hi everyone kevin here today we are going to look at should you switch to microsoft edge if you’ve never heard edge before not that many people use it it is microsoft’s web browser now i used to work at microsoft and i use a lot of microsoft products in fact you could probably even describe me as a microsoft fanboy yes i’m definitely a fanboy the one product that has never won me over though is microsoft edge i’ve been using chrome for years and years there i finally confessed in fact when i first started my youtube channel and even still to this day anytime i demo using chrome people always call me out on that and rightfully so now to be totally fair it’s not just me most people these days use chrome as their main browser this wasn’t always the case i remember when i joined microsoft back in 2006 microsoft dominated the browser space but along came chrome and it was faster it used fewer system resources it was also a lot more stable and now chrome has close to 70 browser market share amazing how times can change microsoft found itself in an unfamiliar position with single-digit market share so what did microsoft do well they decided to throw a hail mary and base the edge browser on the same core technology that powers google chrome and edge became a chromium-based browser microsoft has also added a whole bunch of functionality and features on top of this to differentiate in this video first we’ll look at how you can install edge on any of your devices and then we’ll also look at some of that functionality and is it compelling enough for you to switch to the edge browser.
To get microsoft edge head to the website up above or down below in the description if you’re running windows chances are that you already have edge pre-installed on this website you can install edge on mac os on ios on android and even coming soon to linux is this microsoft that we’re talking about next we’re going to look at some of the main functionality that might convince you to switch the first unique feature and this is personally one of my favorites is called immersive reader here i am on a news website and you’ll notice a lot of distracting content over on the side and up on top i can go up to the address bar and click on the immersive reader icon and look how much cleaner things are now i could also go in and i could adjust the text size the spacing the font the column width and even the background colors next you can also annotate and edit pdfs in edge now anytime you need to fill in a pdf it turns out that it’s far more complex than it needs to be i’m looking at you adobe with edge now you can open up a pdf you can insert text and this is now a new feature you haven’t been able to do that before you can also draw and you can highlight and once you do all that you can print or save.
So finally all of you can fill out your pdf Kevin cookie company order forms.
Third we’re going to look at a really cool feature called collections and to demonstrate this i’m going to go to my favorite cookie website the kevincookiecompany.com they have the best cookies to both eat and to put onto your computer i want to create a collection that will help me bake chocolate chip cookies here i’ll click on this icon here i’ll title my collection baked chocolate chip cookies and then i’ll add this website to my collection next i’ll click up on recipes and select chocolate chip here i can right click on this image and i can add this to my collection i can also highlight the ingredients and here i’ll right click again and i can also add this to my collection now that it’s in my collection i can add a note don’t forget the sugar that is the most important ingredient here i’ll also highlight the baking instructions and here too i’ll add that to my collection now i can also just add a note to my collection this is the recipe that turns the kevin cookie company into a billion dollar company with that note now added i can click on any item in my collection and it’ll bring me back to the source page collections are especially helpful if say you’re planning a vacation or maybe you’re thinking of gift ideas for someone maybe you’re working on a project at work or school or maybe you just want to bake chocolate chip cookies.
Fourth there’s a really cool feature called web capture here once again on the kevincookiecompany.com i’ll click my right mouse and then go down to web capture here i can take a rectangular screenshot so this is just like the snipping tool i can highlight an area and i have a screenshot but there’s also the feature to take a full page capture this is basically a scrolling screenshot that’ll take a screenshot of the entire website that’s pretty cool next edge also supports something called vertical tabs here in my browser i have a bunch of tabs open and especially when i have a lot of tabs it’s hard to read all of the text i can click on this icon and i can shift to a vertical list so now it’s a little bit easier to switch between my tabs i could rearrange them and i could even add tabs to a group to make getting to what i care about easier number six you can personalize what your new tab page looks like here on my new tab page in the top right hand corner you can click on this settings gear you have three pre-created options you can go with focused inspirational or informational now i don’t like things distracting me from getting my work done so i like to keep it with a really minimalistic look here i’ll click on custom and i can customize these settings and that leaves me with this new tab page next up you can also mute different tabs here one of my tabs has music playing so i see this sound icon to mute this tab i simply click on that icon and that toggles it to mute if i click on it again music will start playing again to be fair chrome supports this as well however you have to right click on the tab and select mute from a menu next you can pin websites to your taskbar for quicker access here i’m on my favorite website kevinstratfoot.com go up to the ellipsis in the top right hand corner go down to more tools and then click on pin to taskbar and look at that that’s how easy it is to plaster this beautiful face on your taskbar yes i might be a little bit full of myself number nine edge has a feature called read aloud where edge will read the contents of a website and the voices are extremely realistic probably even more real sounding than my voice here on the kevincookiecompany.com.
I can have it read some of the text every cookie made at the kevin cookie company is crafted with only the finest ingredients listen to that that’s really good what’s even more fun is if you have a german person read your text and we take it very seriously that is pretty cool edge also has a really helpful right click menu at the kevin cookie company we claim that we use organic ingredients but what does that mean is it just the more expensive stuff at the grocery store here i can right click on organic and i can define it and here i see what the definition is also we’re opening up a location in hyderabad but i have no idea where that is i can right click on that city name and i can open up the sidebar search here i get a nice search menu over on the side and it’ll tell me all the details that i need to know about hyderabad and number 11 edge also includes something called microsoft editor this is microsoft’s version of grammarly when you’re typing into a text field on the web it’ll give you spelling and grammar feedback to help you write better and at number 12 edge also includes a tool that allows you to create qr codes here for example on the kevincookiecompany.com i can right click and go down to create qr code now i can save this as a png and i can add it to one of our posters now you have no more excuses that our url was too long you could simply pull out your phone and you’ll be there in a jiffy at number 13 edge also makes shopping a lot easier here for example on walmart.com edge offers me cash back that’s pretty cool also when i’m looking for a specific product it’ll show me the price history it will also call out if any other merchants have a better deal and if it scours the web and finds any coupon codes for this product it’ll automatically apply them.
Another neat feature in windows when you press alt tab to jump between your different app windows this will also include your different browser tabs in settings you can customize this go to settings system and then multitasking here you can set it to include all of your tabs none of your tabs or just a few of the most recent tabs at number 15 is edges performance now chrome has gotten a really bad reputation as consuming a lot of memory with edge within settings under performance you can set it so that if you don’t use a tab for a certain amount of time it’ll automatically go to sleep when you go back to that tab it’ll then reactivate it this helps you save memory and improves your system’s performance with edge you can also set up multiple profiles i have my own personal account and then i have another account for the kevin cookie company the benefit of having another account is that you get your own favorites your own history your own set of saved passwords here i could simply click on my other account and that’ll open up another instance of the browser when i look down at the taskbar i see the edge logo along with a photo of the profile that i’m using and at number 17 this is the last one for today if you have a work or school account you can search for files people or conversations in your organization here for example with the kevin cookie company i’ll type in my manager’s name patty fernandez here i see patty i see where she sits in the organization i can look at any files that she’s working on and over here i can also view her calendar these are just a few of the unique features in edge and microsoft continues investing if you look at the news you’ll see a constant pipeline of new features and functionality coming out.
Now even if this list today did not convince you to give the edge a try the good news is is that by having Microsoft invest so heavily in the edge browser you’ll probably also see google start investing more in their browser if you want to give the edge a try it’s never been easier within Microsoft edge go up to the ellipsis and then go down to settings next click into profiles and you can import all of your data from chrome so things like your history your open tabs your passwords so you won’t miss a beat when you start using edge alright well let me know down below in the comments are you already using edge or are you considering testing it out now funny enough I used to work at Microsoft and when I did I always used chrome now that I’m working full time on youtube which is a Google service now I’m using edge I guess I’m just a contrarian if you enjoyed this video please consider subscribing and I’ll see you in the next one you
