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The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

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Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#81
post #12
post #3

If you use the PDF or e-book functionality in Edge, you may want to hold off on upgrading. The PDF scrolling is not as smooth as on the older version.

Yeah, I threw a sizeable PDF (800MB textbook) at it and it's choking pretty hard compared to old Edge to the point where it's barely usable. Not a deal breaker for me because I don't have a touch screen and use an external PDF reader (sumatraPDF), but if I was using edge for heavy PDFs I would be rather disappointed Seems fine for PDFs that are a bit less extreme, but nowhere near as smooth as old edge.

800MB textbook??? What kind of textbook is that and how many pages does it have? Or page dimension/image resolution??? That is a very very large size for a pdf.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#82
post #7

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

Massive for corporate, since it supports Enterprise Mode lists for IE11 backwards compatibility. We can all finally use one single browser, with single sign on to our apps, and support for new technology.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they had thrown in with helping Firefox instead of handing even more web influence over to Google. A percentage of what Microsoft spent on EdgeHTML contributed to the Firefox project—ideally as employee time—would go a long way, along with the counterbalance of putting the Firefox engine and code base front and center of more Windows users.

Cynical thought: in no way am I claiming this was the only reason for Microsoft choosing Blink, but it’s probably easier to find and replace Google analytics APIs with Microsoft endpoints than it is to add them into a code base after the fact.

Chromium is not the same as Google Chrome. Chromium is open source and vendor neutral. Google Chrome adds the Google stuff on top of it.

Both chromium and Firefox can be customized and vendor branded (see the countless privacy oriented browsers built on top of Firefox).

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#84
So as somewhat of an outsider to the 'web game' as far as most people here (at HN) are concerned, but a relatively aware patron of web browsing software, I'll add my thoughts on the 'web browser' game...

I feel like most people's browser of choice is chosen for reasons specific to their needs. For example: I think that Firefox gives me a bit of additional privacy. I think that Safari gives me that additional privacy as well. Some people may feel like Chrome just works. Some people just use what came with their OS.

When I do front end work, I tend to always test it in Chrome first. Their devtools make that part of my job (quickly finding issues with the frontend) a lot easier. Once it works in Chrome, I'm sure that the code is working, and any problems I encounter will just require browser-specific tweaks.

Anyway, long story short...I think that Microsoft really needs to pick something that Edge is best at if they want people to have a reason to use it (PS loading a highly browser-optimized page some number of milliseconds faster than the competition just doesn't do it for me, personally). Their niche has always just kind of been "well it's what comes with the OS" - and that's a fine way to get a userbase for sure. I'm not faulting them - but if that's their intended userbase, then I feel like they're putting a lot of effort into this whole browser game.

I guess at the end of the day, I don't trust IE or Edge or Chrome for my every day use. Whether that's poorly placed mistrust or not, I'm uncertain. But in either event, that's how I feel.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#86
post #28

I get why Microsoft did what they did. I just still wish they would have at least OSS'd EdgeHTML instead of just shoving it in a closet somewhere.

They probably can't, especially if the engine interfaces with proprietary code or is deeply linked to the kernel for example. It's likely part of the reason why they never got it updating as frequently as the Chromeium counterpart can, as this is entirely userspace.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#87
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was briefly on Windows 10 as well, it was my favourite PDF reader and now it's gone. Good job Microsoft.

Imagine if everything that was shelved due to marketing policies were compiled into a disc.

And opensourced.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#88
post #40

The logo seems confusingly similar to Firefox's.

Definitely more similar to the explorer 'e', but I do see the resemblance to IceWeasel.

I don't think it evoques a flat letter 'e' at all, it is highly reminiscent of a blue Firefox logo though (so IceWeasel probably, if I remembered that logo), IMO.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#89
post #28

I get why Microsoft did what they did. I just still wish they would have at least OSS'd EdgeHTML instead of just shoving it in a closet somewhere.

I wish they had thrown in with helping Firefox instead of handing even more web influence over to Google. A percentage of what Microsoft spent on EdgeHTML contributed to the Firefox project—ideally as employee time—would go a long way, along with the counterbalance of putting the Firefox engine and code base front and center of more Windows users.

Interesting, I thought FF being a XUL app should've been easier to customize.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#90
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.

I'll be honest, it took me a solid three minutes of looking back and forth between those pictures before I could see a difference
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