After embracing the Chromium engine for Edge, Microsoft is gradually expanding the number of platforms the browser is available for.
Starting off as a Windows 10 browser and then spreading to macOS, there is currently talk of Linux being in Microsoft’s sights. For now, however, it is Windows 7 and 8 users who are the latest to have Microsoft Edge available as a browser option.
If you’re running Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, Chromium-based Microsoft Edge is available for you right now. This will be welcomed by many, but for now it is only a Canary build — that is, an early development version that may be too unstable to use as a daily browser.
Microsoft says that this latest release means that “developers and users alike can try out the next version of Microsoft Edge on every major desktop platform”.
Writing about the Windows 7 and Windows 8.x version of Edge, the team behind the browser says:
You will find the experience and feature set on previous versions of Windows to be largely the same as on Windows 10, including forthcoming support for Internet Explorer mode for our enterprise customers.
Delivering the next version of Microsoft Edge to all supported versions of Windows is part of our goal to improve the web browsing experience for our customers on every device, and to empower developers to build great experiences with less fragmentation. Microsoft Edge will have the same always up-to-date platform and the same developer tools on all supported versions of Windows and macOS. This will reduce developer pain on the web, while ensuring all Windows customers have the latest browsing options.
As this is a Canary channel build, it should come as no surprise that there are known issues — no dark mode support and no support for AAD sign-in, for instance — but this will change as development continues.
You can download the browser from the Microsoft Edge Insider website.