Microsoft Edge Tips to Get Started (Beginner’s Guide)

Without a doubt, Microsoft Edge is a pretty powerful browser and a great alternative to Google Chrome. It has many great features and offers you a comfortable browsing experience. However, if this is your first time interacting with a browser, things may seem foreign to you. But don’t worry, as I’ve shared some tips to help you get started in our Beginner’s Guide to Microsoft Edge on Windows.

Microsoft Edge Tips to Get Started (Beginner’s Guide)

Here is a list of features to help you get started using Microsoft Edge if you’re switching from a different browser.

1. Go to dark mode
2. Install Chrome Extensions
3. Change default search engine
4. Managing your privacy settings
5. Save web content to collections
6. Add to favorites
7. Enable sleeping tabs
8. Make Edge Read to You
9. Read PDFs and books in full screen mode
10. View for reading

Anyone using the Edge browser should be able to use them all.

1] Go to dark mode

Dark mode is one of the popular features that any other app has, and the same goes for your Edge browser. The Edge browser allows you to change its appearance to dark or to any other color combination.

To change the appearance, you need to follow these steps:

• Launch Microsoft Edge, click the three dots icon in the top right corner, and select Settings.
• In Settings, click on the Appearance tab in the left pane.
• Choose a dark theme or choose any other theme and you’re done.

2] Install extensions for Microsoft Edge

You’re wrong if you think you’ll miss out on extensions after switching to Edge from Chrome. Microsoft supports Chrome extensions because the Edge browser is built on Chromium. As a result, it supports extensions from Google Chrome.

To install an extension, you need to go to Edge’s address bar, paste edge://extensions/ and press Enter. Then enable Allow extensions from other stores in the sidebar and you’re done.

Now on the same page below you will find the option to install extensions from the Chrome Web Store.

3] Change the default search engine

Since Edge was developed by Microsoft, it comes with its company’s Bing search engine by default. However, you may not like bing and want to change your default search engine to Google or whatever.

And you can easily change that by going to Settings > Privacy, Search & Services > Address Bar & Search. Then use the drop down menu to select Google or any other search engine of your choice.

4] Manage Privacy Settings in Microsoft Edge

Chromium comes with Google services and tracking. However, Microsoft has removed such services to some extent. In addition, Edge has introduced a new tracking prevention privacy feature.

As you already know, online attackers collect data about the sites you visit and, depending on it. You may see ads on different sites.

However, the Tracking Prevention feature prevents this. By default, the quality is set to balanced mode. But you can change it to basic or strict.

To change it, you need to go to Settings > Privacy, Search & Services > Enable Enhance Your Internet Security > Finally, select Balanced or Strict.

5] Saving Web Content in Collections

Do you have something to read but don’t have time for it? You can then add web pages to your collection. Edge allows you to create a collection of web pages, text snippets, and images. As a result, you save web pages in your collection to read them later.

To save a web page, you can follow these steps:

• First, visit the web page you want to save.
• Right-click a web page and select Add Page to Collection > Start New Collection.

The page will be added to your collection. You can now view your collection by clicking the collection icon in the top right corner.

6] Add to Favorites

You can save your favorite websites as favorites in Microsoft Edge. Plus, it’s pretty easy to mark any website as a favorite.

All you have to do is visit the website you wish to add to your favourites. Then click the launcher icon in the address bar to make the website a favourite.

7] Enable and configure sleep tabs

If you work with a lot of tabs, you’ll love the sleep tabs feature. Because too many things can hurt your browsing experience. Therefore, you can put some tabs to sleep so as not to affect your browsing experience.

Using the sleep tabs feature tells the browser to stop using system resource tabs that have been inactive for a certain period.

To enable this feature, you need to go to Settings > System and Performance > “Put inactive tabs to sleep after a specified period of time”to select the time frame.

8] Make Edge Read to You

Don’t feel like reading a web page, PDF or eBook? You then have Edge read the content of the page to you. All you need to do is open a web page or PDF, then right-click anywhere on the screen and select the Read Aloud option.

Edge will now start reading the content of the page. You can also change the voice and reading speed as you wish.

9] Read PDFs and books in full screen mode

If you use a browser to read PDFs or eBooks, you can read it in full screen using Edge. All you have to do is open the PDF file and press F11 and the browser will go full screen. Similarly, to exit full screen mode, you must press the F11 button.

10] View for Reading

Often we see websites with slow user interfaces or layouts that are not readable. In such a case, you can switch to read view. You need to click the book icon in the address bar and the web page will switch to read mode.

How to change the default browser in Windows?

• Go to the Windows search button, enter default applications and run it.
• Click Microsoft Edge in the list of available apps.
• Then click on all options like HTTP, MHT, WEBP and more and select Microsoft Edge.

That’s all. You have successfully changed the default browser in Windows.

So, these were some of the Microsoft Edge tips to help you get started with the browser. I hope these tips are helpful to you. If you have anything else to ask, please leave a comment below.