Microsoft Edge Gets New Themes, Features to Boost Productivity and Browser Performance

Microsoft Edge has got a bunch of new themes and features that boost productivity as well as browser performance. To mark the browser's first-year anniversary, Microsoft says that it has created 24 new themes allowing users to personalise their browsers. The company says it will add more themes over time. The sidebar search is now generally available in Microsoft Edge, allowing users to quickly search answers of their queries. Microsoft Outlook also gets a deeper integration with the browser. Users can also sync browser histories on desktop and mobile.

Microsoft Edge new themes, revamped icons

As per a blog post by Microsoft, users can now apply themes to the Microsoft Edge browser. The company says that it has created 24 new themes to personalise the browser, with more coming over time. The team also partnered with Xbox to offer themes from franchises including Halo, Gears of War, Forza, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, among others.

Microsoft Edge also allows users to use different themes for different accounts. You can choose to use a funky theme on your personal account, and a sophisticated one on your work account to jazz up your browser. Furthermore, users can also install themes from Chrome Web Store. Additionally, the icons also get a new look as Microsoft Edge incorporates elements of the company's Fluent design system. The icons are now rounder in appearance. “They are built from a consistent key-line and grid which allows for more visual consistency when scanning menus, lists, etc,” Microsoft says.

Sidebar search and Microsoft Outlook integration

Apart from the fresh look, Microsoft Edge has also got some updates to boost productivity. The first one is sidebar search that will now generally be available in the browser. This means that users won't have to navigate away from their current page, and can simply highlight a word, right click, and search. A side panel will open with the search results.

The second update brings a deeper Outlook integration with the browser. Microsoft says that starting this month, users will be able to see incoming emails directly from the new tab page of Microsoft Edge. There's a “smart tile” for Outlook where users can see their three most recent emails and also start a new email or meeting request in Outlook, directly from the new tab page.

Other features include the ability to sync history and tabs, in addition to favourites, passwords, and autofill information between desktop and mobile. To enable history and open tabs sync, users can go to Edge settings > profiles > sync and turn on the toggles. Furthermore, Automatic Profile Switching features will now be available on macOS later this month. The feature helps users keep work-browsing and personal-browsing activities separate by letting them quickly shift from one profile to another.

Sleeping tabs and password generator

Microsoft Edge has started rolling out a Sleeping Tabs feature that will use system resources from inactive tabs to the active ones. This feature is quite helpful when a user has several tabs opened at once that can slow down the system and clog up computer resources. Users can enable the Sleeping Tabs option from the browser settings menu. The company has also announced the password generator feature in the browser that will automatically suggest a secure password when a user is changing an existing password or signing up for a new online account. The browser will then automatically save the new password to its autofill settings.

Apart from this, Microsoft says Bing will now return comprehensive results on job openings, along with visually rich and summarised information on helpful resources like yoga, as well as recipes. Microsoft Edge now has knowledge cards on Microsoft Bing that provide quick, easy summaries of popular topics, that are “aggregated from multiple sources.”

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