User-Agent of Microsoft Edge on Xbox One with Windows 10

The latest Xbox One update brings Windows 10 to Xbox and drags the Microsoft Edge 13 web browser with it as the replacement for Internet Explorer. I’ve had a chance to look at the new browser.

The browser looks and behaves exactly like Internet Explorer for Xbox did. There are no visual changes other than the rebranding at this time, but that may change closer to release. The browser engine has, however, received significant upgrades under the hood and now uses the new EdgeHTML layout engine (despite pretending to be WebKit) and Chakra JavaScript engine.

Here is the User-Agent of Xbox One version 10.0.10553 with Windows 10:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; Xbox; Xbox One) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/46.0.2486.0 Safari/537.36 Edge/13.10553

Note that the Windows build number (10553) is included with the Edge component version number in the User Agent. The Xbox also reveals its 64-bit architecture and adopts the usual User-Agent “compatibility lies” including masquerading as Google Chrome and Apple Safari; which is the same behavior we can observe in its Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile counterparts.

For comparison, here’s the old User-Agent for Internet Explorer 11 on Xbox One version 6.2.13332.0 with Xbox OS:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 11.0; Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; Xbox; Xbox One)

Windows NT 6.3 in the above User-Agent refers to the same Windows kernel as used with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 RC 2.

It’s hard to say anything about performance between Internet Explorer and Edge on the Xbox as every comprehensible browser benchmark test will crash both versions before gathering any usable results. What I can say is that I definitely perceive scrolling and zooming to be smoother and more responsive in Edge.

For completeness, here are the User-Agent of both of the Xbox’s two main competitors in the game console market:

PlayStation 4 System Update 3.0:

Mozilla/5.0 (PlayStation 4 3.00) AppleWebKit/537.73 (KHTML, like Gecko)

Nintendo Wii U system version 5.5.0:

Mozilla/5.0 (Nintendo WiiU) AppleWebKit/536.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) NX/3.0.4.2.11 NintendoBrowser/4.3.0.11224.EU

Neither Nintendo nor Sony seemingly feel the need to add too much extra cruft where they pretend to be Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari browser to increase compatibility. They all include the biggest lie in the industry, “Hi, I’m Mozilla/5.0” but other than that they’ve opted for more minimalistic approaches than the Xbox One.