Microsoft sets Jan. 15 launch for its second-chance Edge
Microsoft will release a production-quality version of its recast Edge browser Jan. 15, or in just over 10 weeks.
What the Redmond, Wash. company this week called a "release candidate" of the final version can be downloaded from the firm's website. The build -- the label usually applies to finished code that may still harbor some bugs -- has been marked 79.0.309.11 and issued as the latest Beta for Windows and macOS.
Microsoft first broached the idea of remaking Edge in December 2018, when it announced it was discarding its own rendering and JavaScript engines -- the technologies at the core of any browser -- and instead adopting those built by the Chromium project, the open-source effort led by Google that fuels Chrome. With that declaration, Microsoft gave up on building a modern browser -- one that would replace the ancient and obsolete Internet Explorer (IE) -- and follow in the footsteps of such niche applications as Opera and Brave.