the absolute behemoth that Chrome is, and thanks to the fact that most developers code websites to a browser and that browser is often Chrome, it’s difficult to use a browser that’s, well, not Chrome. However, Edge had the potential to be something better or at least just as good, so I tried it out, and I never thought I would say something like this about a browser built by Microsoft, but Chromium-based Edge does a lot of things really well and I think I can finally quit Chrome.
One of my biggest qualms with Google Chrome happens to be something almost everyone hates about the browser — it’s a resource hog like none other. Chrome can not only quickly hog up the RAM on my MacBook Pro, but it also heavily affects the battery life I can get from the laptop — both things that I don’t really like.
While both Edge and Chrome hogged up the RAM on my system (in fact, Edge was using more RAM than Chrome in my test), Edge did have the, er… edge in terms of battery life. With Chrome, my laptop reported an expected battery life of around 3 hours, while with Edge, it was reporting an expected life of around 5 hours.
One of the biggest things Chrome has going for it is the massive library of extensions that are available on the Chrome Web Store. It’s honestly difficult for most browsers to compete in this regard. Edge, on the other hand, is built on Chromium, so it can support Chrome extensions pretty easily.
So I can use all of my favourite Chrome extensions on Edge as well, including those for password managers such as LastPass, Todoist, Pocket, Papier, and that one QR code generator that I installed for a one-off use months ago.
Tracking cookies are annoying, which is why companies have started thinking about blocking third party tracking cookies altogether. However, Edge makes this even better. The browser offers easy to find, and easier to understand multiple privacy options that you can configure.
The browser defaults to Balanced, which is great and shows that Microsoft didn’t just offer this option for the sake of offering it, but you can always change it based on your preferences. Plus, Edge does a good job explaining how the levels of tracking prevention will change website behavior on the browser.
Lastly, there’s also the fact that Edge’s UI just looks better than Chrome’s does. This is purely subjective, and your opinion may be the exact opposite of mine, but personally, I like the thinner icons that Edge uses, and the added padding around icons (such as those for extensions).
So yeah, Microsoft’s latest attempt at making a browser does feel very confident and the company’s decision to build it with Chromium looks like a good one. The browser does almost everything better than Chrome, be it battery life, features, privacy and tracking protection, support for extensions, and the interface. The only place where I wish Edge was better is RAM management. I’ve read some people claiming that the browser uses way less RAM as compared to Chrome, but somehow my experience has not been the same.
