In 2020, Microsoft launched its new and “revamped” Edge browser called Edge Chromium, which, as the name suggests, is based on Google’s Chromium browser. This took browser enthusiasts by storm since Microsoft has always compared its old Edge browser to Chrome and how it’s better than Chrome in terms of speed and RAM consumption.
Fast forward to 2021, according to Netmarketshare, over 7% of the users worldwide use Edge Chromium. The browser was only available for Windows and Mac until five days ago when Microsoft made the Edge Chromium Dev and Beta channels accessible for Linux users. In this article, let’s look at how to install Edge Chromium Beta on Linux.
Install Edge Chromium Beta On Linux
Installing Edge Chromium Beta On Ubuntu/Ubuntu-based Distros
The easiest way to install Edge Chromium Beta on Linux if you’re using Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based distros is –
1. Visit the official Microsoft Edge Insider website from your Linux machine.
2. Download the .deb file by clicking on the download button. Wait until the download is complete.
3. Double-click on the downloaded .deb file and click on Install.
4. And, finally, find the Edge Chromium Beta in the apps menu.
Install Using Terminal
You can also add the official PPA so that you wouldn’t need to visit the download page each time a new version is released. Copy and paste the following commands in your terminal and hit enter.
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg
sudo install -o root -g root -m 644 microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-edge-beta.list'
sudo rm microsoft.gpgNow, type the following commands to install Edge Chromium Beta.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install microsoft-edge-betaInstalling Edge Chromium On Fedora And OpenSUSE
1. Visit the official Microsoft Edge Insider website (Link above).
2. Download the Edge Chromium Beta .rpm package.
3. After it’s downloaded, click to open it and click on Install.
Install On Fedora Using The Terminal
1. Import and add the repo and packages.
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/edge
sudo mv /etc/yum.repos.d/packages.microsoft.com_yumrepos_edge.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/microsoft-edge-beta.repo2. Finally, use the following command to install Install Edge Chromium Beta on Fedora.
sudo dnf install microsoft-edge-betaInstall On OpenSUSE Using The Terminal
1. Import and add the repo and packages.
sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo zypper ar https://packages.microsoft.com/yumrepos/edge microsoft-edge-beta2. Use this command to install Microsoft Edge Chromium Beta on OpenSUSE.
sudo zypper install microsoft-edge-betaInstalling Edge Chromium Beta On Arch/Arch-Based Distros
There are two ways of installing Edge Chromium on Arch.
- Using the Yay AUR Helper
- Compiling the app yourself
Let’s look at how to install using both methods.
1. Using The Yay AUR Helper
You can install Edge Chromium Beta on Arch Linux using Yay, but if you don’t have it, here’s how to install Yay on Arch.
1. Fire up the terminal on your Arch machine and install “base-devel.“ For starters, the base-devel contains all the tools needed to build packages.
sudo pacman -S base-devel2. Type the following command and hit enter.
sudo pacman -S yay3. Yay should now be installed.
4. Now, to install Edge Beta using Yay, type this command.
yay -S microsoft-edge-beta5. When it asks “Packages to cleanBuild,” type the letter A and hit enter, and when “diffs” is asked, type N and hit enter.
6. Wait for the installation to complete and you’ll now find Edge Chromium in the apps list.
2. Compiling The App Yourself
Now, I know this sounds nothing less than rocket science, but it’s by far the easiest way of installing an app compared to other distros.
1. To compile the app, you’ll need to have Git installed. Type the following command to install Git on Arch.
sudo pacman -S git2. Now, head over to the Arch User Repository (AUR). Your one-stop destination for finding all kinds of app packages.
3. In the search bar on the top right corner, start typing “microsoft” until you see some suggestions. From those, click on “microsoft-edge-beta-bin.”
4. Copy the Git clone URL and head over to the terminal.
5. In the terminal, type “git clone” (excluding the commas, of course), followed by pasting the link you copied in the previous step and hit enter.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/microsoft-edge-beta-bin.git
6. cd into the microsoft-edge-beta-bin folder.
cd microsoft-edge-beta-bin7. Finally, copy and paste the following command in the terminal and hit enter.
makepkg -si8. Now, give it some time to compile, and after it’s done, the Edge Chromium icon should show up in the app menu.
Wrapping Up
So, that’s pretty much it in this guide. Do you daily drive Edge Chromium? If yes, then how has your experience been? Let us know.
Do you think Microsoft has succeeded in building the best browser, or are they still way behind Chrome or other Chromium-based browsers? Don’t forget to share your feedback in the comments section below.
