Microsoft Edge adds workaround to stay in sync with Google Chrome

Neat, but kind of pointless

Most of the best browsers out there pretty much work identically these days with almost no differences between them since many of them are based on Google's Chromium rendering engine. Microsoft Edge, in particular, has gotten pretty good since its switch to Chromium, even if Microsoft's efforts to get you to switch to it on Windows might get a little obnoxious occasionally. The company's latest attempt? A new feature that lets you have your Edge browser constantly synced up with your Chrome instance. Not just browsing data, either — pretty much everything.

As spotted by WindowsLatest and in a Reddit thread (via 9to5Google), Edge 104 Canary has added a new feature called "Import browser data from Google Chrome on each launch." We're sure we don't have to tell you what it does — that's pretty self-descriptive. The feature lets you select which items to import, with everything ranging from bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords, and cookies. It goes up to the point where you can even import both open tabs in Chrome and even actual browser settings from your Chrome instance to Edge. The company wants you to feel right at home by copying everything your usual browser has.

As for why you would use this feature, if you're planning a move from Chrome to Edge, it might come in handy. In fact, for that purpose, there was already such a migration tool. But then, what's new here is the "on each launch" component, and for that we're... not sure?

Because here's the thing: there are legit reasons why you might want to use two browsers interchangeably, but if you're doing that, you're likely using both for two different things — maybe one is for work, and the other is for personal browsing. That's okay. But this feature assumes you're using both browsers for identical purposes, and you want to keep them mirrored. And given Edge is based on Chromium now, there's really no reason, or advantage, to do that.

The feature should make its way to the mainline stable Edge release soon enough, though as with any feature spotted in a pre-release version, it's unclear if Microsoft will follow through with it as described, make substantial changes, or not ship it at all.