Microsoft only gave us a glimpse at Windows 10 earlier this year. It has an event scheduled in the near future where we are going to hear more about the consumer version of this new software. Some of the things that most are curious about include Cortana integration and upgrades to Internet Explorer. A new report suggests that those upgrades notwithstanding, Microsoft is also working on an entirely new internet browser for Windows 10.
According to ZDNet, Microsoft is building a new browser by the codename Spartan, and multiple sources confirm to the scribe that this isn’t IE12. Its a completely new browser that’s being built from the ground up on Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident rendering engine.
So Spartan is believed to be a new light-weight browser that’s currently under development. It is said to look and feel a lot like Chrome and Firefox, two of the most popular browsers out there, and support for extensions has also been rumored.
Windows 10 is reportedly going to ship with both Internet Explorer and the browser codenamed Spartan, the former is expected to stick around only for backwards compatibility. The Spartan browser is likely going to make its way to mobile versions of Windows 10 as well, which will power smartphones and tablets.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Spartan turns out. Internet Explorer has long been mocked, often considered as a browser that people use to download other web browsers on a new Windows PC, so it would be nice for once to see Microsoft up its browser game.
No word as yet if Microsoft has any plans of offering Spartan on other platforms, particularly mobile, like iOS and Android.