Last month, Microsoft officials said they’d release a preview of the new Chromium-based Edge browser for Linux some time in October. On October 20, Microsoft made good on the promise, making available the Edge Dev Channel build for Linux.
The new release supports Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE Linux distributions. Microsoft is planning to release weekly builds, like it does with the Dev Channel builds for other platforms.
To get started, users can download and install a .deb or .rpm package directly from the Edge Insider site, which will configure a system to get future automatic updates. Or users can install Edge from Microsoft’s Linux Software Repository. More detailed instructions are available on Microsoft’s Chredge-on-Linux blog post.
Officials announced the planned Chromium-based Edge (aka Chredge) on Linux release date on Sept. 22, the opening day of its virtual Ignite 2020 IT Pro conference.
Microsoft already supports the new Edge browser on Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10, as well as on macOS. Microsoft is including the new Edge browser as part of its Windows 10 20H2 feature update, which began rolling out to mainstream users today, October 20. (It also rebranded its browsers on iOS and Android so they share the same logo as Chredge.)
As it did when introducing the new Edge on macOS, Microsoft is positioning Edge on Linux as more of an offering for IT pros and developers who want to test web sites than as a browser for “normal” users on those platforms. However, any user on any supported platform can use the new Edge.
