Microsoft has started exploring deeper YouTube integration in its Edge browser. A new “followable web” feature built into Canary’s developer Edge releases makes it simple to follow your favourite YouTube video providers.
In the address bar of YouTube pages, a new “follow” button appeared, as discovered by Reddit user Leopeva64.
The following creators will add them to a feed that is part of the Collections functionality of Edge. Looks like the feature is in the early preview phases and is not yet supported by all YouTube content publishers. You can see the most recent posts from the creators you follow in the feed you create in Collections.
This tighter connectivity with YouTube is expected to extend to other portions of the web. With Microsoft Edge Follow Web, users will be able to keep up with the most recent content from their favourite blogs and authors, similar to Google Chrome’s experimental feature. This is simply an RSS addon within Chrome and includes a follow button. Microsoft is only testing this new Edge capability with a restricted group of Edge Canary testers, as part of what the firm calls “managed deployments.” As a result, the software giant hasn’t formally outlined its ambitions for the web tracking feature in Edge, but we hope to learn more about this modern RSS feed in the coming weeks.
Edge puts RSS feeds to the test
As mentioned The Verge, it is probable that Microsoft would start testing these types of functionalities with YouTube, for convenience, before exploiting them on other platforms and websites. This capability recalls in any event the notion of RSS feeds that Google has already employed on Chrome, to allow users to review the latest content from a blog (for example) as soon as they are released.
As part of its “controlled deployments,” Microsoft is putting Edge’s new web tracking function to the test. Microsoft has not yet disclosed details regarding a larger-scale deployment of this new browser, but it would be unusual if the firm did not give us more information in the coming weeks. In the interim, it will be a question of enriching and improving these basic basis, before launching this capability in full and due form… while making it compatible with platforms other than YouTube.
About Microsoft’s Web browser, Edge
Developed by Microsoft, Microsoft Edge is a multimedia-rich web browser. Microsoft Edge was launched in 2015 with Windows 10 (Android and iOS), 2017 for Windows 10 (Windows One), 2020 for Linux, Windows 7 (Windows Server 2008 R2), and the newest versions. Unlike IE, this browser isn’t backwards compatible with Windows Vista or earlier versions of Windows.
Chromium Based Edge has replaced Internet Explorer (IE), on Windows 11, as the default browser (to integrate to Google Chrome) (to integrate to Google Chrome).
Edge was initially constructed using a Microsoft EdgeHTML-based browser and its JavaScript engine. Microsoft has renamed it to Microsoft Edge Legacy for the time being.
In December 2018, Microsoft announced intentions to use the V8 and Blink engines to rework the Chromium-based browser. While development, Microsoft Edge was made available to Windows 7/8/8.1/10 users as well as those running macOS (renamed Anaheim).
Here’s a video for you if you are more of a visual person: