Microsoft Edge is the shiny, new browser that’s meant to take over Internet Explorer. Fast, responsive and simple, it aspires to be your browser of choice in Windows 10. Should you decide to give it a try, you need to do a bit of transition: importing your bookmarks, customizing the settings, and more. We’ll show you.
How To Import Your Internet Explorer Favorites And Bookmarks
If you made the upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and 8.1, your favorites and bookmarks from Internet Explorer should have carried over during the migration process.
To import them into Edge, go to More Actions (the three-point icon) > Settings > Import Favorites From Another Browser. Tick the Internet Explorer checkbox (as well as other checkboxes of other browsers, if you want) before you click Import.
To see all the imported favorites and bookmarks, go to Hub (list icon) and then Favorites.
How to Set A Custom Home Page
You probably have a favorite website that you visit often. In that case, you may want to set it as your custom home page. Go to More Actions > Settings > View Advanced Settings. Switch on the Show The Home Button toggle, and type the URL of your favorite website in the text field.
How To Customize Your New Tab Page
Go to More Actions > Settings. Click on the Open New Tabs With listbox. You have three options for your new tabs. You can opt to display thumbnails of your top sites (i.e., your frequently visited sites), your top sites plus some suggested content, or just a blank page.
How To Change The Default Search Engine
Just as Microsoft made Edge the default browser of Windows 10, it set Bing as the default search engine. Bing is nice and all, but most people probably prefer something else.
To make a different search engine as the default, go to More Actions > Settings > View Advanced Settings. Scroll down, click the Search In the Address Bar With listbox, select another search engine, and click the Add As Default button.
If you’ve never used Microsoft Edge before, there’s nothing to see in that list yet. First, you must personally visit the websites of search providers and use their search engines. Only search engines that support the OpenSearch technology are added to the list. Examples include DuckDuckGo, Google, Wikipedia.org and Yahoo.
Microsoft Edge beats Internet Explorer in many ways, including performance, security and user interface. But if for some reason you still feel like Internet Explorer is the better of the two, the browser still exists in Windows 10. Just tell Cortana to “launch Internet Explorer.” Or maybe you think both browsers by Microsoft just don’t cut it, in which case there are plenty of other browsers you can choose.
