The truth is that Microsoft is taking things very seriously with its new Edge . This new browser has been designed to replace the classic Edge and offer all users a completely renewed experience, even changing the engine to finally adopt Chromium. This new browser has been a revolution in the web browser market, and Microsoft made many promises about it. One of them was to bring Edge to all operating systems, including Linux. And finally, it seems that it has come true.
Today is being a great day for Microsoft. We first talked about the launch of the October 2020 Update, the new Windows 10 update for all users, and now it’s Edge’s turn. For a few hours, Microsoft has uploaded the latest version of its new Edge to its own repositories so that Linux users can now install and test this new web browser.
Install Edge on any Linux
Although initially we should be able to install this browser in any distribution, Microsoft has officially supported the four most used platforms: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE. In addition, the company advises that users of these distros will only be able to install (for now) the Dev version of the browser. Later will come the Canary, the Beta and, of course, the stable one, but, for now, we can only install this development version.
We can download the Edge DEB and RPM package for Linux from this link . However, if we prefer to install Edge on Linux from the repositories using the classic package managers, we can also do it by adding the repository manually. In the case of Ubuntu 20.04, what we would have to run in a terminal for this is:
curl -sSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-add-repository https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/20.04/prod && sudo apt-get update
Of course, we must indicate that the new Edge for Linux has a series of limitations, which we will see below.
Edge on Linux: what we should know
The first thing to keep in mind is that this Linux browser is not a stable version. We are facing a test version, specifically the DEV. Microsoft does not recommend that this be the version used by all users, rather it is intended for developers to create and test all types of applications and websites for Linux.
Some functions and services that we can find in Edge for Windows or macOS are not yet implemented in the Linux version of the operating system. Specifically, the use of Microsoft accounts , since this browser only works with local accounts in this operating system (for now), as well as all those functions that require a login, such as, for example, synchronize settings, favorites, etc. .
These functions will come later to this operating system, but, for now, we will not be able to have them.
Also, it is important to note that Microsoft has decided to include Edge for Linux in its Bug Bounty program. Developers who find vulnerabilities within this version will be able to report them and qualify for rewards from Microsoft to make their browser increasingly secure.