Microsoft confirms Edge Chromium is finally coming to Linux early next year

Microsoft to launch Edge browser for linux

Sorry, Microsoft, but your Edge web browser will NEVER be installed on my Linux computer

As you may know, I am a big proponent of Linux on the desktop. I prefer Fedora to both Windows 10 and macOS, and I use the operating system regularly to get work done. Over the years, I went from being a minority as a desktop Linux user, to... well... OK, fine, we desktop Linux users are still a minority. But hey, we are getting more respect every year, and people are increasingly turning to Chromebooks, which run the Linux-based Chrome OS. More and more developers, including Microsoft, are releasing software for Linux too.

With all of that said, I probably should be excited that Microsoft is bringing its Chromium-based Edge to Linux. After all, it is another indicator that Linux is gaining mainstream support. Not to mention, who can be mad at having just another web browser option? Me, that's who. You see, Microsoft's Edge browser will NEVER be installed on my Linux computer.

Microsoft Edge is officially coming to Linux soon

Microsoft Is Bringing Edge to Linux Too

Hell freezes over as Microsoft Edge comes to Linux

Microsoft Edge Coming to Linux

For the longest time, any Linux user needing to work with a Microsoft browser had few options. There was always IEs4Linux, but that option tended to install out-of-date, buggy versions of the software. Users could also run a version of Windows within a virtual machine, but that meant actually running Windows.

Microsoft Edge For Linux “Confirmed” By Microsoft

icrosoft has now officially confirmed that its revamped Chromium-based Edge browser will be arriving on Linux machines in the coming future. The confirmation was made during the State of Browser: Microsoft Edge session at the Ignite conference in Orlando.

Confirmed! Microsoft Edge Will be Available on Linux

Microsoft tried to gain its lost position by creating Edge, a brand new web browser built with EdgeHTML and Chakra engine. It was tightly integrated with Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana and Windows 10.

However, it still could not bring the crown home and as of today, it stands at the fourth position in desktop browser usage share.

Reactions To the News That Microsoft's Edge Browser Is Coming to Linux

Edge may face a rocky reception. "I am not feeling a tingling all over at the thought of Edge coming to Linux," posted one commenter on Beta News. "It's not really necessary to bring Linux down to the level of Windows 10."

Microsoft Edge is coming to Linux. But will anybody use it?

At Microsoft Ignite last week, a slide announced that Microsoft's project to rebase its perennially unloved Edge browser on Google's open source project Chromium is well underway. Release candidates for the new Chromium-based Edge build are available on consumer and server versions of Windows (including Windows 7 and Server 2008, which have already left mainstream support), as well as MacOS, Android, and iOS.

[...]

It seems unlikely that the Linux world is going to go ga-ga for what seems to essentially be a reskinning of Chromium—but that might be missing Microsoft's real thrust here. Many developers—including Linux developers—choose Azure over rival cloud services like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, and bringing Edge to Linux may represent little more than a way to offer those developers deeper ties into Microsoft's profile and identity management services.