Microsoft Edge is a bizarre browser. I remember using it briefly way back when it was called Project Spartan. I thought I didn’t really like the name change: Spartan was actually a much cooler name.

Save for a few specific features, I was not a fan of Microsoft Edge. About the time Microsoft Edge had come into existence, I had ceased to be a die-hard fan of Microsoft.

Edge, to me, was just another classic attempt at Microsoft desperately trying to claw together some browser market-share for their own browser. Microsoft Internet Explorer is very much fresh in peoples’ minds, especially because Microsoft still kinda supports it.

They’ve managed to keep Internet Explorer around for the sake of compatibility and enterprise customers. It does not receive new features last I checked, but it does receive security updates and often comes with Windows 10 (however, not always).

Edge managed to get a little bit of market share: a measly five percent. IE, by comparison, has around nine percent.

Perhaps this’ll change now that Microsoft is rebuilding Edge to have a Chromium rendering engine instead of using an in-house rendering engine.

I do, genuinely, like some aspects of Microsoft Edge. For one, it possesses the ability to read-aloud both webpages and PDF documents. Firefox, by contrast, is not able to read PDF documents aloud. Its ability to read-aloud articles is not absolute.

The new Edge, from what I have observed personally, seems to have the same ability to read PDF documents aloud. This is a nice feature to have.

Other than that, though, is there really much reason for someone to switch from a browser they are more comfortable with to Edge?

Perhaps this will alleviate the stigma that Edge gets.