Why Chrome Beats Internet Explorer and Edge

Microsoft’s browsers both have big problems. Internet Explorer is old and outdated–so much so that Microsoft is intent on phasing it out. It doesn’t support the latest browser features, it can be quite slow, and its browser add-on framework is clunky.

Microsoft Edge is the Microsoft’s successor to Internet Explorer, a big new browser included with Windows 10. Despite its new name, though, which is meant to distance itself from Internet Explorer’s reputation, Edge has its own serious issues. It launched without important features–Edge still doesn’t support browser extensions and won’t until Windows 10’s Anniversary Update is released. Edge can hopefully get a jump start on its extension library by being mostly compatible with Chrome extensions, but it’ll still take some time for it to catch up. Edge is also based on Microsoft’s new “Universal Windows Platform” instead of the old Win32 desktop application platform. This has given Edge some serious teething and performance problems. This also means Edge won’t work on older versions of Windows, so Windows 7 users can’t even think about using it–they’ll need to switch to Chrome to get a modern browser.

Unlike Edge, Chrome is a mature piece of software complete with the years of interface refinement that Edge lacks. It’s a modern browser that runs on all widely used versions of Windows, including Windows 7. It offers speedy performance and compatibility with the latest browser and website features. If has a wide variety of browser extensions that developers have been refining for years. It offers browser sync, so you can easily synchronize your bookmarks and other information between the Chrome browser on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android phones. Chrome is also widely supported–in fact, Chrome is arguably better supported by websites and web developers than Microsoft Edge is.

Chrome won’t work if you require Internet Explorer to access an old website that requires Internet Explorer 6 or ActiveX controls, but most modern websites are likely to work better with Chrome. You’ll still need IE for some older sites–this is why IE is still included on Windows 10, even though Microsoft is pushing Edge.

There are other browsers you can choose besides Chrome, of course–some people swear by Mozilla Firefox, although it still doesn’t offer multi-process and a secure sandbox to better take advantage of modern CPUs and protect against malicious websites. Mozilla is working on it, but those are some big reasons we prefer Chrome and use it ourselves.