Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge Beta Out: Moving Close to Release
Newborn all-new chromium-based Edge browser is going to perfect rival for Google Chrome and replacement for traditional internet explorer and default edge, based on EdgeHTML engine. Microsoft moves one step closer to launching its chromium-based edge browser by pushing beta version out for Windows (all versions) and Mac on 20 August 2019. Currently, this edge comes with three different flavors: canary build, dev build, beta build. Before we talk about beta, let's take a quick look at these all three types.
They all have a difference of stability, The canary build is most unstable build where users can check the daily progress of developers. It contains features as soon as they built without any testing. Update frequency of canary build is daily, It is not recommended to use canary build as a daily basis unless you are a developer. Talking about the dev build then it is stable version then canary build where users can notice minimum bugs as compared to canary build. Update frequency of dev build is weekly. Beta version is more stable then dev builds even though it is not smooth as stable build but still it is best for those who want to try out early versions of the browser with significantly minimum bugs as compared to dev and canary. Update frequency of beta is 6 weeks.
Look and Feel
This beta build looks exactly like canary build, dev build. We can set our home screen as we want. I noticed that this beta build lacks some features like global media controls, a classic icon of favorites, translator. Apart from this, settings like appearance, privacy, site permissions are the same. Like dev, canary we can install themes/extensions from the chrome web store. “Beta represents the most stable preview channel, as features are added to Beta only after they have cleared quality testing in first the Canary channel and then the Dev channel,” explains Joe Belfiore, CVP of Microsoft’s Windows Experiences.
Bug Bounty Programme
Along with the unveiling of a beta build of chromium-based edge, Microsoft also announced their new bug bounty program which gives reward up to $30,000 for discovering vulnerabilities in the Dev and Beta builds of Edge. Since the program will complement Google’s Chrome Vulnerability rewards program, and report on that which reproduces edge but not chrome will be applicable based on severity, impact and report quality. One thing should be note down and that is this new program will run along with existing one which offers rewards up to $15,000 for finding vulnerabilities in Microsoft Edge based on their EdgeHTML Engine.
Signs of Stable Build
In April, Microsoft first released it’s Canary and Dev builds and from that period of time to till date they spend months working alongside with Google in order to improve chromium for windows. Now, this beta build will get updates by 6 weeks.
Microsoft dosen’t provide any details yet about the stable build but we can confirm one thing that stable build is not going to release until early 2020. Redmond giant still has to do work on many features as they announced in the build plus improving sync experience for the user to cover passwords, extensions and more. As new edge and chrome both are chromium-based, it has to see that when stable build will roll out then how users will give the response to chrome because as per leaked version simply just replaces the old edge to a new one.
If you are also eager to be a part of edge insider community then Click Here to download chromium edge from the official site.
