Microsoft is working on a new feature for the Edge web browser for users to get a "minimal state experience." It will achieve this by making the toolbar experience minimal. The software giant is currently testing the features with select users in Edge Canary Channel.
As described by Microsoft, a "minimal toolbar experience" will include a change where the profile icon will be moved to the title bar. Microsoft did not mention other changes it would bring, but it is likely that the change will also affect the Favorites bar. It may disable or hide the Favorites bar until the "minimal toolbar experience" is disabled.
As things stand now, Microsoft Edge allows you to enable/disable full-screen mode, but it is unlike what the legacy Edge offered. Entering full-screen mode in old Edge would mean you were shown only the web page and nothing else, whereas, in the Chromium Edge, it"s just a larger window occupying the entire space of your display.
However, it seems that the "minimal toolbar experience" does not promise to hide everything except the webpage. Instead, it is reportedly aiming to build a less cluttered toolbar and perhaps to provide more screen space. Currently, it is available behind a flag called Microsoft Edge minimal toolbar experience.
Upon searching for the flag in Edge Canary, we did not see anything which suggests that Microsoft could be testing the functionality with select users. However, Leopeva64-2 was one of the users that got lucky enough to get their hands on it (via Reddit).
If you are not seeing the flag despite running the latest Edge Canary update, you can customize the toolbar from the browser Settings page. You can, among other things, disable the Favorites bar in the toolbar.
Microsoft did well last month by attracting more people to use Edge. According to a Statcounter report, Microsoft Edge"s market share climbed back past 11%—11.09% (+0.11 points) in January. With Microsoft adding useful functionalities to the browser at a steady pace, Edge will hopefully gain more market share in the coming months.