Hands on with Microsoft's Project Spartan browser: touch support is lacking and extensions aren't yet available, but annotations and Cortana impress
A closer look at Project Spartan, Microsoft's Internet Explorer killer — The Spartan army was the centrepiece of an ancient Greek city-state …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft has moved fast on Project Spartan since the first Cortana and stylus-annotation leaks in January: a new EdgeHTML rendering engine built from scratch, Microsoft's confirmation that extensions are coming, and the first Windows 10 preview shipping with Spartan at the end of March. This hands-on is the first real verdict on whether any of it works.
The review lands in the gap between promise and product: the assistant features hold up, while touch handling and the still-missing extension layer show how far the Internet Explorer replacement is from daily-driver status.
First-order effects
- Early testers get a browser whose annotation tools and Cortana integration work well enough to be called impressive, but weak touch support makes it hard to recommend on the tablets and hybrids Windows 10 targets.
- Users and developers evaluating Spartan today have to do so without extensions, a feature Microsoft has already confirmed is coming but which isn't available at review time.
Second-order effects
- Until extensions ship, Chrome and Firefox keep their practical lock on users who depend on add-ons, forcing Spartan to compete purely on Cortana and annotation features that rivals don't bundle.
- The missing extension story pressures Microsoft to make good on its confirmed roadmap quickly — the May coverage of Edge's extension plans shows the follow-through already in motion.
Third-order effects
- If Cortana-in-the-browser proves sticky, the browser stops being just a page renderer and becomes an assistant surface — a structural shift toward assistants living inside the browsing experience rather than beside it.
- A from-scratch engine replacing Internet Explorer signals Microsoft treating the browser as rebuildable infrastructure rather than legacy compatibility baggage, resetting what its browser competes on going forward.
The trend: Browsers are evolving from document renderers into assistant-driven platforms, and Microsoft's Spartan is the first big-vendor attempt to ship that shift inside Windows itself.