How does Microsoft Edge fare on macOS? Microsoft Edge for Mac Review and Features
After changing it from Chrome Chakra, Microsoft has also released the Chromium-based Edge browser for macOS. This post checks out all of the features it offers to its Mac OS users. Please note that this is not a comparison between Microsoft Edge for macOS and Microsoft Edge for Windows 10. This review simply lists the great features of Edge for Mac.
Microsoft Edge for Mac Review
The user interface on Edge for Mac OS is clean and self-describing. There is no clutter as in previous versions of Edge. There is a lot of space between the icons on the new tab page and the bookmarks bar. Context menus are also sharper than Firefox. The submenus have a nice font and allow you to tap on the options, giving you good spacing between menu options. This leaves no margin for inaccurate touch menu selections.
Microsoft Edge for Mac OS – Speed
The new Microsoft Edge for Mac OS has decent speed. It is faster than the Google Chrome browser, because Microsoft Edge probably uses the same rendering engine as Google Chrome. If I compare it to Safari on Mac, Edge is as fast as Safari when it comes to loading websites. Remember that speed uses hardware acceleration and therefore also depends on your Mac hardware.
Edge security and privacy features
Microsoft takes the security and privacy features in Edge (Chromium) very seriously. It allows you to define a level of confidentiality for your navigation.
You can set privacy on Basic, Balanced, and Strict. Click on three dots in the upper right corner of the Edge window and in the resulting window click on Confidentiality and services in the left pane. You will see many options in the right column where you can customize the privacy features as you wish.
Edge includes the SmartScreen feature that was introduced in the 2000s. This feature prevents users from opening websites with malicious or spyware code. The SmartScreen Defender tells you if a download is malicious before downloading it to your Mac.
You can further configure privacy under site permissions option in Settings.
Edge use of memory and other resources
Although it works on Chromium, Edge is better than the Google browser and Firefox on Mac OS: High Sierra and Mojave. With more than 20 tabs open in Edge and Chrome, I found that Edge responds better than other browsers, including the default Safari that ships with Mac.
New tab page and new bookmarks
It offers a better way to manage tabs by giving you the menu option Tabs. This menu lists all open tabs, including those that are pinned so that you can manage them.
When it comes to tabs, Microsoft Edge has four display options for its new tabbed page:
- Focused,
- Inspirational,
- Informative and
- Custom (you configure the page manually)
Unlike its Windows 10 counterpart, Edge doesn’t allow you to modify existing thumbnail shortcuts. You can however delete them. Microsoft Edge (Chromium) has an option to add thumbnails. You can do this by clicking on the + sign of the last miniature shortcut.
Extensions available for Microsoft Edge browser
As it is now based on Chromium, you can add Chrome extensions to Microsoft Edge in addition to the extensions available on the Microsoft Add-ins page. Here’s how to add Chrome extensions for Microsoft Edge. You simply visit the Chrome store using Microsoft Edge. You will be asked if you want to add extensions from other stores. Click on To allow to add extensions to Microsoft Edge on Mac OS Mojave and later.
Microsoft Edge Privacy – Rumors
People are still concerned about privacy on Microsoft Edge. There are two groups (maybe more). One group opposes the use of Edge on Chromium by citing privacy concerns arising from the Chromium + code “Custom for Microsoft” coded. They believe that in addition to using Chromium’s open-source code, Microsoft may have added its own code to track people using the browser.
Microsoft Edge for Mac OS – Verdict
After using Microsoft Edge for three days, I plan to make it my default browser on the Mac. My current default on Mohave is Firefox, which works well. The clean user interface coupled with the page loading speed will force you to use it – even if you don’t make it your default browser on Mac OS.