What you need to know
- Microsoft is working to unify the codebase across all platforms.
- Edge Canary for Android is now live and ready to be downloaded.
- This version of Edge for Android matches Edge Canary's latest release for Windows 10 desktop with many similar features.
Microsoft announced in early March that it was going to unify the code behind its Edge browser across mobile versions on iOS and Android. We're now getting our first taste of that with a brand-new Edge Canary build for Android that is ready to download (via Reddit).
This version of the Edge browser – 91.0.858.0 – also matches the Windows 10 desktop version of Edge Canary, just as Microsoft promised. As we explained back in March:
Microsoft plans to unify the codebases of Microsoft Edge across multiple operating systems. Right now, Edge apps on mobile platforms are based on different codebases than the desktop version. As a result of this, you see things like Edge on Android being based on version 77 while Edge on the desktop is based on Edge 89. Microsoft aims to fix this, and to improve the efficiency of Edge's development across platforms, by unifying Edge codebases across platforms.By unifying codebases on different versions of Edge, Microsoft can more easily share features across desktop and mobile versions of Edge. The unification also improves the engineering process.
With a new UI, features, menu layout, and even scrolling behavior, this is a very different version of the current Edge beta build (Edge 46.03.24.5155) with advanced features like reading mode and full access to Edge://flags.
Under flags, users can experiment with new features, including a persistent dark mode and smooth scrolling tweaks – however, these could also have a detrimental effect on performance, so be aware.
Microsoft explained the changes and process in a video shared above to explain why they are doing this and how it will benefit end-users.
For those on Android, you can go ahead and download the Edge Canary version and still keep the regular release installed as well. The Canary build can be set as default, but as the name implies, this is an early look, and there will likely be some bugs.
Thanks, @Leopeva64, for the tip!
A worthy browser.
The new Microsoft Edge Canary runs on Chromium, supports popular extensions, and regularly gets new features from Microsoft. This latest version matches the desktop Edge browser.
