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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

#611

Post by listic »

sametmax wrote: post #547
headmelted wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really better though - having only two real browsers is not good for open standards or the open web. This will be especially true when Firefox inevitably shutters it's in-house efforts in a couple of years due to the amount of sites that won't work with it , and starts using Chromium too. Staring into my crystal ball tells me Firefox will become "janky" in the eyes of users on account of how many sites don't…

> This will be especially true when Firefox inevitably shutters it's in-house efforts in a couple of years due to the amount of sites that won't work with it, and starts using Chromium too. It seems very unlikely: - Mozilla has been in a far worse uderdog position before during the IE6 era, with way more incompatible sites and less funding. - Mozilla is not for profit. Fighting for the open Web is one of their goal.…

Does mobile Firefox come with Ublock Origin built-in?

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

#612

Post by riskable »

teknologist wrote: post #551
plq wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My favorite is prompting me to restart to install an update when I open it. It's the best they can do. Windows carries a lot of baggage and bad decisions around its OS design. One of them is that when a file has an exclusive lock (eg an .exe file that's running) it can't be deleted. NTFS and Windows Kernel don't implement reference counting like a proper OS. So Firefox (or any software package with in-place self-up…

I am not an expert on this, but I believe Chrome downloads a new exe waiting to be copied over when it is launched. The Firefox updater on the other hand is a whole progress bar experience where a lot of things seem to have to happen to perform an update.

This is correct. Chrome handles updates via a completely separate .exe that runs via the Windows Task Scheduler.

I know this because my company pushed out a Group Policy update a while back that removed the ability of users to add/remove scheduled tasks and it broke Chrome updates across the company.

Also, this problem (not being able to patch a running app) is unique to Windows because of its terrible file locking implementation (that are the result of a bad decision made decades ago!). In Linux you'll get Chrome, Chromium, and Firefox updates along with everything else and it won't disrupt your use in the slightest. You can restart the app to apply those updates at your leisure!

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

#613

Post by zmw »

kowdermeister wrote: post #347
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…

Because Edge might have a good rendering engine, but it sucks as a browser. You can't even drag and drop files (images, html files, pdf) to it. Totally useless for daily work. Just 1 example, why would I recommend a sub-par alternative? I also test in Edge, always looks good and then I close it.

> You can't even drag and drop files (images, html files, pdf) to it.

Worse, you can’t even save from it. IIRC my first interaction with Edge was trying to grab one of my scripts or config files off GitHub. Opened the raw text file and couldn’t save it. Searched frantically for “how to save from Edge”, got joke answers like “you can print it”. What a disaster.

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

#614

Post by bunnycorn »

Manishearth wrote: post #295
013a wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Since when WebKit is the "slowest of the bunch"?

WebKit's JavaScriptCore is the best performant of the big 4.

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

#615

Post by MarkMc »

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why did Microsoft create a web browser in the first place? Did Microsoft make any more money by having control of the dominant web browser?

They could have just let Netscape win. Later when Google demonstrated the value of search, Microsoft could have just shipped Firefox with Bing set at the default search engine. Microsoft wouldn't have had to pay for decades of browser development, and it wouldn't have been slapped with a huge anti-trust action by the US Department of Justice.

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

#616

Post by thrownaway954 »

FINALLY!!! The bottom line is that Chromium has won in all areas of the engine wars and Chrome has won the browser wars. Heck Chrome has even won in the testing area once it release a headless version. Everyone uses Chrome as a baseline when checking how their site renders. Like 99% of Windows users, I used Edge to download Chrome. This is a smart move by Microsoft, having the browser that is package with Windows, using the most popular rendering engine, will make people think twice about having to download another browser.

https://imgur.com/gallery/9TxWoa9

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

#617

Post by [deleted] »

mda wrote: post #458
reitanqild wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome didn’t come to dominate the desktop browser market by forcing users’ hand, but by offering a better experience. Disagree strongly. Reasons: - Google has been extremely pushy with Chrome, including lying (IMO) about it on their front page, a place where no other ads have been shown ever (IIRC). - Their own products often don't work in other browsers. Might be an honest mistake but personally I really don't bu…

So many conspiracy theories. When did HN become this hysterical...

[deleted]

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

#618

Post by riskable »

cztomsik wrote: post #450
cletus wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft only releases it on one OS. so if you happen to use a Mac or Linux you need another browser. Chrome and Firefox are the only viable options. Also Microsoft are victims of their own legacy, namely what they did with Internet Explorer. Changing the box model, not adopting standards, not fixing bugs, causing no end of headaches for people having to support IE and so on. Trust needs to be earned. Apple had the…

The only problem with IE box model was that they implemented it before the standard got finished (and changed) so it was impossible to fix it without breaking already existing web pages. The situation is not very different from now with Chrome implementing unfinished proposals.

The problem isn't that Microsoft implemented an unfinished API. It's that they implemented an unfinished API and didn't update it later to reflect the changes.

When new APIs are in development (in a standards body) by all means implement the incomplete/early version in your browser! Just put a warning somewhere for developers that changes will happen and that they should expect to have to update their code along with the standard as each iteration comes out.

Microsoft made a huuuuuuuge mistake by implementing an unfinished API and then refusing to make breaking changes later. Breaking changes are to be expected when you do stuff like this!

Back when MS did this they were still highly arrogant about their position in the browser market and probably still thought they could get away with their usual "embrace and extend" bullshit... Where they decide "the standard" regardless of what any standards body or the rest of the world/community thinks.

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

#619

Post by nkozyra »

zuzun wrote: post #473
nkozyra wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've used these, right? It's an enormous pain to have to spin up a separate VM per version of Edge/IE to get a "Your copy of Windows might be stolen" message and have some finite period of time to test. I appreciate that they have these, but it's a real annoying hoop to jump through, and I've long suspected the hope is you'll just have your company buy a cheap windows box for testing. I can test the other browsers…

How do you test Safari without an Apple device?

Yeah, Apple is also bad at this, I'm not sure why you're asking about Safari in a Microsoft thread, though.

Luckily Safari has one fourth the userbase so it's a little easier to ignore them.

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

#620

Post by Piskvorrr »

est wrote: post #515
Piskvorrr wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Alas, that's not a feature, that's a gaping security hole. (Had the misfortune of working on a HTA e-mail client. Turns out, some of the VBS viruses of the age were executable in HTA context...hilarity ensued.)

electron apps are basically static linked sandbox. I am sure upgrading static linked programs is easy. :D

If I could warrant a guess, it would be a completely new version to go over to the "shared-renderer" model.
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