Microsoft is planning a change for Edge so that the browser can remain open when the last tab is closed.
If you currently only have one tab left in an Edge window, the app will also close itself when you close that tab.
With the new option – which leaker Leopeva64 discovered while testing in the Canary version of the browser – Edge will no longer close when that last tab is closed. Instead, a default tab opens in its place (NTP or New Tab Page), which keeps the browser active.
Microsoft is testing an option that will cause controversy: when you click the “close” button of the last opened tab, the browser does not close, but switches to the NTP:https://t.co/h0pW7h3jRr.https:/ / t.co/4gEvLmj8Nt pic.twitter.com/qSNJd8h8g1December 11, 2023
You can see the new scheme in action in Leopeva64's tweet above.
Essentially, Edge becomes like the Terminator. You can kill that last tab, but it keeps coming back to life.
Analysis: If it's a choice, there's no real controversy…
Why would you want that to happen? Well, a lot of people do that, as Leopeva64 notes further down the thread of that tweet, and this is the default behavior (or at least an option) for closing the last tab in some of the best web browsers (not Google Chrome, mind you). on ).
The reasoning is that not having a choice about what happens when closing that last tab confuses the workflow of some people, who even go out of their way to install an extension to make sure that the browser window does not close with the last tab.
Other people subscribe to the view that it makes sense for the browser to close when you close that last tab, and that makes sense as well. And that if Edge keeps coming back, it seems as if it refuses to leave your desktop, so to speak.
But to be fair, you can just close the browser as always using the big 'X' icon at the top right. And the point is really to give people a choice as to how they want Edge to act in this last tab scenario.
On that note, there is currently no switch to change the behavior, although Leopeva64 says they are confident Microsoft will implement one. That will certainly be the case, and the only reason it isn't present at the moment is that we are still in the early stages of testing.
If Edge's behavior of not closing when the last tab is dismissed is forced as the only way things work, it will inevitably get a few noses out of hand. Mind you, this assumes the feature will make it to the release version of Edge – Microsoft could still abandon the idea, of course.