What you need to know
- A new "Edge for Gamers" setting has been spotted inside Microsoft's browser.
- Currently making an appearance in the Canary channel, the setting adds apps to the sidebar and automatically enables the toggle to improve the PC gaming experience.
- It doesn't yet appear to be available to everyone in the Canary channel, however.
Microsoft is going to continue to do everything it can to get people using the Edge browser (and honestly, it's a good browser), and it looks like gamers are the next target.
Spotted by Leopeva64 on Twitter (via BleepingComputer) it looks as though an "Edge for Gamers" setting is being tested right now in the Canary channel of Microsoft Edge.
There is a new 'Edge for Gamers' toggle on the Appearance page (Canary), after enabling it you are automatically redirected to the themes section of the Add-ons Store and the Discord and Twitch apps are also automatically added to the Sidebar: pic.twitter.com/6KWdpk2hPQMay 13, 2023
A few things seem to be happening when this is turned on. First, the themes section of Microsoft Addons is loaded up, presumably so you can personalize your browser with special gamer flare.
Shortcuts to the Twitch and Discord web apps are also automatically added into the Edge Sidebar. Obviously, you can do any of these things yourself already, but Microsoft is giving you a helping hand. Twitch is curious though since it currently seems to vanish as soon as you click into your main tab.
Beyond this it also seems to enable dark mode (if you're a monster that doesn't already use it) and turns on the PC gaming efficiency mode toggle. It's still early, so it's possible that more could be part of this as it rolls through the channels.
It also doesn't seem to be rolling out to everyone through the Canary channel. I installed it before writing this post to take a look and I don't see the new option, nor any flag to force it. So, it's also likely some kind of A/B test. Nevertheless, if you have Canary, dive in and look to see if you're one of the lucky ones. I'm curious to see what, if anything else gets added to this.
