The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview • Hacker News Board

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#71

Post by slumdev » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #43

pacala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaningless. There are people claiming with a straight face that targeted ads make user experience better. Wholesale collection and aggregation of personal user data will continue unabated.

Curious, why would targeted ads make the user experience worse? (putting privacy aside)

As a kid, anytime I stayed home sick from school, I watched TV. I would see only advertisements for catheters and guaranteed-issue life insurance. They didn't occupy much of my conscious thought. They were annoying at worst.

When I watched TV during prime time and on the weekends, though, the advertisements were for toys and products that interested me. In the blink of an eye, my entire outlook worsened because I needed those things and didn't have them. The advertisements were also a great distraction from homework and chores.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#72

Post by ChicagoDave » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

I use Edge on my iPhone and Firefox on my laptop. Trying to reduce my Google footprint as much as possible.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#73

Post by manifestsilence » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #43

pacala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaningless. There are people claiming with a straight face that targeted ads make user experience better. Wholesale collection and aggregation of personal user data will continue unabated.

Curious, why would targeted ads make the user experience worse? (putting privacy aside)

This is an interesting debate, and one where I fear the young generation's attitudes seem to differ. My 16yo says she'd rather get targeted ads than non, because it's just more relevant and she might want to buy those things. She has zero concern about the psychological manipulation factor and assumes she will just say no if she doesn't want a product.

I guess I can see where she's coming from, as I don't avoid physical stores when I'm not planning to buy things. Window shopping is fun. But still, I think all that tracking has a dark side that's difficult to convey to the generation that grew up taking it for granted. Are we just old and fear the new and unknown?

The one thing I definitely hate is how bloated the web has gotten. Everything works great on my old computers that I switched over to linux, until I need to just google (duckduckgo) some simple piece of information on a forum. And then I find myself fantasizing about upgrading to an i7 so I can read the same basic text that could be read online when 1ghz processors were a pipe dream.

Edit: and this is with ad blockers and anti-trackers turned on. The whole browser experience is just slower, and I think the act of having to scan and block all that cruft must have an impact. Browsers used to function on Windows XP machines back in the day, right?

Edit2: and then I see this thread on the HN front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22054715

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#74

Post by TurningCanadian » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

noahster11 wrote: post #27

irrational wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2025 is the official end of life year. You can find a page on MS's website with all the end of life dates.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17454/lifecycle-faq...

So scanr is right, right?

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#75

Post by microtheo » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #66

Everything I've heard is that touch support is completely destroyed in this one. This completely destroys my main use case for my Surface. I need a tablet with a web browser that's designed to be used in portrait mode without the Type Cover attached. Can anyone here recommend a UWP web browser I can switch to when the real Edge goes away for good? Or if none exists, can someone recommend a cheap 12"+ tablet that runs…

Ironically it has brought a breath of fresh air to my surface in tablet mode. I use it everyday with touchscreen only and find it very satisfying.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#76

Post by c-smile » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

What happened with font rendering?

Fonts are rendered with thinner lines in new Edge (on the left): http://terrainformatica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IE-fo...

Such rendering does not match rest of Windows...

New Edge is definitely less readable, and Google Chrome exhibits the same problem.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#77

Post by dubcanada » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

mactunes wrote: post #65

dubcanada wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly Chromium is WAYYYY easier to development on than Firefox. Had Mozilla spent effort making the base of it as a framework in the same way Chromium is, they may have considered it. There is a reason why Electron, QT etc use Chromium.

Curious, what makes Chromium better in your opinion? I have probably just touched the surface of the dev tools on both and haven‘t used any features that I would be missing on either.

It's a blank browser, has barely any "Google" specific stuff in it ready to go. It is easy to develop for, doesn't require cross language compiling (rust/c++), builds fast, easy to understand how the different parts work (at least for a browser developer it should be), has documentation, is meant to be used to develop your own browser.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#78

Post by jamesgeck0 » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #35

I'm glad to see this, and I hope it's a strong competitor. Stronger competition pushes everyone and we end up with better results as users. That said, browser debates often come off like the Nintendo versus Sega arguments I remember as a kid. It's funny how people become married to one.

We have effectively lost a competitor. Microsoft is now contributing to Chrome development.

The best long-term outcome for the web would arguably to have been for Microsoft to put more resources into their in-house EdgeHTML browser instead of throwing it out and reskinning Chrome.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#79

Post by dubcanada » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

c-smile wrote: post #76

What happened with font rendering? Fonts are rendered with thinner lines in new Edge (on the left): http://terrainformatica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IE-fo... Such rendering does not match rest of Windows... New Edge is definitely less readable, and Google Chrome exhibits the same problem.

Chromium has font rendering built into it, I am guessing Microsoft didn't ripe it out and replace it with their own as it's not cross platform.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#80

Post by AdmiralGinge » Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

microtheo wrote: post #10

ripdog wrote: post #7

So... What's the value proposition over, say, Firefox?

I love firefox. The only big difference for now is that it is better integrated with windows. You can swipe back on the trackpad to go back and use your touchscreen seamlessly (even the keyboard pops up correctly without screwing the size of the window) Firefox doesn't do that well.

I love firefox too, it's my go-to browser at work on Linux and at home on macOS. It really isn't as well integrated into macOS either though, especially compared to Chrome and Safari. The trackpad support (or lack of it) would probably have been a deal breaker when I got a mac if I wasn't already a long-term Firefox user and quite Google-sceptic.