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Microsoft’s Edge Chromium browser will launch on January 15th with a new logo

Microsoft’s Edge Chromium browser will launch on January 15th with a new logo

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A release candidate is available to download today

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Microsoft is planning to release its Edge Chromium browser early next year with a new logo. The software maker is targeting January 15th as the release date for Edge Chromium, with availability for Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, and macOS. Microsoft is releasing what it calls a “release candidate” today, which should demonstrate most of the final work that will make it into the stable release in January.

It comes only a few months after Microsoft released the beta version of Edge, with a promise of a full release in early 2020. This new release candidate build will include sync support for passwords, history, favorites, and settings across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. It also includes Microsoft’s new built-in tracking protection, which is enabled by default.

Microsoft is also introducing a new logo and icon for Edge. While the previous version looked a lot like Internet Explorer, the newly designed logo looks more like a wave. It’s the first significant move away from the classic blue “e” logo that Microsoft has used for its browsers for more than 20 years. Microsoft revealed the new logo in an elaborate Easter egg hunt over the weekend.

Microsoft is also bringing some new business-focused features to Edge. You’ll be able to type in the address bar to find co-workers, office locations, floor plans for a building, and even get definitions for company acronyms. It’s all part of Microsoft Search in Bing, which is built into Edge. It’s designed to combine typical intranet searches into an interface where you can also search the web using Bing.

Microsoft is really targeting this January 15th Edge release date at businesses and corporate customers. “Today marks an important milestone as we head to the formal launch of Microsoft Edge and Bing for our commercial customers in January,” explains Yusuf Mehdi, head of Microsoft’s modern life, search and devices Group. “As we enter the new year, we are excited to share more about how we will expand opportunities for developers, and later in the Spring even more for consumers.”

You can download the new release candidate version of Microsoft Edge over at the company’s Edge Insider site.