Microsoft Edge Web Browser Coming to the Mac Over 15 Years After Internet Explorer for Mac

Thursday December 6, 2018 9:34 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Microsoft today announced that it expects to bring its Edge web browser to the Mac, possibly as early as next year.


"Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence. We also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other platforms like macOS," said Microsoft.

The news was revealed as part of Microsoft's larger announcement that Edge will be rebuilt based on the open source Chromium rendering engine, the same engine used by Google Chrome. Microsoft said it expects to have a preview build of the Chromium-based Edge browser ready in early 2019 for users to try.

However, it's unclear if the preview will initially be limited to Windows or extend to the Mac simultaneously.

Edge succeeded Internet Explorer as Microsoft's default web browser on Windows in 2015, with a mobile version later released for iOS and Android. It will be Microsoft's first web browser on Mac since Internet Explorer for Mac received its last feature update over 15 years ago, in June 2003.


Internet Explorer was the default web browser on Mac between 1998 and 2003, when Apple released Safari on Mac OS X Panther.

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Edge
[ 175 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
theheadguy
15 months ago
It's a very good browser. Hopefully people who think their snarky comments are clever and appreciated will have actually used it and judged it on the merits first.

edit: too late lol.
Rating: 24 Votes
Avatar
Hodar1
15 months ago
That's a download I can pass on.
MS used to make a good browser, now between Firefox and Safari; I'm good .... thanks

Decades late, and dollars don't matter.
Rating: 17 Votes
Avatar
yaxomoxay
15 months ago
I'll wait for Netscape Navigator 10, but thanks.
Rating: 17 Votes
Avatar
ike1707
15 months ago
I wouldn't bother anyway, but wasn't there just talk of M$ ditching Edge..?

edit: https://www.extremetech.com/internet/281715-report-microsoft-to-scrap-edge-for-chromium-based-browser

literally two days ago.
Rating: 13 Votes
Avatar
AngerDanger
15 months ago

What's the point? Just use Chrome then, or any of the other Chromium based browsers like Brave, Epic, or even Opera which are available now. I cannot imagine any worthwhile differentiator that MS will bring in this instance.


I can think of one—maybe two—good reasons…



EDIT: 24 hours later, and I just realized I left in the Windows navigation on the right.
Rating: 13 Votes
Avatar
Master Atrus
15 months ago
I’ve been pretty impressed with Microsoft’s focus of late on their products, cross platform.

I’ll definitely give this a try.
Rating: 12 Votes
Avatar
MrGimper
15 months ago
Alexa, tell Cortana to tell Siri to tell Safari to download Edge.
Rating: 11 Votes
Avatar
Kaibelf
15 months ago

It's a very good browser. Hopefully people who think their snarky comments are clever and appreciated will have actually used it and judged it on the merits first.

edit: too late lol.


Question: When did you personally use the CHROMIUM-BASED version of Edge on ANY PLATFORM which will be the basis of this MacOS browser?
Rating: 10 Votes
Avatar
Kaibelf
15 months ago
What's the point? Just use Chrome then, or any of the other Chromium based browsers like Brave, Epic, or even Opera which are available now. I cannot imagine any worthwhile differentiator that MS will bring in this instance.
Rating: 9 Votes
Avatar
zakarhino
15 months ago
Use Firefox. Support Mozilla's free and open source development. Firefox is ultra fast now (thanks to Project Quantum), secure, and not a Google botnet. If you haven't tried Firefox in a few years, I would suggest giving it a go again.
Rating: 8 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]