By Angela Moscaritolo - PC Magazine




Heads up, Internet Explorer fans. Microsoft's Web browser might soon be a thing of the past.

According to ZDNet, Redmond is working on a brand new browser for Windows 10 with an experience similar to Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome. Forget Internet Explorer 12; this will be something entirely new.

Codenamed Spartan, the new "light-weight" browser will use Microsoft's Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident rendering engine (as opposed to WebKit), ZDNet's sources say. But Internet Explorer isn't going away completely.

"Windows 10 (at least the desktop version) will ship with both Spartan and IE 11," ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley wrote in the report. The new browser will be available for both desktop and mobile devices running Windows 10.

One detail still up for debate — what Microsoft will call the new browser. At this point, Spartan is just a codename, and it's likely Microsoft will change the moniker before the browser's debut, but there's no word on what it might be called.

Microsoft has yet to make any announcements about Spartan, and declined to comment when contacted by PCMag, noting that it has "nothing to share."

Microsoft is hosting a press event on Jan. 21, where it is expected to provide more information about the consumer version of Windows 10, so perhaps we will get more Spartan details then.