Even if you later open that PDF in a different program, such as Adobe Reader, the edits are saved.Įdge is edgier than Google on privacy too, giving you the option to apply Basic, Balanced or Strict tracking controls when you first set up the browser. Most browsers have these now, but Edge’s allows you to highlight passages of text or scribble on the document (especially handy if your laptop has a stylus), then save those changes for later reference. Microsoft Edge also has an excellent built-in PDF reader. If you use Edge on your mobile device, Collections are synced too. It’s a brilliantly simple research tool and Edge retains the link to the original website, so you can go back and buy that dress or re-read the whole interview from which you spliced a quote. Collections is a great built-in Edge feature that allows you to drag images or snippets of text into a “collection” of, say, clothes you’d like to buy or artists you admire. It was one of the best decisions Microsoft has made in years, because it’s freed the developers from worrying about the nuts ‘n bolts of the browser engine to focus on great Chrome-beating features. Microsoft EdgeĮdge lets you curate collections of images and text Barry Collins/MicrosoftĪfter years of laboring with Internet Explorer and then its own Edge engine, Microsoft finally conceded defeat and shifted Edge to Chromium. Vivaldi is a hugely powerful browser that deserves more acclaim than it gets. Trackers and ads can be blocked in the browser, although nothing is blocked by default and Vivaldi gives you the option to exempt sites from the blocking. If you want browser tabs at the bottom of the screen, audio to be silenced by default, or the browser’s Dark Mode to kick in at a different time to your operating system’s, it’s all here. And if Vivaldi does something you don’t like, you can almost certainly change it, because its hugely customizable. Vivaldi has a huge array of features, far too many to mention here, but they don’t slow the browser down. You don’t even need to visit the site first. If you’ve got a favorite site you search frequently, you can assign it a letter (say ‘F’ for Forbes) and then type that letter into your address bar along with a search term to get search results from that site.

Custom searches are another great Vivaldi feature.

Browsers not based on chromium