Goodbye, EdgeHTML • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#91

Post by basch » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:16 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #4

It makes me wonder if at any point in the process Microsoft approached Firefox over integrating their rendering engine vs. Chromium and if so, what the factors were in making their final decision. I also wonder if instead of "ceding" control to Google, Microsoft intends to start being a major contributor to Chromium, so much so that it almost becomes a joint effort vs. Google dominance.

I'll bet you it has everything to do with Microsoft realizing its a featureset to layer on top of other peoples operating systems now, ala Adobe and Facebook.

If Microsoft wants to make a cross platform product that runs on Windows, Android and iOS, and they know some of that product has a web rendering engine or js, they want to target/accomodate as few embeddable libraries as possible. Electron may be one of those products, but plenty of other things need embeddable html/js. Maybe Outlook will switch to blink someday?

It also means that in theory, Chrome could STOP shipping Blink with Chrome, and ship Chrome more like they do for iOS, where the rendering engine is part of the OS not browser app.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#92

Post by fooey » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

djmashko2 wrote: post #52

If I'm using Safari as my default browser, does it make sense to switch to Firefox just to support them? Interesting that Safari is not coming up in any of these articles as a third competitor, but maybe the fact that it's limited to Mac means it has very small market share.

Safari is awful on the scale of being a 2nd tier browser like IE. It's the browser people use because they don't know any better, or because they don't have any choice.

Safari isn't a competitor with Chrome, Firefox, or Edge

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#93

Post by saghm » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #29

cududa wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to be missing that this is Microsoft’s tacit recognition that Electron is the future of apps. Electron has abysmal performance and doesn’t work on ARM. This is them fixing fundamental chromium issues, to improve Electron performance and give themselves a further wedge beyond TypeScript

Look at VS Code: Electron doesn't have abysmal performance. It's just what people do with it that causes problems.

Not sure if this is related to Electron or not, but in VS Code I have issues with using the high key repeat that I have set on all my machines. If I try to hold down a key that navigates the cursor (arrow keys, delete, hjkl in Vim mode, etc.), the editor isn't able to move the cursor fast enough to keep up with the key input events, so it keeps moving after I've lifted the key for a bit. This is especially annoying when I'm trying to delete some text and end up deleting more than I meant to.

Obviously this is a super niche thing, and you could make the argument that there are more efficient ways to edit text than this. My main point is that I never have this issue with native apps, only Electron-based ones, so it seems likely to me that there is some performance issue with this sort of input to Electron.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#94

Post by MistahKoala » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

"If you care about about what’s happening with online life today, take another look at Firefox. It’s radically better than it was 18 months ago"

Except it's not 'radically better' if you rely on extensions killed by Quantum and are unlikely to be updated because Firefox has such a small user base now.

I want to go back to Firefox and give it a try, but sending a load of extensions to their deaths has made that significantly harder. I'm not up for spending hours finding little hacks and half-baked work-arounds, either.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#95

Post by fixermark » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #58

babuskov wrote: post #8

If anyone told me a decade ago that a day will come when I will feel sorry for Microsoft browser technology going away...

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

"Do. Or do not. There is no try." ;)

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#96

Post by jniles » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

I really wonder what it would have been like if MS threw its weight behind Gecko.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#97

Post by IvanK_net » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

I don't think that Edge switching to Chromium means, that Edge will become "a slave" of Google.

Until now, Chromium has been strongly driven by one huge player: Google. Now, it can become driven by two huge players. It can erase the monopoly of Google over Chromium. Or if they have too many disputes, Microsoft can "fork" Chromium (like Google "forked" WebKit into Blink) and make their own, even better Chromium (Microsoft does have enough money and smart people to do so). The Edge could even beat Chrome, and be a new open-source multi-platform browser, which improves much faster than Chrome.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#98

Post by jansan » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

nashashmi wrote: post #24

babuskov wrote: post #8

If anyone told me a decade ago that a day will come when I will feel sorry for Microsoft browser technology going away...

10 years ago it was forseeable that MS would lose the browser wars. BTW, this is not the first time MS has considered Chromium. Back before the fork of Edge, they considered using Webkit.

Maybe Webkit would have fewer bugs by now if Microsoft had chosen it for Edge a few years ago.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#99

Post by FooHentai » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

davidp wrote: post #19

Seriously, switch to Firefox. It's good again, and prioritizes privacy.[0] After Chrome's forced-sign-in debacle [1] I switched away from Chrome on all my platforms (Windows, Linux, Android) and haven't missed a thing. [0]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18055161

I just had to switch back to Chrome because firefox couldn't handle multiple (4+) 1080p x264 streams in the same window. Chrome managed to handle 18 of them, across two windows, without a hitch.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#100

Post by ProfessorLayton » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

djmashko2 wrote: post #52

If I'm using Safari as my default browser, does it make sense to switch to Firefox just to support them? Interesting that Safari is not coming up in any of these articles as a third competitor, but maybe the fact that it's limited to Mac means it has very small market share.

This just made me realize that Apple discontinued Safari for Windows way back in 2012. I had no idea. It seems like it would be in their interests to continue to support Webkit in as many platforms as possible, to avoid a duopoly (Or worse) of rendering engines.