Browsing options in Windows 10

The two-browser strategy for Windows 10 isn’t a new idea. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 also included two browsers, one with the conventional Windows desktop interface and the other with a modern, touchfriendly design intended for full-screen use on

tablets. Despite the different designs, the two browsers shared a great deal of common code, most notably the Trident rendering engine, which has been at the core of Internet Explorer since its earliest days. Windows 10 also includes two browsers, each with a different design and different methods of user interaction. More importantly, though, Windows 10 includes two different rendering engines:  EdgeHTML (EdgeHTML.dll) is the new HTML viewer. Although its starting point was the original Trident engine, it has since diverged significantly. The new engine deliberately eliminates large chunks of legacy code designed to emulate older Internet Explorer versions, including the versioned document modes that determine how previous versions of Internet Explorer render a page. Although compatibility with standards is an important goal of EdgeHTML, interoperability is even more important: Microsoft says its developers have invested significant effort in EdgeHTML to help developers avoid having to deal with cross-browser inconsistencies.
CHAPTER 6         Web browsing and Windows 10         61 
 Trident (MSHTML.dll), the rendering engine that has been part of Internet Explorer for nearly two decades, will continue to be available as a stable, consistent web platform for use in Internet Explorer 11. Trident will continue to receive security and compatibility updates for all supported Windows platforms, including Windows 10, with new features and support for additional web standards being added exclusively in the new rendering engine.