Microsoft is preparing the final swan song for the legacy version of Edge. The last remaining browser components will soon be phased out permanently.
The Edge browser has been running on Chromium for several years now, but some traces of the legacy version have remained intact. That’s about to change. Microsoft is placing the last remaining legacy components on the list of deprecated features in the Windows client. This includes outdated web applications and EdgeHTML, the former engine on which the browser ran.
Artificial Coma
The list doesn’t specify when Microsoft will pull the plug definitively, but it’s clear that the legacy version of Edge is in an artificial coma. Microsoft decided to make the switch to Chromium back in 2018, and a few years later launched WebView2. Therefore, discontinuing the legacy version will no longer have a major impact on Edge.
However, for Microsoft itself, phasing out the legacy components wasn’t so straightforward. EdgeHTML is still present in Microsoft’s own applications for displaying web content or HTML rendering to this day. Microsoft advises developers of Edge applications to fully switch to WebView2 and Chromium-based web applications if still necessary.
Microsoft also continues to tinker with the front end of Edge. It’s experimenting with a new user interface that aims to bring Copilot and other AI functions in the browser more prominently into view. Whether this will close the market share gap with cousin Google Chrome seems rather doubtful.
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