Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge browser quietly adds Google to search providers, native Translator coming soon

Damien Wilde | Apr 15 2019 - 5:07 am PT

Microsoft’s brand new Chromium-based Edge browser might finally gain some ground in the battle to remain relevant in the web search space. The problem is that Microsoft seems to be cherry-picking features to remove, much to the disappointment of users.

While we are still in the preview or beta stage of the browser’s life-cycle, it does give Microsoft the ability to tweak and make amends. The sole search provider and default is still Microsoft’s own Bing.

A recent update though to the Canary version of Edge Chromium now includes Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and, of course, Bing (via TechDows).

The process of changing your default browser remains the same. Should you want to use any of the three new search provider options, you’ll need to visit the search engine homepage. Then head to Privacy and Services to set your default search provider.

Another upcoming inclusion that is much needed is an in-built translation feature via the Microsoft Translator.

With Google Chrome already integrating Google Translate services, Microsoft not having any in-built translation system does seem a little inconvenient at the moment. That said, upcoming releases of the Edge Canary build will get the native browser-based Microsoft Translator very soon.

There will also be an option within Edge’s settings to “Offer to translate pages that aren’t in a language you read” within the Languages Settings (via Techdows). Should you not want the feature, you’ll be able to disable it completely and manually translate pages accordingly.

As it does in Chrome, the new Edge browser will display an icon in the address bar to show that a page can or has been translated. Edge will also ask to translate foreign language pages to the default language set in your browser.