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

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

#291

Post by wlll »

gdwatson wrote: post #242
satyenr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think they intend to let Google control anything — least of all the future of the web. They have been burned too badly by them for that. They are more likely to do what Google did — they used WebKit in the early years of Chrome and then forked it to create Blink once it had gained enough traction. Microsoft is likely to do the same at some point — assuming their browser gains traction. And I, for one, hope it…

"... and Firefox is just not cutting it." What are your objections to modern Firefox? Most of the criticism I've heard is that it's become too much like Chrome. I'm quite happy with it personally.

As someone who switched from Chrome to Firefox a few months ago my main issues are:

* No spellcheck in form fields (without a plugin, and I hate plugins).

* It feels slower. There's something about it that just doesn't feel as fast. Mostly things like opening windows etc.

* There's some annoying defaults.

* Dev tools aren't as good.

* Updates aren't installed automatically.

I mean, it's close to Chrome, which is good (for me), but it just feels about 5% less polished. It's good enough that I'll stick with it, after all there was a driving force for me to leave Chrome too.

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

#292

Post by Grue3 »

WalterGR wrote: post #192
lwansbrough wrote: post #45

Stupid. Open source Edge and see where that gets us before you blow up the only chance we have of maintaining an open web standard.

2008. “Fuck you, Microsoft, for not bundling Firefox or Chrome.” 2018. “Fuck you, Microsoft, for bundling Firefox or Chrome.” Hilarious.

I said back in 2008 and I'll say it now, that ruling was absolutely idiotic, and still is (especially considering Webkit/iPhone situation).

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

#293

Post by SwellJoe »

colordrops wrote: post #257
TanakaTarou wrote: post #183

What other options do they have? Even on HN you hear "I use Egde to download Chrome". Many of you here don't test your own work in Edge. At the same time Microsoft is getting the heat that Windows 10 is unstable and the last major update shows that it is. Very urgently, I imagine, Microsoft is trying to change the perception of Windows 10 by doing everything they can to make it more stable. Changing the browser engin…

I can't quite put my finger on it but something feels wrong about blaming the general populace for Edge's failure as a browser. Microsoft is one of the wealthiest companies on Earth. They've had every opportunity to use every marketing channel and dump resources into the team to make Edge an obvious winner. But they didn't.

I'm not sure what more they could do. They're extremely pushy about it in Windows. It takes several steps to make it stop pushing Edge when you open any web links.

I don't use Edge (or Chrome) because I don't trust the companies that make them, and it's one small piece of my computing life I can withhold from them. So...there's nothing they could do to make Edge good enough for me, without fixing the lack of trust I have toward Microsoft, which I guess is a marketing problem, but also a behavior problem. (Surprisingly, though, I think I feel less animosity toward Microsoft than I do for Google these days. Which, is hard for me to believe about myself, given how long and how much I've hated Microsoft over the years.)

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

#295

Post by Manishearth »

013a wrote: post #101
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…

Right, the point being made is that Webkit/Safari are often the slowest of the bunch which is fine when you have three others but now each browser effectively has veto power and the expectation is that Webkit will wield it often.

It's saying "oh no, now Webkit can block things", not "oh no, we don't have enough strong implementations"

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

#296

Post by jhasse »

pcwalton wrote: post #109
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…

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.

Suggest it to them?? If it's really faster, why wouldn't they merge it?

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

#297

Post by SwellJoe »

cmsimike wrote: post #201
happymellon wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I test Edge when Microsoft don't release it for Mac and Linux? A browser for a single OS? Talk about monoculture.

http://modern.ie Free Windows VirtualBox images you can use for testing!

I tried this once, but the terms are onerous, or they were when I tried it last. They expire frequently, they're huge (and I am on mobile broadband, which becomes very expensive if I run out of my data allotment in a month), they're limited in terms of versions.

Microsoft could change the game by open sourcing Edge, but I guess the key goal is getting all that user data, not having the best browser. (But, Google manages to get all the user data and have a mostly open source browser that people unbelievably have a lot of positive feelings about.)

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

#298

Post by millstone »

mooman219 wrote: post #3

This has been in the works for a while! A number of Microsoft employees have been making contributions to Chromium too. I hope to see Chromium's performance and battery impact on Windows to improve with this decision which is great for those using the OS. It sounds like Microsoft really just wants a platform to route people into using Bing and service ads on the new tab page, which they're more than capable of doing…

This vision is pathetic, unambitious. What if Microsoft is content to reskin and rehome Chrome, submit their battery life PRs, and cede the web to Google? What is the web once Google dominates its access?

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

#299

Post by snupples »

eksemplar wrote: post #232
TanakaTarou wrote: post #183

What other options do they have? Even on HN you hear "I use Egde to download Chrome". Many of you here don't test your own work in Edge. At the same time Microsoft is getting the heat that Windows 10 is unstable and the last major update shows that it is. Very urgently, I imagine, Microsoft is trying to change the perception of Windows 10 by doing everything they can to make it more stable. Changing the browser engin…

I prefer Edge to chrome actually, and especially professionally where chromes security settings won’t accept internal SSL certs as safe. Bing is terrible, but I don’t think Edge is.

Chrome trusts the OS cert store on Windows. Works perfectly.

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

#300

Post by jhasse »

damnyou wrote: post #147
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…

3 is just completely untrue. Firefox Quantum came out just a year ago.

Which just caught up with Chromium. And hardware acceleration on Linux is still disabled by default.
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