Microsoft has released what is likely the most anticipated feature for Windows 10 in 2015, Spartan. The new browser comes with an updated UI, an overhauled engine under the hood and what will soon be a refreshed branding that puts Internet Explorer on the back burner.
To get your hands on Spartan, you will need to download the latest release of Windows 10 from Microsoft. You can do this by signing up to be a Windows Insider or if you already have Windows 10 installed, by updating your OS; you can learn more here.
Once updated, Spartan will be pinned to your taskbar and you can launch it from there. An interesting aside is that if you are performing a fresh install of Windows 10, IE will not be pinned to the taskbar and only Spartan will be pinned by default. IE 11 will still be present in the build but this marks the shift of Microsoft pushing users towards its new browser.
Spartan has a couple of items that we had previously highlighted when we got our hands on the browser a few weeks ago that include Cortana integration, reading mode and reading lists. In addition to these features, F12 dev tools are included as well and Inking support has been added too.
With inking support, you can write or type directly on the page and then share this "Web Note" (Microsoft"s term) via email or social media; you can also save them to OneNote as well.
Not everything is working though, Microsoft noted that the new download manager is not yet functional, extensions are still a work in process and offline reading for reading lists (and syncing) has yet to be turned on.
As with any piece of beta software, there will be bugs and features may not always work as expected. Keep that in mind as this is the first public iteration of Spartan but know that as we approach RTM, the browser will mature.