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Chromium Microsoft

Microsoft To Replace Edge With Its Chromium Browser This Wednesday (inputmag.com) 118

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Microsoft is replacing its Edge browser with the updated, Chromium-based version on January 15. Windows 10 users will be automatically transitioned over. From a report: We already knew this was coming because Microsoft announced the new Edge's launch date last month, but it wasn't clear that users would be pushed to the new version. Thankfully it will look mostly the same as the existing Edge browser, with all the same proprietary Microsoft features, except for a slightly more Chrome-esque look. Since the new Chromium Edge will be based off the same browser as Google Chrome, Edge will now support all the same extensions. Last month developers were invited to port their Chrome extensions over to the Microsoft Store, with the company saying that most extensions could be transferred over without any additional work. Edge is the default browser for all 900 million Windows 10 users, so there's obviously an incentive there to port extensions.
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Microsoft To Replace Edge With Its Chromium Browser This Wednesday

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  • Does this mean they'll be changing everyone's default browser again? I wish they would stop doing that.

    • IE was. My guess would be if you've got Edge as you're default you'll be running the Chromium version now.

      What I'll be interested to see is if they ever replace IE itself (the legacy IE) with Chromium. There's still a ton of IE specific Enterprise apps out there.

      • Edge's incompatibility with IE things was caused by new security rules that required apps to be recoded. Starting Wednesday, if it works in Chrome, it just needs to register with MS to work in Edge.

        Basically, Edge failed due to lack of support... so it merged with Crhome. Score Google.

        • Re:I don't think Edge was ever the default (Score:5, Insightful)

          by darkain ( 749283 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @12:41PM (#59615954) Homepage

          "score google" ... forked Webkit from Apple to make Blink (chrome / chromium).
          "score apple" ... forked khtml from KDE to make Webkit
          "score kde"

        • Re:I don't think Edge was ever the default (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @01:48PM (#59616234) Journal

          Basically, Edge failed due to lack of support.

          Edge failed because there is no monetary incentive for MS to be developing and maintaining something as complex as a web browser. Years ago they tried to bastardize HTML to monetize it (specifically, ActiveX, which is basically Windows programs embedded web pages), and through antitrust / monopolistic practices. Those both failed. The only other incentive they could have is the "we're doing this to try and keep third party X from gaining total control of the browser space" type of strategic corporate maneuvering, but that is not worthwhile at this point either.

          Web browsers are a constantly moving target. Think for a moment about all the other "free" software bundled with Windows. MS can develop a piece of software, like Paint, and then basically not touch it at all for *years*. Maybe freshen it up a little with a new release of Windows. A web browser (as in a true HTML engine and not a wrapper for one) is just a continuous PITA and money pit. MS is actually pretty smart to ditch Edge. To me, they seem to be willing to make tough decisions and let go of things better these days than ever before. Which is probably the reason their stock has risen steadily the last 6-7 years when it was totally flat for over a decade between 2000 and 2013.

          • Re:I don't think Edge was ever the default (Score:4, Interesting)

            by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @06:00PM (#59617410) Homepage Journal
            (specifically, ActiveX, which is basically Windows programs embedded web pages)

            You clearly don't really understand ActiveX. It was a set of interfaces and standards on top of COM that allowed platform/language independent creation, introspection, management and usage of objects. This technology *allowed* for such ease of use that Microsoft thought that allowing something like a webpage/browser to create such an object via unverified scripting was a good idea. And it sort of was... in a world where you can trust everyone. But there was never a permission system built for this, just like there is no permission system for loading a DLL. ActiveX is still very much in use today, inside applications and scripts. It is a powerful tool. A lot of components that are useful have never been replaced. And while .NET was meant to supercede ActiveX, it is more like ActiveX 2.0, and happily lives along side of it. It is interesting to mention that Internet Explorer itself is an ActiveX library/object, heavily ingrained in explorer and countless apps, which is why we can't just get rid of it.

            Think for a moment about all the other "free" software bundled with Windows. MS can develop a piece of software, like Paint, and then basically not touch it at all for *years*.

            Like stated above, you apparently fail to understand what Windows is and Microsofts goals for it are/were. Backward compatibility is significantly more important new features in the system. I can play a wav file just the same, same API calls, with the same binary compatible all the way back to Windows 9x, maybe even 3.1. You can't do that with Linux. You can only do that with a limited degree with MacOS. Paint, for instance is an OLE embedded COM server. It isn't just an app. It is also a library. Aside from bug fixes, you can't change it. As per COM's nature, you can only add new COM interfaces, but you have to leave the old ones intact. Windows entire ecosystem is like that. And to me, that makes it good
            • Ummm, you actually picked one of the few APIs that Microsoft has messed up multiple times over the years. Playing wav files changed quite a bit between Windows 3.1 and Windows 9x. Windows 9x would usually work for 16-bit applications from Windows 3.1, but if you tried using the same code in a 32-bit applications you had to make some small tweaks. Then there were some fundamental differences between playing wav files in 9x and NT. You could get something to work the same on both, but it was a bit more work.
          • Great, so now we've got Chrome, Chromium, and ChromeFox as our browser choices. I'm drowning in a world of polished metal. One day I'll fire up a Macbook and find it's running Chromefari.

            • We don't have ChromeFox. Now that IE is considered obsolete and EdgeHTML is being discontinued, Firefox is the one remaining significant browser that doesn't use code derived from KHTML. (Unless Firefox running on an iOS device in which case it has to use Apple's rendering and JavaScript engines; that's a requirement for all browsers on iOS.) KHTML was forked by Apple into WebKit, which is what Safari is based on. WebKit was in turn forked by Google into Blink, which is what all Chromium-based browsers are

        • Basically, Edge failed due to lack of support.

          Edge failed because Microsoft tried to use it as an ill-considered blackmail scheme, attempting to force customers to Windows 10, when the vast majority of corporate customers, large institutional users, and power users insisted on keeping Windows 7 until they had no choice because of 10's early reputation for being ugly, bug-ridden crap. Knowing how crusty and unpopular IE 11 had become, Microsoft gambled that they could force said customers to Win10 in order to get a Microsoft browser (keep in mind, IE is

          • I wish I had a mod point to give you for "Chredge".

            Then again, I avoid all Microsoft software on principle, except when necessity prevails. Rarely my own, but often other people's perceptions of necessary evil.

            (At least 6 different browsers around here that I use for various purposes at various times on various computers. Firefox is my #1, however. Edge is not any of them and would be ranked at the bottom. I would put text-only browsers above Edge, though I haven't used any of them recently.)

      • IE is Microsoft Internal Fallout of the Browser Wars of the late 1990's

        Microsoft did such a big push to kill Netscape, as all cost. Pushing Organizations away from cleaner web development to Crap Technology like Active X and Silverlight. Being to lax in its HTML Rules allowing malformed HTML to be rendered.
        Pushing a generation of crappy code onto the current generation.

        Leaving a large set of system of "Entperprise Apps" unable to be moved to new environments. So Microsoft will still need to support IE 11 w

      • I accessed GitHub with IE today and it shows a banner saying "Please note that GitHub no longer supports Internet Explorer."
      • What I'll be interested to see is if they ever replace IE itself (the legacy IE) with Chromium. There's still a ton of IE specific Enterprise apps out there

        Impossible. IE is still there largely because of the ShDocVw/IEFrame library that not only is Windows Explorer still heavily dependent on, but so are countless legacy apps. Hell, I think Steams client still uses it.

        • Steam abandoned IE 6 a very long time ago and switched to Webkit. It is how they are able to offer Steam on MacOS and Linux as a result.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by higuita ( 129722 )

      Simple fix: stop using windows!

      Problem solved!!
      You do have several alternatives, so you get what they choose if you do not choose by yourself

      • Simple fix: stop using windows!

        Problem solved!!
        You do have several alternatives, so you get what they choose if you do not choose by yourself

        Giving up Windows is losing an option.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Unless your Enterprise is up to its hipboots in the MS cesspool. There's no stopping using winders without a major investment in new software, training, etc. And just as a final kick in the seat, you won't using what all your customers are using. Stop smoking that stuff, bad for you.

        • Well, that and business and government software can often be VERY niche. "There's on open source replacement for everything" may work if "everything" means things like PDF viewers, web browsers, office apps, etc, but if you're talking animal shelter management software, property appraisal software, building permit management, etc, then there's a much more limited set of options and generally they're all Windows based.

          Naturally you COULD go Linux and hire programming staff to write in-house systems for ever

    • Why? If you want specific behavior, install specific software. If you just want to browse the web you shouldn't care which browser you use.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Why? If you want specific behavior, install specific software. If you just want to browse the web you shouldn't care which browser you use.

        Said no one.

        I use Firefox hardened by extensions because I "just want to browse the web" without getting a goddam social disease.

  • Because this is exactly what we needed, another Chromium browser.

    Edge is pretty bare bones in terms of features but I don't think there were any issues with the engine. Bring back the EdgeHTML, Microsoft!

    • None, except the money they didn't want to spend on catching up on features as well as bug-for-bug compatibility with Chrome. As a business descision it makes sense, for the ecosystem less so sadly.

      • Theoretically, the ecosystem is one browser with different code bases for the rendering engine all with exactly the same behavior.

        • Re:Booo (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @01:09PM (#59616072)

          Then start using Firefox and tell everyone else to do the same - otherwise we'll end up with IE6 all over again, only this time it'll be imposed by Google.

          • IE6 was broken and not standards-compliant. The ideal isn't for 40 non-compliant browsers; it's for 40 browser that all behave exactly the same way, which should be compliant with standards, and if not should at least deviate in exactly the same way so everything works everywhere.

            • good luck with that.

              IE was standards compliant way back in the day when standards were "whatever IE supports". If you let Google has its way, the new standards will be "whatever Chrome supports" regardless of what you think it should, or what the standards body says.

              All it takes is everyone to use Chrome that developers consider writing and testing on Chrome is sufficient and so Chrome becomes the de-facto standard. Then Google adds crap to help themselves.

              • Google tends to get there first largely because they're leading the standards body; but Mozilla and Microsoft are part of the major standards-developing council now, too, so Firefox and Edge tend to lead alongside Chrome.

                Firefox brought out some asm.js thing for which they integrated support into SpiderMonkey, and then the W3C passed WebAssembly into standard--supported by both Chrome 57 and Firefox 50, as well as Edge. Firefox was leading in not-going-to-be-standard-but-people-are-using-it-anyway technol

                • Tell that to my coworker last week. I told her to only use Chrome as a work partner site was not Chrome compliant and didn't work right in Firefox. I kid you not!

                  Edge and legacy IE 11 were the last things. With both gone now with Windows 7 EOL that leaves just Firefox. Firefox is not big enough for anyone to care sadly as mobile phone users make up more than 50% of the traffic today which are also webkit based.

              • It's not the same as IE though since chromium is open source. If Google decides to add crap to help themselves, it stands a much better chance of being found, called out, and eventually fixed [theregister.co.uk]. This is good for Google and everyone else. They want chromium to be the de-facto standard so something else doesn't become one and screw with Google's web apps (where the real money is).

                • You have alot of faith in corporations doing the right thing don't you?

                  Microsoft today is not evil as in 1999 but not a saint either. For example, Visual Studio has, VS code (available on Linux/mac), R, Android SDK complete with Android emulators (you did not missread that), Linux container support, and even clang. Apple was a saint in 1999 and evil today on slashdot.

                  What changed? Marketshare and power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unlike people who have some good redeeming qualities in addition with

            • Which we almost had for awhile when everyone started using WebKit.

              But then, Google had to start polluting WebKit to make Blink, and we were back to a fractured web experience again.

            • IE6 was broken and not standards-compliant. The ideal isn't for 40 non-compliant browsers; it's for 40 browser that all behave exactly the same way, which should be compliant with standards, and if not should at least deviate in exactly the same way so everything works everywhere.

              How is that any different today where Google sets the standards. Not W3C?

              Actually it is WORSE! IE 6 wasn't bad that it went proprietary. It was so horrible that standard js and html 4 didn't work right without bug hacks like zoom -1 in css just to get it not to look like it came out of a blender. VBscript was the only negative attribute in IE 6 but compared to Netscape it was less buggy and more standards compliant believe it or not.

              • How is that any different today where Google sets the standards. Not W3C?

                W3C sets the standards, kind of. They're an industry working group currently dominated by Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google, so it's basically impossible to separate browser makers from the standards body.

                A big part of W3C's operation for the longest time has been to identify emerging standards and needs, communicate with browser manufacturers, and adjust current trends to match the emerging trends. AJAX, for example, started with a Microsoft COM object, which Mozilla then implemented in its browser as a

          • That's what I've done. I never, ever, used Firefox before - it was Netscape->IE->Opera->Vivaldi. But the last computer I got had Firefox already installed and I gave it a go. While it's missing some of the cool features of Vivaldi, in terms of actual browsing it worked just as well and there's even a uBlock origin extension available, which is pretty much all I needed. So I'll be sticking with it for now, Google can GTFO.

            • There's one specific feature that keeps me using Firefox (in addition to Chrome, not instead of): it doesn't respect the OS's settings for setting a network proxy.

              I often need to test web pages from outside of our LAN to make sure they're working properly from the outside. As such I can keep Firefox configured as my "outside" browser while Chrome is my "inside" browser. If they all fell back to the same setting (which Chrome does - it just relies on the Windows setting) I'd have to keep swapping the setti

          • There's a big difference between a large company being able to push standards to adopt their sane changes in the general standard, and a large company specifically doing everything possible to be as non-standards compliant as possible while implementing ideas generally considered horrible for the purposes of killing the competition.

            Google could have a 100% market share and the web wouldn't turn into the shitshow we had in the IE era.

    • Only problem with Edge is that it's kinda slow. Also, if you were big into the crypto boom, you found a lot of trendy cryptocurrency websites that just flat-out didn't work in Edge (only Chrome or maybe Firefox).

  • I have to wonder what percentage ever actually used Edge for anything more than downloading Chrome or Firefox (or both)

    • I have to wonder what percentage ever actually used Edge for anything more than downloading Chrome or Firefox (or both)

      I used it regularly... for testing whether my web code also worked on Edge. :-P

      Guess I can stop doing that now.

    • I was forced to use it at Microsoft, and it sucked.

      Edge is "the little browser that couldn't". Couldn't load, couldn't display, and couldn't work on half the sites out there. Like slashdot, for example.

      • > Like slashdot, for example.

        Slashdot looks broken on every browser.

        • > Like slashdot, for example.

          Slashdot looks broken on every browser.

          Looks fine on all my platforms.

          Perhaps there's a college kid in your family who can help?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Guspaz ( 556486 )

            The "replies" sidebar disappeared off slashdot (for me, anyway) a while back, and the site has been nigh-unsable for commenting ever since, due to not having any way to hold actual conversations. At least, I couldn't find anywhere in slashdot that listed replies to my comments.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
        What problem did Edge have with Slashdot? As a test, I'm using it right now and it seems pretty normal.

        • The long term enterprise edition of Windows 10 is still from 2015 but with lots of security updates. That version of Edge sucked goatballs and was really a beta browser until Windows 10 anniversary edition in 2016 before it became stable.

    • *shrug* It's my browser of choice.

    • I have to wonder what percentage ever actually used Edge for anything more than downloading Chrome or Firefox (or both)

      Once in a blue Moon, Edge will pop up, usually having something to do with checking for updates to Windows, and I slap that bitch into next week.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I use it on freshly imaged systems before any browser is installed. Unlike IE, edge is actually usable and it supports Ublock from the appstore which was surprising.

  • Correction (Score:3)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @12:22PM (#59615858) Journal

    "Windows 10 users will be automatically transitioned over."

    Just say "forced".

    "Windows 10 users will be forced to use our craptastic, bug-ridden, malware-laden excuse for a browser."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dstyle5 ( 702493 )
      Microsoft has a script you can use to block the update.

    • "Windows 10 users will be automatically transitioned over."

      Just say "forced".

      "Windows 10 users will be forced to use our craptastic, bug-ridden, malware-laden excuse for a browser."

      Edge resides on my Windows box and the only time I used it was out-of-box to get Firefox.

      • One thing I've noticed is that Chrome itself has tightened up its certificate security. To the point you can't even bypass it anymore. I wonder if Chromium will suffer the same. If so I'll have to block the update too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I've heard good things about Chocolatey, a kind of "package manager" for Windows. Next time I install Windows I might try it, and then never need to open Edge at all because it can install Firefox from the command line.

        There is also PortableApps. Although designed for putting apps on a flash drive you can use it to manage portable versions of software on your computer too.

  • That browsers are so complicated that even Microsoft stopped writing their own.

    • That browsers are so complicated that even Microsoft stopped writing their own.

      I should tell you something.

      Microsoft never wanted browsers to be a thing, just as they didn't want smartphones to be a thing. Their core competency is restricted to Windows, Office, and cloud services.

  • I would bet that MS will add their own little bits of code to track everything you do and every site you visit. I'll stick with Firefox. If it were pure Chromium, without MSs grubby little hands on it, then it might be OK. At least Chromium has all the Google surveillance crap taken out of it.

    MS is just following the Facebook/Google playbook of giving you "free" things in return for tracking everything you do, building a marketing profile of you, and selling it to advertisers. That's why Windows 10 was "fre

  • 1% of our users are using Edge. We looked at whether we should port the extension to Edge and decided it's not worth the extra testing to verify that no cross-browser issues crop up.

    So, I wouldn't say there's a huge incentive to port extensions to Edge.

    • 1% of our users are using Edge. We looked at whether we should port the extension to Edge and decided it's not worth the extra testing to verify that no cross-browser issues crop up.

      So, I wouldn't say there's a huge incentive to port extensions to Edge.

      I can see your point. I use Firefox with a sit load of bolt-ons to dodge bullets. Why in Sam Hill would I want to build another fort that communicates to Microsoft?

  • FireFox and DuckDuckGo will get my business. How About yours? already avoid Google and chrome at home and at work. I am a long time fan and developer, but, Sorry Microsoft; Try listening to your customers.

    • FireFox and DuckDuckGo will get my business. How About yours? already avoid Google and chrome at home and at work. I am a long time fan and developer, but, Sorry Microsoft; Try listening to your customers.

      I feel the same way. Trying to contain Chrome is futile. It's goddam Google!

  • Loving Embrace (Score:5, Insightful)

    by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @01:11PM (#59616082)

    Microsoft thinks they're in step one of embrace, extend, extinguish. But they're really in the one step "subsume." By Google.

    Google is already past step 2 and in step 3. MS may be telling themselves they're being savvy and using Google's stuff to eat Chrome's market share is an amazing strategic decision. But it's not. They've just been extinguished and are lying to themselves about it. Because Google's just going to continue extending while MS runs on the "keep up" treadmill.

    • Re:Loving Embrace (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @02:32PM (#59616474)
      Eh, I don't know. I doubt Microsoft's quite as incompetent as you seem to think. Maybe under Ballmer, but not right now.

      It seems far more likely to me that Edge was probably costly to develop and maintain and they didn't see the reason to waste those resources in a battle they already lost. A lot cheaper to manage 1% of an actively updated codebase than 100% of your own. Maybe they have a dim hope that some people won't immediately switch off it now that it's based on Chromium, but I doubt they're relying on that.

      • It seems far more likely to me that Edge was probably costly to develop and maintain and they didn't see the reason to waste those resources in a battle they already lost.

        If Apple and Google can afford it, so can Microsoft.

        • Microsoft can afford a lot of things. They could afford to have a swimming pool filled with cash for Scrooge McDuck to dive into. That doesn't mean it's a good idea if they want to keep making money, though.

          There's a phrase that commonly gets used in investment: throwing good money after bad. It means continuing to dump money (that could be used on something actually profitable) into something that you know is a failure, usually because you're in denial. There comes a point where you have to admit to you

      • Maybe they have a dim hope that some people won't immediately switch off it now that it's based on Chromium, but I doubt they're relying on that.

        I have a feeling they're hoping people will not immediately switch off it now specifically because it's based on chromium. All the extensions you've come to know and love are now supported and web pages are rendered the same as with Chrome on Microsoft's default browser that they control. They also spend less effort to maintain it as you mention. It's win-win. The only advantage Microsoft would have in keeping their own browser engine would be to edge out competitors like they tried with IE. That ultimately

        • Clarification: Microsoft maintains control over default extensions and views etc, not the core rendering engine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by trawg ( 308495 )

        I completely agree, but I find it very weird they didn't go to Firefox for this.

        It would have been a good shot across the bow of Google. It would have resulted in more competition between browser engines, helping break up the Chrome monoculture that we seem to be heading in.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's kind of incredible how badly Microsoft lost that battle. They had the default browser and the default home page and both sucked so much that they lost most of their market share anyway.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Microsoft thinks they're in step one of embrace, extend, extinguish.

      Anyone who thinks that Microsoft has any ability to EEE any of the markets they are currently in doesn't understand the industry, doesn't understand the current capabilities of the company, and doesn't understand how money is being made in the modern world.

      MS's end goal stopped being "extinguish" quite a while ago, about the same time they realised that they could used the work of other's as a license to print money (e.g. patents to extort payment rather than to cripple Linux market share, Linux as a paid f

    • Microsoft stopped thinking this way over a decade ago when they realized they lost the browser and mobile wars. After Balmer was canned they changed.

      Google is a problem but MS just doesn't want to sink any more money into something has failed since MS shit their pants 10 years ago by trying to fix IE then giving that up in 2014 and starting fresh with Edge only to fail at that too.

      MS realized they lost and took their ball and went home. If MS was proactive and not reactive in the first decade of the 2000s 2

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • How did they fall so far? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by az-saguaro ( 1231754 ) on Monday January 13, 2020 @01:28PM (#59616140)

    My question or comment is not about the merits of any of these browsers, rather about the nuances of corporate psychology and production.

    (I use Firefox. I sometimes open Chrome and Edge because certain sites, for whatever reasons, only display properly on one or the other of these, so go with the flow. Edge is not nearly as bad as people like to complain about, and Chrome mostly works great but for its inherent spyware nature. The nice thing about Firefox, aside from that it works, is that it seems to have recently dedicated itself to being the anti-chrome anti-spyware full-featured browser.)

    So, Edge is not so bad as people complain about, but it is still lightweight and amateurish. Here is my question. When MS wrangled browser supremacy away form Netscape, they built a capable product. Notwithstanding business ethics, security issues, or anything else worth criticizing about MS, they created a browser that fueled the internet and that developers wrote for. Then came, the Ballmer years with Vista and its legacy then Win 8. In the meantime, developers jumped ship as Chrome ascended. Now, MS wants to return to making a credible browser, Edge, but its original homespun Edge is not gaining traction, so now they are switching to a Chrome version.

    How is it that MS lost its ability to make a credible or functional browser, when they were once the kings?
    Have they inherently lost the engineering and management capabilities to make it happen, or are they so sidetracked and locked in on the wrong pathway that they cannot see their way back to a respectable home grown browser?
    Can the engineers do it but management holds them back, or are they decimated of engineering talent in that division?
    If they want respectability on an open source codebase, why Chrome rather than Firefox?

    I am not in the industry, but it is fascinating to me that the Lords of the Internet have fallen so far that they can no longer make a good browser on their own.

    Any thoughts or insights or comments?

    • I think Microsoft lost its browser lead for a few reasons:
      a. Internet Explorer didn't keep up with new features added to Chrome and Firefox
      b. IE got a reputation of being buggy
      c. Google poured gasoline on that reputation by stating IE and Edge were insecure on its home page
      d. Edge's icon looks very simular to IE leading people into believe it's IE
      e. The general population is unfamiliar with Edge. Heck, there's lots of developers in my office who still use IE and are surprised there's something better.
      f. Edg

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

        Also, lots of developers are not running Windows, leading to a lack of tests on Edge / IE, leading to many websites being buggy on those browsers.

    • How is it that MS lost its ability to make a credible or functional browser, when they were once the kings?

      It's not a question of ability. It's a question of business case. Why would you put effort into something when all the work could be done by someone else, cost free?

      Creating and controlling a browser and rendering engine was a great idea in the days of monopolies, EEE, preventing competition etc. But those days are gone. You can now either spend lots of money playing catch-up against changing trends and standards, or you can put a glossy skin on someone else's work and achieve exactly the same thing.

      Even th

      • Thank you, that is an thoughtful answer that explains a lot. Your comment "You can now either spend lots of money playing catch-up against changing trends and standards..." I think nicely summarizes the overall dynamics of it. But, that then begs the next question - how did the Lords of the Internet end up in the position of playing catch-up, and lose their grip on changing trends and standards? I imagine that many of the non-executive folks at MS sit around all day scratching their heads asking the same

    • A thought from someone in the IT industry is that it is littered with has been companies unlike traditional ones as times keep changing. Past awesome former kings are Lotus, IBM, Digitial Equipment, SGI (silicon Graphics), Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks (remember real audio), Netscape, Borland, and many many others.

      One you might relate to is MySpace and even LiveJournal. A company gets dominant and comfortable and they get toppled once their customers loose faith in their image. After MySpace lost it's cool

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Chrome mostly works great but for its inherent spyware nature

      You have been misinformed, unless you can explain why you think this is true.

      Chrome sends a unique install ID when first installed and when checking for updates. The default search engine is Google but you can easily change it, and that includes using the other site for search suggestions.

      So where is the spyware?

  • It’s been over 20 years since the Internet Explorer anti trust case and we have learned nothing. With Chrome and Edge tag teaming the standards together the little guys lose. I already had to give up using Waterfox for sites that use recaptcha because it is considered an “unapproved browser” and it doesn’t work right on youtube anymore. If fact most days I have given up using desktop computers altogether and use my iPad and only use the desktop for more complicated tasks that are not

  • Microsoft To Replace Edge With Its Chromium Browser This Wednesday

    Is this a "good" thing or a "bad" thing?

    (I mean about the Edge to Chromium thing, Wednesday's always gonna suck no matter.)

  • Sadly, this does not include Domain Joined PC's. No word yet on if it will show up as an "Optional" update the way 1909 did.

  • Seriously, what are we going to make fun of from now on?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      IE must be used for many of our web based applications at work.

      I feel that this is going to be a nightmare as we have roughly 1000 vendors that occasionally use these applications.

  • With MS giving up on Edge, this now means that Safari is now the longest surviving, currently-updated web browser (and HTML renderer) being developed by someone who is also a Major OS producer.

    Love it or hate it, that means Safari and WebKit are more mature than any other web browsing and HTML rendering solution with ties to an OS.

    There are probably good and bad things about this; but it is at least an interesting point in the history of the web.

  • Edge gave us ChakraCore [github.com] Which had a gloriously simple C API for making emedded applications that still required a javascript interpreter, and in particular, provided a means to abort javascript processes which were doing things they shouild not without affecting the process that the javascript process may have been runniing under.

    Now Edge will be using v8 [v8.dev], which, while arguably more complete, it is also has far more complex and heavily templated C++ API, and is very much written with the idea that if the

  • I like Chromium Edge, because it's not google.

    no google account, no google login.

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