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Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

blogs.windows.com

81–90 of 179 posts

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#81

Edge is a good browser, people seem to default to criticizing it because of its infamous predecessor. We should root for Edge, it is in the open Web best interest to have several browsers sharing the market.

I tried Edge on Windows 10 last year for a while, but had some issues with Outlook Web Access. And the way of managing proxies (among other things) is mixed up and confusing in Windows 10 - it has the old way of handling settings and a new Settings application. It’s not bug free and doesn’t satisfy basic conditions (searching for proxy in settings doesn’t work - need to know how to get to it). Anyway, back on topic - I switched back to IE 11. I have to try Edge again and see how it’s improved and changed during this time.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#82
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did for a while, Chrome is a resource hog compared to Edge. iirc I stopped using it because of issues with passwords not auto filling consistently (it sounds like a small deal but it gets old having to open a password manager 10 times a day with a 20 something character password)

How about leaving it open, (auto) locking the screen every time you leave the pc? It should be as safe, if you trust the screen locker.

The main problem was the auto locking, I set my PC to go to sleep after 10 minutes (it's a really power hungry setup)

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#83
post #66
post #44

I shall add it's funny they keep saying "Microsoft Loves Linux" but refuses to release any of their major desktop client software for Desktop Linux.

Which flavour?

With flatpaks and Appimages these days, you don't really need to target any distro anymore.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#84
post #44

I shall add it's funny they keep saying "Microsoft Loves Linux" but refuses to release any of their major desktop client software for Desktop Linux.

This assumes there are Linux users that actually want to use the Edge browser though

I know what you mean. For Edge there's probably not many folks who would be interested, but Office, for one, is still something that's desirable for a lot of folks who use Linux just because of numerous compatibility issues with LibreOffice.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#85
post #73
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I mentioned "because they want to", not just because it's installed by default.

I feel like it's a bit of an odd metric? It's like saying whether people want to use File Explorer. There's alternatives, but it doesn't enter the calculus of a lot of people. It's not "do you want Edge on your phone", it's "do you want your desktop browser on your mobile" for a decent set of people, I think.

This article is from last year, but at the time Chrome had approximately 60% and Firefox at approximately 15% of the market[0]. It's not like people don't know that other browsers exist. Even non-technically savvy people know about Chrome. I'm sure a lot of that share comes from Android, but a large number of people go out of their way to install it on their desktops.

Sure,there are some people who will never consider installing another browser, but do you honestly believe that those people will go out of their way to install Edge on their phone over Android or Safari which are installed by default? I will concede that the app store does make it easier for someone to install a third party browsers, but how many of those people are going to know that Edge for mobile exist or go out of their way to install it?

If they are happy enough with Edge because it is the default on Windows, they'll most likely be happy enough with Chrome or Safari on their mobile. Yes, people who elect to use Edge because they like it and not because it is the default may choose to use it on mobile, but I can't imagine that number is very high.

I do not have data to prove this, but do you honestly believe that the number of people who can name a File Explorer alternative is anywhere close to the number of people that can name multiple web browsers? I find that incredibly hard to believe and a poor comparison.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/firef...

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#86

The performance of Edge is comparable to Chrome or Firefox. It is a really great product. The sad part is, that they were keeping it Win10-only for several years. I think, that if they made Edge available for every platform and every OS earlier, they could have 20 - 50 % of the market by now. The funny part is, that there is NO EDGE FOR WINDOWS. Precisely, Edge is for Windows 10 only, which is the minority of all Win…

There is Edge for Windows. It's called Edge. Windows 10, is believe it or not, Windows. Any computer running Windows 7 or 8.1 can still (yes, it can) be upgraded to Windows 10 for free. So the only Windows PCs which cannot run Edge were those manufactured prior to 2009. Contrary to popular belief, there is no good reason to be running Windows 7 or 8.1. All of the telemetry anti-features were backported into those ver…

How does the free upgrade happen these days? I thought that was over in 2016? If it is still available somehow I have some machines I would upgrade.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#87

Edge is a good browser, people seem to default to criticizing it because of its infamous predecessor. We should root for Edge, it is in the open Web best interest to have several browsers sharing the market.

I want to root for it but there are API differences (especially for video/text tracks) which make it hard or impossible to work with. And Microsoft hasn't yet come to the table (which Apple/Chrome/FF have been at and are very good with taking feedback from devs) to standardize on these APIs.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#88
post #40

I struggle to get too excited about Edge on iOS because it's not really Edge is it. It will just be like Firefox which uses the built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering. So it's effectively Safari doing the rendering with some wrappers around it like syncing Windows favourites and sharing open windows with your Windows PC? Maybe some corporations which have Windows on the desktop, but where most employees use iOS devices…

I'm guessing this is the case with Chrome as well?

Yes, and it's because of an Apple policy. They don't allow other rendering engines.

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#89

Edge is a good browser, people seem to default to criticizing it because of its infamous predecessor. We should root for Edge, it is in the open Web best interest to have several browsers sharing the market.

I tried Edge on Windows 10 last year for a while, but had some issues with Outlook Web Access. And the way of managing proxies (among other things) is mixed up and confusing in Windows 10 - it has the old way of handling settings and a new Settings application. It’s not bug free and doesn’t satisfy basic conditions (searching for proxy in settings doesn’t work - need to know how to get to it). Anyway, back on topic -…

It looks like that's changed in the Insiders build I'm on (the one releasing later this month). I've got Proxy Settings under Edge's Advanced Settings menu:

https://i.imgur.com/zPHcYL3.png

And searching for Proxy gives me all of these options:

https://i.imgur.com/BDEzNWW.png

Re: Announcing Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android, Microsoft Launcher

#90
post #75

TL;DR: it's NOT using its own engine on Android. It uses Blink there. " On iOS, we are using the WebKit engine, as provided by iOS in the WKWebView control. That means that from a compatibility perspective, Microsoft Edge for iOS should match the version of Safari that is currently available for iOS. " " On Android, we are using the Blink rendering engine from the Chromium browser project. " Source: https://news.ycom…

So Edge is the new Safari which is the new Explorer? /s?
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