Microsoft finally drops support for legacy Edge browser, will be erased from PCs with April update

If you use the older version of Microsoft's Edge browser than came with Windows 10, it's time to update to the faster, modern and secure version of Edge - or a competitor like Mozilla Firefox.

Microsoft's old and outdated Edge browser is finally being retired in April. (Microsoft)

Users of Microsoft's older Edge browser now have a deadline to switch to the company's updated, improved Edge builds based on Google's Chromium engine. Support for the browser that is now called Edge ‘Legacy' has ended as of March 9, so users must switch to a newer browser immediately as no new security fixes will be provided. 

Starting with the April Windows 10 update, Microsoft will get rid of the older Edge Legacy browser and replace it with the new Chromium-based Edge browser, the Verge reports. This should reduce the clutter on older devices with limited storage and system resources. Users will have the option to continue using the new browser to switch to another one like Mozilla's Firefox.

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This move will also reduce the number of web rendering engines down to three major ones with the end of support for the EdgeHTML engine. The top three browser engines will now be Google's Blink engine, Apple's WebKit engine, and Mozilla's Gecko engine.

Microsoft built the legacy version of Edge to ship with its Windows 10 release, which was supposed to replace the company's ancient Internet Explorer browser. However, since many old websites did not work properly in Edge, Microsoft was forced to keep Internet Explorer around, to allow older apps to present login screens and for other compatibility reasons.

The company also released a new version of the Edge in January 2020 after it was tested for over a year. This new version was based on Google's popular Chromium browser engine and gave the browser several new features and improved both safety and performance. Edge also saw its market share rise, at the cost of Firefox, which has dropped further.

However, this means that Windows 10 users have had three browsers from the company installed on their PCs, Internet Explorer, Edge Legacy and the new Edge browser. Not only would this be confusing to users, but Microsoft would also have to spend a considerable amount of resources and manpower to patch and secure one extra legacy browser. This is why the company has decided to end support and remove the Edge browser from Windows in a future update.