Microsoft has created three testing channels: the “coming soon” Beta, and the already available Developer and Canary. Canary is the preview channel for Chrome that sends out early preview updates daily. Elsewhere, the Developer channel will deliver Chromium Edge builds that are more stable through weekly updates. Finally, the Beta release channel would be machine-ready previews that you could run as your core browsing experience. If you run a Windows 7 (or indeed Windows 8, and 8.1 are also getting the preview) PC, it is already possible to install the Chromium Edge preview. You may remember a leak of the Edge preview last month, which allowed users to run the browser on Windows 7.
Edge on Windows 7
Bleeding Computer reports this ability has extended to the official release. Edge Dev and Canary users can access Chromium Edge on Win7, but the .exe files are hidden. This means when you visit the Edge Insider website you won’t see the installers. However, by visiting this download page, the installers are available and allow access from non-Windows 10 machines. In its report, Bleeding Computer points out its Chromium Edge tests on Windows 7 PCs worked. There were some limitations, such as being unable to watch Netflix videos. Unfortunately, no Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 PC testing was done, but we guess the installers will also work on that platform.
