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Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

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Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#61

Post by sorenjan »

daliusd wrote: post #10
larkeith wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why use Edge over Firefox?

While I use Firefox daily on Ubuntu there are still some pain points that affect me directly * Offscreen canvas. E.g. samples from here do not work for me https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/08/offscreen-... * There are two problems with development: 1. Firefox does not catch some exceptions. This problem is fixed in 67 version so I can wait (but I still need to wait). 2. Firefox crashes for me randomly so…

Firefox 67 is in the current Developer channel, so you don't have to wait any longer if you don't want to.

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#62

Post by diggan »

Gikoskos wrote: post #38
sequence7 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad too but the reality is Firefox is being slowly smothered by Chrome's ubiquity. Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome and mobile safari. Firefox is my favourite browser, I use it every day but I often have to work around bugs in websites caused by this lack of testing. I think Microsoft don't have a choice if they want their browser to be popular it has to just work and the…

> Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome and mobile safari I work in a web dev shop and nearly everyone here uses Firefox as their main dev browser. We do run tests on other browsers as well but we mainly develop with Firefox and its tools. Although part of the reason could be that we know most of our customers use it instead of Chrome. Don't ask me why, but if I had to venture I'd…

Depends on the country. Firefox seems more popular in Africa, Europe and Asia, compared to Chrome.

While not 100% representative of reality, Google Trends gives that view of Chrome vs Firefox: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/GEO_MAP/1554809400?...

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#63

Post by mikejb »

I think this is a good step, but the cynic in me has to ask: How many services were removed, and how many replaced? It's good that things like Single Sign-on or Google Now aren't there (by default), but is it fair to assume they've just been replaced by Microsofts versions (i.e. whatever Live is called now and Cortana)?

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#64

Post by chmod775 »

stevenjohns wrote: post #36
sequence7 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it could if Google didn't own so much of the web and it's surrounding ecosystem. I'm not aware of any challenger to Chrome in the browser space.

It could change via legislation. The more Google owns, the more it’s opened to potential anti-trust drama.

So far only the EU is putting their foot down on that front, leading to mostly localized responses by the likes of Google.

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#65

Post by saurik »

realusername wrote: post #55
lowercased wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a chat with an MS guy who had some insight on this issue. There was some internal discussion about it, but there were 2 issues re: firefox which led them against it (and they're somewhat related). Firstly, I'm paraphrasing here, but FF isn't as much a business as it is a religion (re: privacy). You can read a lot in to that, but I understood the gist of what they were getting at. Secondly, somewhat relatedly, b…

> Secondly, somewhat relatedly, but consider FF's primary funding/revenue: it's Google I don't get that one because Chromium IS Google, it's not even a primary funding, there's just no separation between the two. They just handed the web business directly to their competitors, no matter how they try to spin it. At least with Firefox, MS could still have influenced the web, with Chromium, there's just no way, they are…

The difference is that Google can't decrease the funding to Chromium to harm Microsoft "because Chromium IS Google".

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#66

Post by hopler »

stevenjohns wrote: post #36
sequence7 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it could if Google didn't own so much of the web and it's surrounding ecosystem. I'm not aware of any challenger to Chrome in the browser space.

It could change via legislation. The more Google owns, the more it’s opened to potential anti-trust drama.

We already went down that dead end road with Microsoft in the 1990s. What's different today?

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#68

Post by daliusd »

sorenjan wrote: post #61
daliusd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I use Firefox daily on Ubuntu there are still some pain points that affect me directly * Offscreen canvas. E.g. samples from here do not work for me https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/08/offscreen-... * There are two problems with development: 1. Firefox does not catch some exceptions. This problem is fixed in 67 version so I can wait (but I still need to wait). 2. Firefox crashes for me randomly so…

Firefox 67 is in the current Developer channel, so you don't have to wait any longer if you don't want to.

Thank you :)

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#69

Post by noisem4ker »

magicalhippo wrote: post #57
skrebbel wrote: post #14

I'm still sad they didn't partner with Firefox instead. It would suit the strategy of The New Microsoft very well to ensure competition in the browser market, and making an Firefox-based Edge plus a Firefox-based Electron clone would've been an amazing way to do that. They've shown competence in embracing, extending, and contributing back to OSS (eg they were instrumental in Nodejs getting to its amazing cross platfo…

How easy is it to embed the Firefox core though? I know several projects embedding Chromium, such as Steam for example. Haven't seen anyone doing the same with the Firefox core.

Making Gecko embeddable is admittedly not on Mozilla's priority list. Certainly not since they abandoned the idea of XUL.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)#Usage

Other web browsers using Gecko include Airfox, Waterfox, K-Meleon, Lunascape, Portable Firefox, Conkeror, Classilla, TenFourFox, HP Secure Web Browser, Oxygen and Sylera (for mobile).

Other products using Gecko include Nightingale, Instantbird and Google's picture-organization software Picasa (for Linux).

Re: Google features that Microsoft turned off in Chromium Edge

#70

Post by lowercased »

Fnoord wrote: post #54
lowercased wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a chat with an MS guy who had some insight on this issue. There was some internal discussion about it, but there were 2 issues re: firefox which led them against it (and they're somewhat related). Firstly, I'm paraphrasing here, but FF isn't as much a business as it is a religion (re: privacy). You can read a lot in to that, but I understood the gist of what they were getting at. Secondly, somewhat relatedly, b…

You could argue Google is a religion for some people. Google Chrome is the popular browser. And doesn't #2 apply on Google Chrome as well? > However you look at it, MS has not had a good run in promoting their own browser tech against competitors [...] Recently, yes. Because they screwed up their MSIE market dominance with embrace & extend. With which market dominance they put the WWW in a dark age of incompatibility…

> You could argue Google is a religion for some people

It's also concurrently a massively profitable business.

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