Microsoft Edge 100 it’s the new version of… Microsoft’s web browser, yes. Who would have thought, how time passes and how versions pass, but as you can imagine, such a numbering has a trick and it is none other than staying attached to what Chromium marks, a platform on which it is based since a few years ago it replaced its own technology by that developed by Google.
So maybe I should say that Microsoft Edge 100 follows Chromium in everything, but since Chromium is a project led and developed by Google, now in collaboration with many other parties, such as Microsoft, and Chrome is basically a carbon copy of Chromium with a few additives, the headline does the job.
If the launch of Chrome 100 was announced a few days ago, it is now the turn of Microsoft Edge, although it is not the first of the secondary derivatives of Chromium that is uploaded to the version in question. Brave did it before, perhaps the most prominent of all -Chromium derivatives- as it is the only open source.
In any case, the launch of Microsoft Edge 100 is more striking because unlike Brave or others that are about to come out, see Vivaldi, it does maintain the same version numbering of Chromium and Chrome. And also for another thing: it is, after Chrome, the most popular web browser for PC. Was it already? No, according to the data of the last great meter that we have left.
According to StatCounter data, Microsoft Edge would have surpassed Safari in recent days, just by a few tenths, becoming the second most popular web browser on PC. It is true that Safari starts at a disadvantage by limiting its availability, while Microsoft Edge is available for Windows, Linux and Mac, but this does not change the definition of PC, even though some insist on considering Windows as synonymous with the term and macOS as something separate.
This being the case, Microsoft Edge 100 can boast of having reached three digits, increasing its market share, which based solely on the capabilities of the browser is more than justified: Microsoft Edge is currently one of the most interesting alternatives, thanks to the work that the company has put to make it so.
But let’s talk more specifically about Microsoft Edge 100. Any noteworthy news? Little thing, to tell the truth. the corresponding corrections and optimizations of each update and five changes to highlight according to the release notes:
- A warning that thickening the user agent to three digits can cause – not expected, but it can – cause problems with some websites, as well as how to reverse it (going into “edge://flags”, enable the “#force-major-version-to-minor” option).
- Support for running applications associated with Microsoft 365 protocols, such as URLs pointing to text documents, spreadsheets, etc., only for organizations using Microsoft cloud storage services.
- Protection stack enhancements with hardware security, for Windows 8 and higher systems only.
- Preview PDF documents in the browser’s built-in viewer from local files or Outlook attachments, or what comes to the same thing, Microsoft Edge proposes itself as the default PDF viewer in Windows, as long as it is the system default browser and no other application is associated with the file type.
- PDFSecureMode policy to enable validation of digital signatures for PDF files directly from the browser and without the need for plugins.
Important changes that Microsoft Edge 100 brings with respect to the management of PDF files, but little else. He doesn’t need it though. More news will continue to arrive in future versions. In the meantime, Microsoft Edge 100 is what it is… until next month.
