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Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

windowscentral.com

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Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#101

Post by 013a »

c-smile wrote: post #19

That's just the disaster. And the end of W3C standard development process. AFAIR it should be 3 independent implementations of the feature in order for Draft to reach Recommendation status. So technically all that means that web standards will be written by WebKit team alone. Sic transit Gloria mundi, sigh.

We do still fortunately have three (more or less) independent popular implementations: Google with Blink, Apple (and now Microsoft) with WebKit, and Mozilla with Gecko.

These are still three strong and independent voices; Chrome has substantial control on desktops, Apple has a stranglehold on their highly popular platforms, and Mozilla has both the hearts of the tech community as well as wide regard in bleeding edge technology with Rust, Quantum/Stylo, and Servo.

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#102

Post by nikkwong »

kibwen wrote: post #92
nikkwong wrote: post #88

I can see how this is creating a monoculture on the web which could have some really negative implications going forward. However, chromium is open source; so I don't really think this is comparable to the IE days. Also, as a web dev who is trying to push the limits of what is possible given current web APIs, being shackled by edge's lack of compatibility is really a hindrance and makes really cutting-edge stuff impo…

> chromium is open source On Chromium being open source, and why that doesn't matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595978

wouldn't you expect though; if the experience got so bad, that you'd have a sort of 'hard-fork' like we see happening all the time in the crypto space; with devs moving to whatever platform is best? That would have just been nigh impossible with close sourced software; at least there's a potential path should we ever have to confront that situation with chromium.

Practically, I wouldn't guess that we'd see that, since chromium ends up being the closest implementation to true web standards; well, since they define the standards practically, anyways.

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#103

Post by mushu999 »

jccalhoun wrote: post #23

As a firefox fax, I hope this isn't true. The dominance of chrome isn't good for anyone. This will lead to (even more) sites not bothering to be made compatible with Firefox. We are headed back to the "designed for IE" days.

WTF do you mean "lead to sites not bothering to be made compatible with Firefox"?? If Firefox follows the published HTML standards then there wouldn't need to be any special compatibility effort made by us web devs! That is exactly what made I.E. (and Edge) so cr@ppy in the first place!! /facepalm

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#104

Post by c-smile »

tambourine_man wrote: post #57

Interesting theory and thread: https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/10697763353362923... “This isn’t about Chrome. This is about ElectronJS. Microsoft thinks EdgeHTML cannot get to drop-in feature-parity with Chromium to replace it in Electron apps, whose duplication is becoming a significant performance drain. They want to single-instance Electron with their own fork”

I had that suspicion too when looking on how much resources they put into Visual Code editor.

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#105

Post by [deleted] »

kibwen wrote: post #93
samspenc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that they'll be using the Chromium engine underneath, but still their own Edge "browser" and UI on top. IMHO, I personally think it's a good thing to consolidate on one engine to render HTML cross-platform for these two reasons: 1. Web developers no longer need to worry about supporting CSS and other edge-cases across various browser engines. 2. The Chromium engine itself is open source. There are…

> The Chromium engine itself is open source Being open source is a red herring in this instance. Say that Chrome implements a web feature you don't like. You fork the browser and remove that feature. But websites expect Chrome, and they use that feature, so your fork doesn't work with those websites. Say that Chrome refuses to add a feature you want. You fork the browser and add the feature. But websites expect Chrom…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#106

Post by maxxxxx »

interesthrow2 wrote: post #82
tambourine_man wrote: post #57

Interesting theory and thread: https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/10697763353362923... “This isn’t about Chrome. This is about ElectronJS. Microsoft thinks EdgeHTML cannot get to drop-in feature-parity with Chromium to replace it in Electron apps, whose duplication is becoming a significant performance drain. They want to single-instance Electron with their own fork”

The irony. They had HTA apps (running on IE engine which still work more or less, I replaced most default Win10 apps like the image viewer and the "groove" music player with a version of them built with HTA since they were slow as hell to start up) for 20 years already, they did barely anything with it, they didn't really invest seriously in a good browser engine (Edge isn't) and now all they can do is use Google's?…

Their desktop strategy is really confusing. I think even to themselves. It seems since around 2000 or when .NET came out they lost direction, repeatedly tried something, didn't really finish and dropped it. Mobile strategy wasn't much better.

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#107

Post by nl »

naner wrote: post #26
c-smile wrote: post #19

That's just the disaster. And the end of W3C standard development process. AFAIR it should be 3 independent implementations of the feature in order for Draft to reach Recommendation status. So technically all that means that web standards will be written by WebKit team alone. Sic transit Gloria mundi, sigh.

Fair concern. On the other hand nobody uses Edge on Windows 10, do they? In my limited experience users seem to still use IE or go to Chrome or Firefox.

About 12% of Windows10 users are on Edge according to this[1]. Another 6% are on IE classic.

[1] sorry for the URL: https://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?options...

Re: Microsoft is building a Chromium browser to replace Edge on Windows 10

#109

Post by pcwalton »

samspenc wrote: post #90
jccalhoun wrote: post #23

As a firefox fax, I hope this isn't true. The dominance of chrome isn't good for anyone. This will lead to (even more) sites not bothering to be made compatible with Firefox. We are headed back to the "designed for IE" days.

My understanding is that they'll be using the Chromium engine underneath, but still their own Edge "browser" and UI on top. IMHO, I personally think it's a good thing to consolidate on one engine to render HTML cross-platform for these two reasons: 1. Web developers no longer need to worry about supporting CSS and other edge-cases across various browser engines. 2. The Chromium engine itself is open source. There are…

OK, how do I get the Chromium team to integrate parallel layout written in Rust?

Sometimes innovation is at odds with whatever Google's Chrome team feels like doing. That is why engine diversity is a good thing.

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