Microsoft Edge has got a new feature called Edge bar in the latest update. The new feature allows you to pin a sidebar, where you can look at the latest updates while surfing the internet. You can also search on Bing using the search bar in Edge bar. In this guide, you’ll learn how to enable Edge bar in Windows.
For me, this feature is a gimmick since it needed all the extensions to be disabled, which was quite weird. However, I disabled all of them for the sake of trying it out. Below, I’m mentioning the drawbacks of this feature in MS Edge:
The Good:
- You can pin it vertically or horizontally
- Take a look at latest updates right away
- Check Weather information at a glance
- Auto hide (which rarely works)
- Access to quick web search
The Bad:
- You can only search on Bing, can’t change default search engine
- It seems a bit unstable, since I noticed glitches
- You’ve to disable all extensions in your browser to use this feature, weird
How to enable Edge bar?
Follow the steps given below to enable Microsoft Edge bar in your Windows OS:
Go to Settings>Edge bar
Open Microsoft Edge settings and search for Edge bar. If it appears in the settings search, click on it. Otherwise, you need to update your Microsoft Edge browser in order to get this feature.
Click on ‘Open Edge bar,’ and a sidebar will appear
Customize your Edge bar accordingly from the given Settings
You can close the Edge bar from the X mark on the upper right corner
Or you can turn it off by right-clicking the taskbar icon and selecting Quit.
Remember, this feature is different from Bing sidebar search, which looks like this, side by side Edge bar enabled:
If the Edge bar is disabled, an extension might be causing this. In my case, I had to disable all of the extensions to make it work. Edge bar also offers a Mac Spotlight search-like layout called ‘Search only layout.’ In addition, you can also enable a floating button from the Settings shown below.
For me, it’s not worth it to disable all my extensions and use the Edge bar just for searching and a glance at the latest updates from particular websites. However, if you don’t use extensions and find the Edge bar useful, it’s probably for you. So, try it out.
