Goodbye, EdgeHTML • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#151

Post by stupidcar » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

AaronFriel wrote: post #22

I'm wondering how, logistically, this make sense. Does Microsoft adopt Chromium/Blink for embedding in UWP apps and Electron? That will reduce memory and storage requirements for the latter, but greatly increases the attack surface of the former. Microsoft is also taking on an _enormous_ maintenance burden in integrating it with their own sandboxing and protection mechanisms. I'm in disbelief that the ongoing cost of…

Nowadays most enterprise and bespoke intranet apps are targeting Chrome as a platform, not "the web". It's a re-run of the IE6 situation in the late 90s / early 2000s, except this time Microsoft is the victim, not the beneficiary.

Whereas it used to be that big IT departments would nix the installation of any 3rd party browser, nowadays almost all accept the use of Chrome. And if you're selling an app into a big company, you always tell them to use Chrome, and never advertise IE/Edge support except as a last resort.

If Microsoft want to sell their cloud services into these companies, they need to support Chrome-based apps. Edge won't do. As such, they have little choice but to fork it and build their own browser, tied into their services. I'm sure they recognise the potential problems and downsides, but consider it the least worst option at this point.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#152

Post by vrazj » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

adontz wrote: post #116

tomphoolery wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is a way better experience than Chrome these days. Google, you constantly add new features that nobody wants, and furthermore, make it WAY more difficult for those of us who care about privacy to turn your tracking BS off. Google Chrome can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned.

Firefox added Pocket, and kind of nobody wanted it. So it happens in FF too.

And I don't think anybody wants the ads they have added to the home page.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#153

Post by eppsilon » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

kaixi wrote: post #117

fooey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Safari is the best choice if you care about battery life. I literally get 2 extra hours of battery life when using Safari on macOS vs using Chrome. What's incredible is that Chrome uses more CPU on Youtube than Safari. When playing the SAME video side by side.

Maybe something to do with hardware accelerated h.264 decoding? (Assuming YouTube serves VP8-encoded videos to Chrome users and h.264 ones to Safari users.)

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#154

Post by aaaaaaaaaab » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

cududa wrote: post #23

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.

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

>Electron is the future of apps

Lol.

Nevertheless, I hope they go all-in because a gimped JS Office would finally let other players to innovate in the word- & spreadsheet processor niche without the MS .

Fingers crossed brother, finger crossed!

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#155

Post by vrazj » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #125

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

Does it prioritize privacy? I haven't used Firefox in a long time, so my impressions of it are based on news stories, like them launching a partnership with sketchy VPN services or building in "easter egg" advertisements for television shows.

Don't forget when they sent your data to Cliqz.

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#156

Post by cknoxrun » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

fooey wrote: post #92

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

I actually really enjoy using Safari, and I am not alone. The dev tools are great and the main extensions I use are available. Perhaps you can elaborate a bit more on your experiences with Safari?

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#157

Post by berbec » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

setquk wrote: post #75

WorldMaker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VS Code is a possible sign for why Microsoft leading Electron on all fronts (from taking over GitHub, to collaborating much more directly on Chromium) might be good for computers. If the average Electron app starts to act more like VS Code, that's good for everybody.

Wonder if office will go in that direction too.

https://react-etc.net/entry/microsoft-office-rewrite-to-reac...

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#158

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

nashashmi wrote: post #38

trevyn wrote: post #13

I still see zero benefit to me, today , to use Firefox.

They keep breaking extensions. I am sick of Firefox now.

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#159

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

I now use FF at home for one simple reason. Two people at home using two different Google accounts and need to switch between them. In Chrome it decides one of those is the 'logged in account' and the name shows in the browser bar. It is then the default every time you open say a new GMail etc. That is so annoying. This doesn't seem to happen in Firefox!

Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML

#160

Post by marssaxman » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

rehemiau wrote: post #61

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

Many people won't switch because either Firefox is slow on their platform (MacOS) or stuff they use are slow on Firefox (Google ecosystem, many other webapps optimized for Chrome)

I haven't noticed Firefox being any slower than Chrome on MacOS. Then again, I only use Chrome to browse facebook.com, so who knows.