Maybe I'm underestimating how culturally aware the average person is, but I doubt most people will care to make this connection between IE and Edge.
You upgrade your OS or buy a new computer, and you see a new application ( that you didn't install ) and you ( presumably ) can't uninstall it. Wouldn't any rational person assume it's a pre-installed application? Wouldn't it make sense to believe that the OS developer created it?
There's an old joke about IE when people purchase a new computer: It's the browser I use to install another browser. What are people going to think when they don't see IE anymore and they see a new browser?
Everyone will know the Edge is Microsoft's new browser, and everyone knows that Microsoft's previous browser was IE.
In my experience, you're dramatically overestimating how many people really understand what a browser is, what IE is, or can disambiguate between Chrome and Google.
> I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not.
About half of people using Windows continue using IE right now. So, "everyone" and "average" definitely refer to a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what any of us are talking about in this entire page of comments. It's so easy to underestimate how little truly "average" folks understand or care about these nuances in the real world outside of a few tech bubble areas.