Microsoft Edge on Linux: pros and cons

I’ve been on a quest to find the ideal web browser for the Linux desktop. For a long time, I was a loyal Firefox user. However, rumors within the Mozilla community and the return to a bloated browser made me doubt that choice, so I switched to Vivaldi, Chrome, Chromium, and then landed on Brave. For the past two months, Brave has been the browser I’ve depended on, but it’s far from perfect. The whole Binance feature always makes me question choice, and there are times when copy / paste is even worse than Vivaldi.

I knew Microsoft was bringing Edge to Linux. I also held the view that there is no way that a browser from the developers who brought us the Windows desktop can live up to the Linux desktop standards by which I measure all applications. Even so, the second Edge was available for testing, I downloaded and installed the browser.

I’m currently using it to write this article, via Google Docs, and I have to say, it’s not terrible. It’s not a browser I’d probably default to, but no matter how much I want to hate it, I just can’t.

Let me expound on this.

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Proprietary vs. Open Source

I have been an open source champion since 1997. I will always choose an open source solution, when that solution does the job in a way that meets or exceeds my needs. However, there are certain cases where an open source solution simply will not meet the demands that I have placed on the software.

Take, for example, video editing. I have tried every open source video editor on the market. For years I struggled with the use of OpenShot. In the end, none of them lived up to my expectations and they did not make the task of editing professional quality videos possible. For that particular job, I use Final Cut Pro. The same goes for my book manuscripts. Going back and forth between my editor LibreOffice won’t work. When you have thousands of tracking changes and hundreds of comments, LibreOffice gets bogged down to the point of becoming unusable.

The same is the case with some web browsers. I would love to have GNOME Web as the default, but it just doesn’t work with some of the sites that I depend on. Open Google Drive with GNOME Web and you will receive a warning that the browser is not supported. Midori? The same thing. Like I said, Firefox is a bloated nightmare these days, which is sad given what Quantum promised.

I live in a mixed licensing world, but the most important thing to me is that I am using an open source operating system as a platform. It works for me and therefore for Microsoft Edge.

Chrome-based and instantly recognizable

Microsoft Edge is based on the open source Chromium. This should come as no surprise, given the number of browsers that have relied on Chromium over the years (such as Amazon Silk, Brave, Comodo Dragon, Falkon, Epic Browser, Opera, Samsung Internet, Torch, Vivaldi, and the Yandex browser) . . Chromium was a solid option for Microsoft’s new browser.

When you start Edge and Chromium side by side, you may even notice that they are part of the same family tree (Figure a).

Figure a

Frankly, I was surprised that Edge didn’t look decidedly Windows-like on Linux. In fact, it looks like any other browser you’ve ever used. It renders pages well, opens quickly, looks stable (for developer preview), and doesn’t need a lot of tweaking to make it a bit more palpable for users like me.

Of course, a (simple) tweak that I saw as a must was to change the default search engine from Bing to Google. The next thing you need to do is check the Extensions page to see what is available. That’s when the real difference between the browsers I’m used to using and a Microsoft browser became apparent.

In comparison, edge extensions are almost useless. Not only are many of them not performing as expected, but what is offered in the Microsoft Edge Add-Ons store can hardly be called “productive.”

On the other hand, these are extensions and by nature they are always unpredictable, regardless of the browser. So many extensions in each browser plugin store are a means to a third party end. You can’t blame the Edge extensions for not working, given that this is a developer preview.

I keep trying not to like this browser

I keep connecting with Microsoft Edge, running on Pop! _OS Linux and I keep trying my best not to like it. But I can not. It is a working web browser and since it is a developer preview it works quite well.

In the back of my mind, however, is that little voice screaming, “Find something you don’t like before this is over!” I listen and keep poking. Edge even allows you to install sites as applications. I’ve always made use of this feature in Chrome and Chromium, but I must say that Edge makes it even easier to work with.

The only thing I don’t like about Edge so far is that I can’t get it to use the title bar and default window elements from my desktop. That’s a nit that’s a bit tricky, especially when you have a lot of tabs open and don’t have a title bar to grab and move the browser with.

Microsoft, give me my default window / title bar controls! There I found something that I did not like.

However, seriously, Microsoft Edge should be a perfectly capable option for anyone using Linux. Why choose it instead of the browser it was based on? To that question, I have no answer. Chromium is a good browser and this Edge review makes me wonder why I haven’t been using the “mother of all browsers” the entire time.

Looks like I’ll be going back to Chromium for a while.

Edge is for you?

Here’s the thing: Either you’re going to try Edge out of curiosity and remove it immediately, or your interest will be piqued and you will continue testing it. The hard sell for Linux users is that it is a proprietary browser from Microsoft. Before you judge it based solely on those two criteria, I suggest you install it and kick the tires. In the end, Edge may be a perfectly useful browser (as I did) and keep it (as I have).

If you’re interested in trying Edge, head over to the Microsoft Edge Insider site and download the .deb or .rpm file and install it just like you would any Linux app on your desktop.

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