Not a very long time ago , we talked about what makes Microsoft Edge a better browser than other browsers for Windows. But, like everything on Mother Earth, Microsoft Edge has both good and bad sides. In this article it is time to mention the issues that we believe make Microsoft Edge a worse browser than others. Let's begin:
1. Browsing problems
The most important thing about a web browser is, of course, the browsing experience you get. Microsoft Edge is really fast in most cases, but it still needs some work. Some websites are not displayed as they should be. For example, when we tried to access the Sky Go website (it's the online TV service of a major TV network), we were quite surprised to see that we were urged to use Internet Explorer instead of Microsoft Edge. The reason for that seemed to be that the website "runs on older technology" . Even if that is true, we believe that Microsoft Edge should be able to load this website, as well as others with similar "issues". All the other major web browsers do, so we will consider this a minus for Microsoft Edge.
Microsoft Edge, missing features, weak spots, problems, Windows 10
2 . Too few extensions are available today
Another problem of Microsoft Edge, at least for now, is that there's a lack of web browser extensions and add-ons for it. With the launch of the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 , M icrosoft has finally offered support for extensions, as well as the tools and features that are needed for developing add-ons. That's a very good thing, but the truth is that, right now, there are very few extensions available for Microsoft Edge. Only thirteen to be more exact. Hopefully, more web browser extensions will be developed in the future for Microsoft Edge.
Microsoft Edge, missing features, weak spots, problems, Windows 10
3 . No fullscreen mode
Even if you are not using the fullscreen mode frequently, sometimes you can feel its absence. Sure, Microsoft Edge provides you with its Reading View mode , but it's not even close to being the same thing as a fullscreen mode. Especially on tablets, you may want to browse the web in fullscreen.
4 . RSS feed support is missing
We have no idea how many people are still using RSS feeds, but for those who use them, it's very important to know that this feature is missing from Microsoft Edge. If you use RSS feeds a lot, you need to use another browser which supports them, like Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, or you can use a web based feed reader service like Feedly.
5. Developer Tools load rather slowly
One of our readers brought to our attention the fact that the Developer Tools from Microsoft Edge are very slow to load, although they're quite good. We checked whether that was true on a couple of different Windows 10 PCs and devices, and we must agree. The Developer Tools from Microsoft Edge are really slow to load compared to those offered by Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. If you're a web developer, this will probably annoy you. 🙂
Microsoft Edge, missing features, weak spots, problems, Windows 10
Conclusion
Let's be clear: Microsoft Edge is not a bad web browser. It's pretty fast and it works well with most websites, so you'll have no problem using them with this browser. However, like anything else in life, it also has its flaws and our objective was to highlight them in this article. If there are other things you don't like about Microsoft Edge, don't hesitate to share them with us.
Microsoft keeps telling me my password is incorrect, I changed my password, saved my password, then was told my password was incorrect and I have tried too many times, this is not the first time this has happened, it’s extremely frustrating just trying to get into my account. Why doesn’t the program just remember me? The last time I tried to send a document via Microsoft, it wanted me to fill out a contact, like just entering the e-mail address, attaching the document and hitting send isn’t good enough. It works in Yahoo
Steven Cataldi ·
Microsoft Edge is a disgrace!
Ciprian Adrian Rusen ·
The new version, based on Chromium, isn’t. We will write many articles about it. As you will see, it is much better, and it has some really interesting features.
John IL ·
I’ve used Edge browser off and on through its iterations of updates. It has gotten much better to a point a casual web users might not be turned off. At least not so much as to install another browser. But then again there is a typical human response for many to go with the crowd and obviously Google Chrome has attracted bar none the biggest user base since Internet Explorer back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Like many other products in competition with each other, for whatever reason your going to have the products that set the bar for the rest. Probably why Microsoft decided to implement Chromium engine into Edge after several years of not attracting many users. Yeah bad for Firefox and non chromium browsers. But the web will obviously have a more solidified browser engine to work with. In many ways this is a plus for web users and developers. This doesn’t mean diversity in web browsers is dead. On the contrary we have many different web browsers in development today then ever before. Its just that most use the same blueprint in chromium but they are very much different browsers with different features.
Anonymous ·
A very mature perspective. Thanks for sharing it. 😉
fatbastard ·
Edge eats up so much of the CPU! The system pauses waiting for edge to do whatever it is doing (why does a browser doing NOTHING eat up 180mb of memory).
It is fast when you first open it but after that…..aweful
there is obviously too much going on and no throttling to manage the load. I had edge open, moved over the the desktop to make a new folder to drop something I was downloading into……the screen went green for 3 seconds….then the icons came back then the background returned and the new folder then allowed me to name it…..I thought really……so I closed Edge tried it again…..no sweat, instant folder……there is something about Edge that allows web too much control on my CPU……..try uninstalling it…..it makes the flu look easy to get rid of….
Chris ·
> Microsoft Edge is not a bad web browser.
You’re completely delusional. A browser that needs to open another browser to display older code is ridiculous. Can you imagine Firefox spitting out a message saying, “you’ve reached an old webpage, you need to open in Netscape instead — click here to launch Netscape”.
Edge is horrible anyway you look at it. If “speed” is all Edge has, that says it’s not very good as the speed differences are negligible.
Bkhuna ·
I use RSS daily. It is the reason I hang on to IE and eschew Edge.
Dr. Sir Roberto Gomez Jr III Senior ·
This browser lacks security. I have a virus on it that redirects me to adult sites. Now i’m addicted to scat porn and my wife has left me.
#ThanksObama
Ayush ·
Well, Egde is good browser, but I prefer my Mozilla Firefox which I have optimized to a great extent using the wealth of addons which it offers, there by adding more features.
Bob ·
Notice it’s called “Edge”, because its use is edge-case only, and it’s at the edge of usefulness. It’s not called “Point” because it doesn’t have one.
GHynson ·
I’ve been using “Opera” browser since version 3.
Haven’t used any other browser since then,…
Scott ·
As an IT professional, I’m trying to use Edge as exclusively as possible so that I can give my users the best possible explanation of why they should or should not be using it nearly exclusively as well. Unfortunately, I’m finding a number of annoyances that led me to this page. In regard to your points:
1. & 3. Edge is *supposed* to be as minimal a browser as possible to prevent the most secure interface possible. This is why it doesn’t support any extensions or plug-ins and probably never will. The fact that it can’t properly display a number of websites (especially those that use older DOM and HTML models) is why it will never be used exclusively for pretty much anybody. But it’s a good start.
2. I don’t often drag files into a browser window since I don’t often use the browser interface for cloud storage providers like One Drive and Google Drive, but this is good to know. What I DO often try to do is drag the icon for a particular website from the address bar to a folder to create a shortcut, however this is also not possible.
4. I don’t often use full-screen mode on the computers that have Win10 installed on them (either at work or at home), but my home theater PC is connected to a low-resolution TV (for the time being) and is running Win7, so that would have been a real pain to find out the hard way.
5. I find this quite annoying too since it’s my default habit: Open the browser or a new tab, click the address bar/omnibox, start typing. But in Edge you have to throw in a second – or third! – click on the address bar before typing is even possible. Even more annoying though? If Edge doesn’t already have the current focus (like when two windows are displayed on the same screen or when using dual+ monitors and focus is on another window), this same problem happens for LINKS of all things! Infuriating!
7. I *really* miss the “Go to [highlighted URL]” found in Firefox and Chrome when doing a right-click, but this is also not an option in IE, so it’s not exactly unexpected to be missing. All of the other, standard context menu items like “Search Google” or even “Search Bing” would be nice.
Scott ·
And another problem I keep having that’s not on your list at all: Edge often closes itself down randomly and with no error message of any kind. I have it set to re-open the tabs I already had opened (just like I do in Firefox, Chrome, and IE), so this is only *highly* annoying instead of *superbly* annoying since it’s happening with my PRIMARY web browser, but at least it opens up again without any trouble and re-loads all of my many tabs – though that does take a few seconds to even show that it’s opening more than one tab sometimes.
Steve the wonder puppet ·
You were lucky. Because of Edge we lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, Satya Nadella would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Bkhuna ·
Luxury. We had to live in a lake.
Robert Marks ·
I “upgraded” to Windows 10 yesterday and today Edge is now locked up with a brand new virus telling me my hard drive will be deleted. It took less than 24 hours for Edge to break when I have been using IE for years with no problems that couldn’t be solved with a reinstall. I have now relegated Edge to the “never used apps” section of my computer. I am now spitefully writing this from Chrome as my computer needlessly uses half of the processor to run whatever it is Chrome does. On a side note, who ever runs this site is an @$$ hole for making me register an account just to leave one comment about Edge. I also assume I will be getting endless emails about restaurants once I hit the “submit” button.
Ciprian Adrian Rusen ·
Nobody forces you to make an account on our website. You can comment without hitting the Register button. Just complete the comments form with your name, e-mail and your comment. It's as simple as that. And please mind your language!
Christopher King ·
I see, so because you’re upset over what’s happening with Microsoft Edge because YOU don’t have a decent anti-malware program, you’re going to take it out on everyone else. FYI, you didn’t need to create an account to leave a comment. You just needed to leave a name and an email address, which is common practice everywhere on the web.
There’s an app called “Contact Support” on Windows 10. It will put you in touch with Microsoft Windows 10 staff who should be able to help you out with this problem.
Alternatively, you can go into the Restore options in Settings and do a complete Refresh, which will reset your Windows 10 settings back to their original installation ones, or you can just go back to whichever OS you were using previously, providing you do it within 30 days of installing Win10.
Best of luck. I’ve been just as mad as you are when things like this have happened to me.
Christopher King ·
Edge is a disaster, and it’s very lack of usefulness is precisely why no one is going to be interested in using it by the time Microsoft gets its act together
Discussion (20)
Microsoft keeps telling me my password is incorrect, I changed my password, saved my password, then was told my password was incorrect and I have tried too many times, this is not the first time this has happened, it’s extremely frustrating just trying to get into my account. Why doesn’t the program just remember me? The last time I tried to send a document via Microsoft, it wanted me to fill out a contact, like just entering the e-mail address, attaching the document and hitting send isn’t good enough. It works in Yahoo
Microsoft Edge is a disgrace!
The new version, based on Chromium, isn’t. We will write many articles about it. As you will see, it is much better, and it has some really interesting features.
I’ve used Edge browser off and on through its iterations of updates. It has gotten much better to a point a casual web users might not be turned off. At least not so much as to install another browser. But then again there is a typical human response for many to go with the crowd and obviously Google Chrome has attracted bar none the biggest user base since Internet Explorer back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Like many other products in competition with each other, for whatever reason your going to have the products that set the bar for the rest. Probably why Microsoft decided to implement Chromium engine into Edge after several years of not attracting many users. Yeah bad for Firefox and non chromium browsers. But the web will obviously have a more solidified browser engine to work with. In many ways this is a plus for web users and developers. This doesn’t mean diversity in web browsers is dead. On the contrary we have many different web browsers in development today then ever before. Its just that most use the same blueprint in chromium but they are very much different browsers with different features.
A very mature perspective. Thanks for sharing it. 😉
Edge eats up so much of the CPU! The system pauses waiting for edge to do whatever it is doing (why does a browser doing NOTHING eat up 180mb of memory).
It is fast when you first open it but after that…..aweful
there is obviously too much going on and no throttling to manage the load. I had edge open, moved over the the desktop to make a new folder to drop something I was downloading into……the screen went green for 3 seconds….then the icons came back then the background returned and the new folder then allowed me to name it…..I thought really……so I closed Edge tried it again…..no sweat, instant folder……there is something about Edge that allows web too much control on my CPU……..try uninstalling it…..it makes the flu look easy to get rid of….
> Microsoft Edge is not a bad web browser.
You’re completely delusional. A browser that needs to open another browser to display older code is ridiculous. Can you imagine Firefox spitting out a message saying, “you’ve reached an old webpage, you need to open in Netscape instead — click here to launch Netscape”.
Edge is horrible anyway you look at it. If “speed” is all Edge has, that says it’s not very good as the speed differences are negligible.
I use RSS daily. It is the reason I hang on to IE and eschew Edge.
This browser lacks security. I have a virus on it that redirects me to adult sites. Now i’m addicted to scat porn and my wife has left me.
#ThanksObama
Well, Egde is good browser, but I prefer my Mozilla Firefox which I have optimized to a great extent using the wealth of addons which it offers, there by adding more features.
Notice it’s called “Edge”, because its use is edge-case only, and it’s at the edge of usefulness. It’s not called “Point” because it doesn’t have one.
I’ve been using “Opera” browser since version 3.
Haven’t used any other browser since then,…
As an IT professional, I’m trying to use Edge as exclusively as possible so that I can give my users the best possible explanation of why they should or should not be using it nearly exclusively as well. Unfortunately, I’m finding a number of annoyances that led me to this page. In regard to your points:
1. & 3. Edge is *supposed* to be as minimal a browser as possible to prevent the most secure interface possible. This is why it doesn’t support any extensions or plug-ins and probably never will. The fact that it can’t properly display a number of websites (especially those that use older DOM and HTML models) is why it will never be used exclusively for pretty much anybody. But it’s a good start. Infuriating!
2. I don’t often drag files into a browser window since I don’t often use the browser interface for cloud storage providers like One Drive and Google Drive, but this is good to know. What I DO often try to do is drag the icon for a particular website from the address bar to a folder to create a shortcut, however this is also not possible.
4. I don’t often use full-screen mode on the computers that have Win10 installed on them (either at work or at home), but my home theater PC is connected to a low-resolution TV (for the time being) and is running Win7, so that would have been a real pain to find out the hard way.
5. I find this quite annoying too since it’s my default habit: Open the browser or a new tab, click the address bar/omnibox, start typing. But in Edge you have to throw in a second – or third! – click on the address bar before typing is even possible. Even more annoying though? If Edge doesn’t already have the current focus (like when two windows are displayed on the same screen or when using dual+ monitors and focus is on another window), this same problem happens for LINKS of all things!
7. I *really* miss the “Go to [highlighted URL]” found in Firefox and Chrome when doing a right-click, but this is also not an option in IE, so it’s not exactly unexpected to be missing. All of the other, standard context menu items like “Search Google” or even “Search Bing” would be nice.
And another problem I keep having that’s not on your list at all: Edge often closes itself down randomly and with no error message of any kind. I have it set to re-open the tabs I already had opened (just like I do in Firefox, Chrome, and IE), so this is only *highly* annoying instead of *superbly* annoying since it’s happening with my PRIMARY web browser, but at least it opens up again without any trouble and re-loads all of my many tabs – though that does take a few seconds to even show that it’s opening more than one tab sometimes.
You were lucky. Because of Edge we lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, Satya Nadella would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Luxury. We had to live in a lake.
I “upgraded” to Windows 10 yesterday and today Edge is now locked up with a brand new virus telling me my hard drive will be deleted. It took less than 24 hours for Edge to break when I have been using IE for years with no problems that couldn’t be solved with a reinstall. I have now relegated Edge to the “never used apps” section of my computer. I am now spitefully writing this from Chrome as my computer needlessly uses half of the processor to run whatever it is Chrome does. On a side note, who ever runs this site is an @$$ hole for making me register an account just to leave one comment about Edge. I also assume I will be getting endless emails about restaurants once I hit the “submit” button.
Nobody forces you to make an account on our website. You can comment without hitting the Register button. Just complete the comments form with your name, e-mail and your comment. It's as simple as that. And please mind your language!
I see, so because you’re upset over what’s happening with Microsoft Edge because YOU don’t have a decent anti-malware program, you’re going to take it out on everyone else. FYI, you didn’t need to create an account to leave a comment. You just needed to leave a name and an email address, which is common practice everywhere on the web.
There’s an app called “Contact Support” on Windows 10. It will put you in touch with Microsoft Windows 10 staff who should be able to help you out with this problem.
Alternatively, you can go into the Restore options in Settings and do a complete Refresh, which will reset your Windows 10 settings back to their original installation ones, or you can just go back to whichever OS you were using previously, providing you do it within 30 days of installing Win10.
Best of luck. I’ve been just as mad as you are when things like this have happened to me.
Edge is a disaster, and it’s very lack of usefulness is precisely why no one is going to be interested in using it by the time Microsoft gets its act together