After announcing vertical tabs nearly a year ago, Microsoft is finally bringing the feature to the stable version of its Edge browser this month.
According to The Verge, vertical tabs will arrive for all users later in March. It’s worth noting that the feature is available in other Edge ‘channels,’ like Beta, Dev or Canary, if you want to try it out right away.
Vertical tabs adds a button to the top left corner of the browser to toggle between the typical horizontal tab bar that runs along the top of the browser to a vertical tab bar that runs down the left side. While some may not see the benefit of vertical tabs, they’re an excellent option for users who want to maximize space on a screen with less vertical room. Plus, a vertical list of tabs helps tab hoarders since it’s easier to scroll through and read all the open tabs on your device.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s current implementation is a bit lacklustre. Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the current vertical tabs layout is that it actually uses more space than horizontal tabs. When you switch to the vertical tabs layout, Edge doesn’t reduce the area along the top of the browser where the horizontal tabs usually reside.
Instead, users end up with a nearly-empty bar taking up precious pixels along the top of the browser. Hopefully, Microsoft adjusts Edge’s vertical tab layout to remove that empty horizontal bar in a future update.
Microsoft also plans to improve the startup experience in Edge later this month. A new ‘startup boost’ feature aims to make Edge launch 41 percent faster after rebooting your PC.
In a blog post about Edge, Microsoft executive Liat Ben-Zur wrote that “initial tests show startup times improve from 29 to 41 percent with this feature.”
On top of that, the company is adding a new history view this month. Users will be able to access a new drop-down history panel and even pin it to the side of the browser.
Finally, Microsoft announced some changes coming to Bing search results in Edge. Recipe results will soon include better visuals, while large topics will aggregate visual results into an infographic. Microsoft says these will changes will roll out in the U.S in the “coming weeks.”
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