EDGE

Microsoft’s campaign to get millions of Chrome and Firefox users to switch to Edge continues, but there aren’t many new features—things like the redesign of the threedot menu that now groups icons, and a new look for its settings page. There are controls for autoplaying media, including blocking them, but you can also manage them on a per-site basis, and you can turn off Flash content.

Edge tabs now appear in the Alt-Tab task switcher, and your most commonly visited sites appear in a Jump List when you right-click the Edge icon on the Taskbar. There’s now dictionary lookup if you highlight a word in the PDF viewer or in Reading View, and there are new page color themes for the latter, while the former gets an “Add Notes” option on its toolbar, which can now also be pinned open.

A lot of the cosmetic changes are down to Edge taking on Microsoft’s Fluent Design philosophy, which is meant to be the future of Windows in the same way Aero was a while ago. This means shadow effects and content layering to give apps depth, an emphasis on color, animation, and standardization of UI sizes, so things aren’t too big for mouse users or too small for touchscreen fiddlers. Fluent Design is also making its way to Xbox One, with an overhaul of the interface, and should lead to prettier apps now that most PCs have the horsepower to display them.