Microsoft has been very clear about its plans to retire Windows 10 this coming October. And while the company has slowly been changing its opinion on how end-of-life support for the operating system will work, a new development has revealed that Microsoft Edge, at least, will still get important updates for another three years.
According to an updated support document from Microsoft, the company plans to support its Edge browser with new updates until “at least October 2028.” For anyone who hasn’t been following the Windows 10 end-of-life saga, Microsoft plans to offer support for the OS with security updates until October 2028 with the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. A license to the ESU costs roughly $61. Thankfully, you won’t have to pay for the ESU license to get updates to Edge, as the documentation explains that Microsoft will offer updates to both Edge and WebView2 Runtime for no extra cost. Therefore, even if you don’t pick up an ESU license, you’ll still get updates for Edge.
Microsoft Edge users on Windows 10 are safe for now
Now, it is unclear whether updates to Edge includes big updates for new features — like the recent release of Copilot in Edge – but it does sound like this includes those updates, as well as ongoing official support. This is important news for anyone who plans to keep using Windows 10 and Edge beyond its end-of-life date in a couple of months.
You’ll need to be running the latest beta version or one of the most recent three stable builds of Microsoft Edge to be eligible for support. Still, anyone who uses Edge as their primary browser should be breathing a sigh of relief. Considering Microsoft’s unending reminders that Windows 10 is dying, at least we won’t have to worry about Edge dying alongside the aging OS just yet.
Despite having a rocky start when it first replaced Internet Explorer, Microsoft has turned Edge around, making it a solid Chromium-based browser that runs well while also bringing over many of the major features other browsers offer to the table. In fact, according to StatCounter, Edge remains the third most popular web browser on the market by a fairly wide margin.
