Microsoft Edge browser: The fast, smart alternative to Chrome

When it comes to web browsing, speed and reliability can make or break your day. Both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome are robust and capable web browsers built on the same core technology, offering similar website compatibility and features.

Edge, your AI-powered browser, has evolved to the needs of web users today with AI-powered capabilities, to bring you a fast, more secure, and empowering web experience. Is it time to choose Edge over Chrome? Let's take a look.

Microsoft Edge vs. Chrome: the AI-powered advantage

While most browsers share a familiar interface, Microsoft Edge distinguishes itself with deep AI integration, offering several key advantages:

• Intelligent assistance: Microsoft Copilot, your AI companion, provides conversational search and productivity tools. Copilot helps you draft, summarize, and gather information directly within Edge, streamlining tasks like email writing and report reviews.
• AI-enhanced shopping: Edge helps with real-time price comparisons, automated coupon finding, and intelligent product summaries, all built-in.
• AI-enhanced gaming: Edge helps with quick access to game information and walkthroughs, eliminating the need for separate extensions.

Speed and efficiency: Get the edge you need

Microsoft Edge is designed for speed and efficiency through optimized resource management:

• Efficient resource use: Edge helps with memory and CPU management by prioritizing active tabs and employing sleeping tabs to suspend inactive ones, freeing up resources. This helps with fast page load speeds and overall performance, especially on resource-limited devices.
• Windows integration: As a Microsoft product, Edge integrates closely with Microsoft Windows, helping with performance benefits1.
• Performance optimization: Startup boost, sleeping tabs, and efficiency mode work in the background, and browser essentials help with performance monitoring and optimization.
• Battery efficiency: Sleeping tabs help save power, and Edge's battery-saving mode helps minimize background activity, helping to conserve laptop battery life 2.

AI art created via Copilot

Edge vs. Chrome: Resource consumption and features

When choosing a browser, resource consumption and built-in features are important:

• Lightweight performance: The optimized architecture of Edge helps with lower CPU load and overall resource consumption, providing a smooth experience, particularly on low-spec devices. Efficient resource allocation helps minimize slowdowns.
• Built-in productivity: Edge helps with advanced privacy controls, Immersive Reader (which helps remove clutter), Collections in Edge for content organization, and vertical tabs for efficient tab management, reducing the need for extensions.

Boosting productivity with Microsoft Edge

Edge enhances productivity through add-ons, Microsoft 365 integration, and AI tools:

• Add-on efficiency: Edge helps with smooth performance so that add-ons like Microsoft Translator, ad blockers, and password managers work efficiently. Edge manages resources, helping with background performance and preventing slowdowns.
• Microsoft 365 integration and AI tools: Edge provides quick access to Microsoft 365 apps and helps with streamlined workflows, such as dragging and dropping data between applications. Copilot, your AI companion, also helps boost productivity within the Microsoft 365 suite.

Final Verdict: Is it time to switch to Microsoft Edge?

In the Microsoft Edge vs. Chrome debate, Edge is a formidable contender, offering advantages with AI enhancements, efficient resource management, and seamless Microsoft 365 integration. Edge's built-in tools help reduce reliance on extensions. Is it time to switch? Try Microsoft Edge, your AI powered browser and see for yourself.

Source: Edge: The fast, smart alternative to Chrome | Microsoft Edge

6 Google Search Alternatives That Protect Your Privacy

Google is such a huge search engine, that the very act of searching for something on the net is often referred to as "googling" something. Yet, Google has become a service that not everyone likes for reasons of privacy and, in some cases, even accuracy.

With AI summaries that can be very wrong, search results that don't always seem to be in your best interest, and the prospect of being tracked for advertising, it's understandable to be hesitant. So if you no longer think Google is copacetic, here are some alternative sites that might suit your desire to protect your privacy.

6 - DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo
is quite possibly the most famous privacy-focused search engine, and happens to be the one I use when my internet rabbit hole searches take me to places I'd rather advertisers not know about.

Related

The only real downside is that DuckDuckGo gets its search results from Bing, acting as a sort of privacy filter for Microsoft's search index. So it's not a completely independent outfit. It's also worth noting that this engine is, of course, subject to US privacy laws. Some people prefer to use search engines based in countries with stricter or more favorable privacy laws, so knowing where an engine is based is important information.

Related

Stop Relying on Just Incognito Mode for Privacy

It doesn't make you anonymous, and won't stop you from being tracked.

5 - Startpage

Like DuckDuckGo, Startpage isn't an independent search engine, but acts as a privacy intermediary between you and another search engine. In this case, however, that engine is Google. Since Startpage is based in the EU, it's subject to strict GDPR laws and regulations.

Related

What is the GDPR Privacy Law and Why Should You Care?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new European Union law that takes effect today, and it's the reason you've been receiving non-stop emails and notices about privacy policy updates.

This means it offers an interesting mix of Google-quality search results, but strong personal privacy. So, really, the key downsides are that dependency on Google, and the potential for biased results. From a privacy perspective, however, it's good news so far.

4- Brave Search

Brave search is one of the newer entrants in the private search market, being launched in 2021 by Brave Software. The same company behind Brave Browser.

Related

Unlike DuckDuckGo and StartPage, Brave Search is actually a fully-independent search engine that does its own web crawling and indexing. It shows the same results to everyone, and is pretty much the closest thing to a neutral search engine in that regard. You can, however, use Goggles to effectively create your own search ranking biases in the form of a search filter.

3 - Mojeek

Mojeek is based in the UK, and it's not the biggest name in the business at the moment, but it also holds the distinction of offering a complete in-house search index that doesn't depend on big engines like Google or Bing. While you may not have heard of Mojeek, it was actually the first search engine to adopt a no-tracking policy back in 2006.

Related

Because there's no tracking of you and what you do or don't like, the search results are untainted by information about you. So, in theory you'll get the same results as anyone doing that search based on the keywords you've provided.

Just like Brave Search, the major drawback here is that Mojeek's search index may simply not live up to the likes of Google or Bing when it comes to search result quality.

2 - SearXNG

This makes it a little less user-friendly to use. The upside is that you can actually run your own private instance of SearXNG, or pick a public instance hosted somewhere that meets your needs.

When you submit a query to a SearXNG server, that server will then send your query to various search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc. Crucially, those external search engines see the request coming from the SearXNG server, not from you personally.

Because this is an open-source, community-driven project, the inner workings are entirely transparent and that's already a big boon from a privacy standpoint. The big downsides come from a lack of reliability and speed in some cases, and that you need to trust whoever sets up the instance you are using. So if you really want to get the best privacy from SearXNG it's best to host your own server.

1 - Qwant

Qwant is a French outfit launched in 2013 and from the outset aimed to be a private search engine that complied with European privacy laws. Qwant isn't totally independent, but it only falls back on Bing when its own indexes don't have the information requested.

Since its own indexes aren't quite ready for the full set of duties required, the results may not be as good as you can find elsewhere. Also, it's not open source, and has sadly been the subject of investigation and had to adjust it's practices after it became apparent that it wasn't fully anonymizing data as it should, but this has been rectified as far as I can tell.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/google-search-alternatives-that-protect-your-privacy/?

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